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Hallo again to all. The phrase 'seek and ye shall find' is so deeply imbedded in popular English that it's easy to lose track of its origins. To some people, it's Google's motto. To others, it's the start of the second verse from a lovely little round. The words come from the KJV translation of Matt 6:33 and Matt 7:7.
When church people talk to one another, one often hears the words 'seeker' and 'quest'. Used here, they mean approximately the same thing. Some churches offer seeker's classes or quester's classes for new members, and the words are used in discussing congregational strategy, population distributions, and more. Non-Christians in Christian countries often use 'Seeker' to describe themselves, as a statement that they have not yet found their saviour. Sometimes one can get so caught up in a quest that it becomes an activity in its own right. Diogenes of Sinope is best known not for his teachings or writings, but for his search for an honest man. The quest became his identity. Lancelot and Galahad devoted their lives to seeking the holy grail. We have no idea what Diogenes would have done had he actually found an honest man, nor can we imagine how Lancelot would cope with actually finding the holy grail. And we note with a smile that according to most accounts of the legend, Galahad found it only because Jesus arranged for him to find it. We brood on 'seek and ye shall find', we want to blurt out 'But if ye do not seek, ye shall not find.' Not literally scriptural, but good common sense. To our way of thinking, failure to seek is one of the causes of much acrimony in the Anglican world today. We're sure that a true Anglican Communion exists, but one might have to go looking for it. So many seem to wait for it to come to them, or complain that it is gone or broken without seeking further.
The Anglican Communion is out there. Go find it. The advice in the Bible looks pretty good to us: Seek and ye shall find, but seek ye first the Kingdom of God. But don't let the seeking consume you. And don't take along any glass-slipper preconceived notions of what it is; that would be the wrong sort of quest. See you next week.
Last updated: 25
July 2004 *Yes, we know that 'wrong' is a judgment, which Jesus also exhorted us not to do, lest we be judged. |
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