The Search
Mathhew 7:7-8
Cardiff Heights Baptist Church
3rd December 2000
You might not believe this but I have discovered the world’s best method
for searching for something. It works everytime, I always find what I am
looking for. When I lose my wallet or my keys, usually both, I don’t use
up precious energy by undertaking a massive search for the missing
items. I simply yell out, “Catherine!!! I can’t find my keys,” and then I am
able to find my keys because Catherine tells me exactly where to look
and she is always right. My mum had this same knack of knowing exactly
where everything was. So much so that when I was young I think I must
have been ohhh... 24 at the time, I accused my mum of being so devious
as to actually take my stuff and then hide it and when I couldn’t find she
would always be able to tell me where it was and thus take the credit for
finding it for me. I also lose my phone all the time but I can usually take
care of that myself by ringing it. So I can safely say that searching is not
something I am particularly good at. So I feel kind of funny about talking
about the search, the search for meaning, the search for completeness.
But the search for meaning is an entirely different matter isn’t it. It is in
fact the search, the only search that counts. The search for meaning is
something that many people are too busy or too overwhelmed to
undertake but desperately want to. Something that everyone has an
opinion about but no clue as to what it is all about and no idea where to
start looking. The task seems so immense. Many have spent there whole
lives searching and still not found what they were looking for. One of my
favourite bands is U2 and we heard earlier a song by them, “I still haven’t
found what I’m Looking for.”
(Put on over head)
I have climbed highest mountain
I have run through the fields
Only to be with you
I have run
I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls
Only to be with you
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
I have kissed honey lips
Felt the healing in her fingertips
It burned like fire
This burning desire
I have spoke with the tongue of angels
I have held the hand of a devil
It was warm in the night
I was cold as a stone
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
I believe in the kingdom come
Then all the colours will bleed into one
Well yes I’m still running
You broke the bonds and you
Loosed the chains
Carried the cross
Of my shame
You know I believed it
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
He has done everything. Looked everywhere and even done the
religious thing but he still hasn’t found what he is looking for. If everyone
wants to find out the answer why are so many people not looking. As we
found out on P.O.V. many people are too busy. Too busy working to try
and find out why they are are working. But perhaps there is a deeper
problem. Perhaps we have forgotten how to look. We need to relearn
how to search.
A guy named Robert Fulghum wrote a book called All I Really Need to
Know I learned in Kindergarten. I blame this book for my results at
college. The book reminds us of some fundamental truths for our quest
for meaning. Speaking of our experiences as small children, he says,
‘And rembember the Dick and Jane books and the first word you learned,
the biggest word of all - LOOK.’
Sadly, so much of our life has became so complicated that we have
taken all the looking out of the picture. It eliminates searching, closes
down our options, answers all our questions and leaves us needing to
know no more or even worse wanting to know no more. It has been said
that the best thing any teacher can do for their students is not to teach
them something but to activate a search for knowledge; the rest will
follow.
One of the reasons we are not searching is that we have been given the
answers before we were ever interested in the questions. We are not
asked to LOOK. Our curiosity is never pricked, our interest is never
aroused. Better to have people confused and working toward
understanding than for them to think they know it all. So at the end of the
night if you are feeling a little more confused than that is fantastic since
you are perhaps a little closer to the answer. It is when we are most
confused, most dissatified that we can discover the truth.
Who here has heard of Patrick White? Patrick White was an Australian
writer who once won the Nobel Prize for literature. In his autobiography
he recounts an experience he had which confused him enough to
activate a search for meaning. He was going out into the backyard of his
Castle Hill home to feed the dogs before a huge storm hit. He was
carrying the dog food on a tray and as he was walking his legs flew out
from underneath him and the dog food flew up in the air and landed on
him as he landed flat on his back. He wasn’t particularly concerned by
being covered in dog food since the position he was in forced him to look
up at the storm clouds that were forming and the shades of green and
grey. The sight was overwhelming for Patrick and he recounts that at that
moment in his life, lying there on his back covered in dog food looking up
at the most majestic sight he had ever seen he knew how insignificant he
was. That there was something greater and bigger then himself. That
moment caused Patrick to begin a quest to find answers to questions he
hadn’t even thought of before that day.
We all have had experiences like that. But we perhaps unike Patrick
failed to LOOK, failed to allow ourselves to be confused. To allow
ourselves to be confused takes courage. But it is the only way the search
can begin.
The search won’t be easy. Along the way we will make mistakes.
Two small birds after having just hatched in a nest had a conversation.
One bird said to the other bird while looking at the broken egg shells, “we
are only two minutes old and already, we have broken something!!!” That
is what life is like. You break things on the journey. It will take a life time
of breaking things and disappointments. But if I may now turn to the Bible
and the teachings of Jesus. Jesus has made a promise to us for our
search.
Read Matthew 7:7-8
He doesn’t say join my religion and it will be given to you; Or even find
the answer and the door will be opened. But Jesus says simply ask and it
will be given; seek and you shall find; knock and the door will be opened.
It doesn’t say when but it will happen. The path to meaning, the path to
fulfillment, the path to completeness, the path to becoming real is a long
journey.
I would like to share with you a story. It’s from a children’s story book,
The Velveteen Rabbit. The Velveteen Rabbit tells of a roomful of
children’s toys which come to life at night. There’s a funny, simple yet
profound part where a toy rabbit and a toy horse are talking to each other
Their conversation goes like this:
‘What is REAL?’ asked the Rabbit one day, as they were lying side by
side near the nursery fender, just before Nana came in to tidy up the
room. ‘Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out
handle’
‘Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that
happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to
play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’
‘Does it hurt’ asked the Rabbit.
‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. ‘When you
are Real, you don’t mind being hurt.’
‘Does it happen all at once, like being ‘wound up,’ he asked, ‘or bit by
bit?’
‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ’You become. It takes
a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break
easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally,
by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off; and your
eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these
things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real, you can’t be ugly
except to people who don’t understand.’
The search for meaning, the search for completeness the quest to be
real is a lifetime journey. When you start out you like the Rabbit, you’re
young and beautiful and handsome, but one day you’ll be like the Skin
horse most of your hair will be loved off; and your eyes will drop out and
you’ll get loose in the joints and very shabby. But as we journey along
together, loved not because of what we can do for another person but
loved simply because then together we can search for meaning, together
we can search for completeness, together we can be real.
Read Matthew 7:7-8
