Playing Hide-and-Seek with God. About a month ago, I was playing hide-and-seek with two of my kids. I thought for sure I knew where to go to find my daughter, Faith, but as soon as I went to that place, I realized she wasn’t where I thought I would find her.
Sometimes when we think we have it all figured out where God is to be found, God likes to challenge us by showing up in unusual places and faces. I believe God’s playfulness is one of God’s most overlooked characteristics. God is playful and delights in playing hide-and-seek with each of us. Both today and tomorrow, the Church points out for us two people who remind us of how God plays hide-and-seek in our own lives.
For most of my life, when I would walk into a room full of people, I would seek out a familiar face or, if I didn’t see anyone I knew, I would subconsciously seek out someone to talk with who looked somewhat like me, maybe another guy around my age who I might have a good chance of having something in common with. However, one day about a year ago, when I walked into a room full of people I made a point to seek out someone with a face much different than my own and to go out of my way to talk with the person who looked like the loneliest person in the room.
I spotted her from across the room. She was an African-American woman who looked like she was about a generation older than me. She wore clothes most would look at and immediately guess she was homeless. As I sat down and started talking with her, it was hard to hear what she was saying, but I was able to understand enough of what she said to learn that she was a recovering crack addict who was hungry and tired. I know it might sound crazy, but I believe Jesus was hiding inside her.
I believe Jesus was hiding in this room waiting to see if I would go out of my way to seek him out as he hid under the shabby clothes and other stuff covering him up so I could say, “I see you in there.” On that day, this thought popped into my head: If Jesus can make his presence known to us through a host that looks like just a piece of bread to most, who is to say he can’t make his presence known to us through what looks to us like a homeless, recovering crack addict?
If we are only looking for God in faces that look like our own and familiar places, then we are missing out on a whole lot of God. God can be very good at hiding in faces and places we might not expect. That’s why God gives us people like John the Baptist, who we heard about in today’s Gospel reading, to point out for us, where we can find our Lord.
About 2,000 years ago, many of the people who were waiting to find the Messiah were looking for him in all the wrong places and faces. They were looking in the temple in the faces of priests, in royal palaces in the faces of kings, and on the battlefield in the faces of military leaders.
Now, if God wasn’t playful, then why in the world was the person chosen to point Jesus out to us someone who could be described as Jesus’ crazy cousin? For this important role of pointing out our Lord to us, God gave us someone who lived out in the desert wasteland, someone who wore clothes made of camel’s hair, and someone who liked to eat a little bit of honey with his locusts. If John the Baptist were alive today, would we seek him out or would we tune him out? Is he the type of person we would follow on social media or tune into if he had a reality TV show or would his outward appearance and his difficult-to-hear message about needing to change the way we’ve been living our lives result in us unfollowing him and changing the channel? Sometimes the person we have to go out of our way to go see and who has an unusual outward appearance is actually the one pointing out for us where to find Jesus. I believe that was true for me on that day about a year ago and that was also true about 2,000 years ago with John the Baptist.
So it is important to seek God in out-of-the-way places and different faces sometimes, but other times the opposite is also true. We may have the hardest time finding God when God is in God’s favorite hiding place … in you.
Even then, we may need someone else to point God out to us. If you’ve ever been blessed to have someone in your life who points out the God-given potential they see in you or who points out how they see God working in your life that you had not seen yourself, then you know what I am talking about. Tomorrow, the Church highlights for us a person who played this close-up game of hide-and-seek with God, which had a profound impact not only on his own life but also on the lives of others for generations to come.
In the late 4th century, the Church in Milan, Italy was in crisis. Their Bishop had just died and a chaotic situation was brewing that was about to erupt over who would become the next bishop. Two factions with two very different beliefs each were campaigning to get someone who shared their beliefs to become the next bishop. One faction believed in the Trinity and the other faction did not.
To try to prevent an uprising between the two factions, the Governor in Milan went to the basilica where the people were gathering to select the next bishop. To help maintain order in the City, the Governor got up to address the assembly. You could cut the tension in the air with a knife as he began speaking to the people. Then, in the middle of his address, something strange happened, he was interrupted by someone in the crowd, some say it was a child, who began shouting out the governor’s name followed by the word “bishop.” Immediately, others at the church joined in this chant, calling out “Ambrose bishop, Ambrose bishop!”
This was an inconvenient call as Ambrose was in no way prepared for this chant or for the position of Bishop. He wasn’t even baptized, nor had he received any formal training in theology. Nevertheless, this chant by someone who must have seen Jesus at work in Ambrose became a great conversion moment in Ambrose’s life. When someone points out the God-given potential they see in us, they give us permission to live up to their expectations of us. That’s exactly what happened with Ambrose. Within a week and a half, Ambrose was baptized, ordained and consecrated Bishop of Milan. His faith journey didn’t stop there.
Ambrose became a student of the faith, devouring every book about the faith he could get his hands on, which is why he is now referred to as the patron saint of learning. He learned so much about the faith that he went on to become one of the greatest Catholic teachers of all time. This is why we now refer to St. Ambrose as one of the 36 doctors of the Church. Not only did he become a great teacher, but he also became a great preacher.
His preaching played a key role in the conversion of another unbaptized man who was living a very secular life. Ambrose would later baptize this man who we now refer to as Saint Augustine. Saint Augustine also went on to become a bishop and became another one of the 36 doctors of the Church. Think about how different our faith would be if that person in the basilica over 1,600 years ago would have remained quiet instead of pointing out Jesus hiding in Ambrose. So tomorrow, let us celebrate St. Ambrose’s feast day by pointing out Jesus at work in the life of someone we encounter.
By doing so, we could be unleashing God’s power in this person’s life. The words that flow from our mouths have the power to build others up into the saints God is calling them to become. There could be a person in our own lives whose path to sainthood is meant to begin with us letting them know that we see Jesus at work in them. So, as we play this game of finding God hiding in unfamiliar faces and places and allow others to play this game of finding God in us, then we open ourselves up to finding the fullness of God in our lives.
Playing hide-and-seek allows us to be the ones who find God in the face of a baby lying in a manger and to discover God when God is literally right under our noses in what may appear to others as only a piece of bread. When we open our eyes to see where all we can find God, we’re able to see Jesus fully present: body, blood, soul, and divinity in the Eucharist. By looking for God in different faces and places God could be hiding this Advent, we will be preparing to open the greatest Christmas gift: the gift of finding the fullness of God in our lives.
So, whether it’s in a far-off manger, the face of a stranger, somewhere closer to home, or in the Eucharist, let our prayer during Advent be this: Lord, help me to come to find you wherever you are to be found. Ready or not, here I come.
2nd Sunday of Advent Cycle B – December 6, 2020
Mass Readings:
Reading 1: IS 40:1-5, 9-11
Psalm: PS 85:9-10-11-12, 13-14
Reading 2: 2 PT 3:8-14
Gospel: MK 1:1-8