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The Divine Pursuer
Luke 15: 1 – 10 |
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Summary
The Divine Pursuer You may know Anne Rice as the author of a widely read series of novels about vampires, two of which were made into movies. She has also written stories about witches and even some erotica. Since Rice made her reputation — and her fortune — on those genres, many were surprised when, a few years ago, she announced that she was writing no more of those stories, but from now on, would write only for God. And, in fact, she has since produced two novels about Jesus and she has a third one in process. She is also working on other titles in keeping with her new commitment. Rice describes what led to this dramatic change in her autobiography, Called out of Darkness. In it, she tells of growing up in New Orleans and attending a local Catholic church. As child and teen, she had been quite religious. In fact, when she was 12, she wanted to be a priest. She was quite disappointed when she learned that the priesthood wasn’t open to females. When she left home, however, and was exposed to the wider world, she not only ceased to be religious; she also became an atheist and remained so for much of her adult life.
But in her late 50s, she became aware of something
happening inside her: I became convinced that I was being pursued by the Lord. I did not think literally, “He is pursuing me.” After all, he wasn’t supposed to exist. He was supposed to be an idea. He was “located” in nostalgia. I thought something is pursuing me. Something is happening. Rice then tells of how she was gradually drawn back into the church. She said it was her “return to faith ... to the loving — and eternally outstretched — arms of the Lord.” There was nothing dramatic or tragic happening in her life that brought her back, she says, but she found herself losing “faith” in atheism and in the nothingness it touted. Eventually, she realized that it was indeed God who was pursuing her, specifically in the person of Jesus. She realized that the growing discontent inside her was because she had become, as she called it, “Christ haunted.” She recalled a poem by Francis Thompson that had been a favorite of her father’s: “The Hound of Heaven.” It pictures God as one who keeps pursuing us despite our efforts to ignore him — as one who pursues us with the relentlessness of a hound chasing prey.
In any case, Rice eventually said yes to the Divine
Pursuer, and though she went back to the Catholic Church, she
describes her change using a word Christians of all denominations
will understand. She called it a “conversion,” and says that it
occurred on December 6, 1998: When I go back to the very moment — that Sunday afternoon — what I recall most vividly is surrender — a determination to give in to something deeply believed and deeply felt. I loved God. I loved Him with my whole heart. I loved Him in the Person of Jesus Christ, and I wanted to go back to Him. It took a couple of more years after that, but eventually, as she began to live her new life in Christ, it came to her that she could no longer write the kinds of novels she had been writing. She decided, through prayer, to write only for God. And thus, she began her new series. The persistent shepherd With Rice’s story as an introduction, consider the first of the parables in our reading. The owner of a flock of 100 sheep discovers that one is missing. So he leaves the 99, presumably somewhere safe, and goes searching for the missing one. When he finds it, he carries it home, and then invites his neighbors to rejoice with him over the recovery of the lost animal. Note that Jesus told this story in response to complaints from scribes and Pharisees that known sinners were coming to listen to him. It’s easy to equate the lost sheep with the sinners. One point of the parable is that Jesus wasn’t spending his time preaching to the already converted who were safely in the sheepfold, but going for the unconverted ones — the sinners — who were still separated from God. But also note that this shepherd does not go out to the pasture and yell “Any sheep who are not in the sheepfold are still welcome to come in.” No, he actively pursues that lost animal, going after it “until he finds it.” He actually hunts down this straying sheep, not to harm it, but to bring it home. This image of God as a pursuer is one Anne Rice would no doubt recognize — and so, very likely, do we. For sometimes, our difficulty is not that we cannot find God but that we cannot get rid of him. That may seem sound odd, but recall the last time you did something wrong but tried to convince yourself that it was justified under the circumstances. There was that nagging voice within — call it conscience or call it God — that would not keep quiet. It kept bringing in a guilty verdict despite your best efforts to quiet it. Or how about the time you felt God was asking you to do something that you didn’t want to do, and you tried to ignore his urging. Did you not soon become so bothered that you eventually did the thing just to get God off your back? (Think of Jonah. God wanted him to preach in Nineveh, but when Jonah tried to flee instead, God came after him in a whale of a big way.) We often speak of God’s presence with us as a blessing, and so it is, but he is present not only in the moments when we call to him, but also in the moments when we wish he would leave us alone. There is a mistaken idea about God that pictures him as “softly and tenderly” waiting for us to seek him out, waiting passively on the sidelines for us to discover our need of him. The parable of the lost sheep, however, gives us a different picture. It shows God as an active divine pursuer who comes after us even when we don’t want him to. It would seem that God does not just let us go on our merry way until we accidentally stumble on him. The 17th-century philosopher Blaise Pascal spoke of a “vacuum in the human heart” that is actually the voice of God calling us. The call of God is not something we can easily shuck off. We have to deal with it one way or another. Either we have to follow it and be true to it, or else accept that we will be haunted by it. One difference from the parable, however, is that the sheep had no choice but to return home with the shepherd, whereas we do. God does not take our free will from us, but he may not leave us at peace about turning from him. The hound of heaven Anne Rice referred to the poem “The Hound of Heaven.” Its author, Francis Thompson, was born in 1878 in Manchester, England. A Roman Catholic, Thompson sought to enter the priesthood, but wasn’t accepted because the church committee perceived him as too “nervously timid.” Under pressure from his father, who was a physician, Thompson took up the study of medicine, despite the fact that his real interest was in literature. He never became a doctor, though, for while studying medicine, he started using opium and became heavily addicted to it. He soon fell into poverty and ill health, and became, literally, a bum on the streets of London. One day, however, Thompson scribbled an essay on a dirty piece of paper. He mailed it, along with a couple of poems he had written earlier to the editor of a magazine called Merrie England. The editor, impressed with the work, found Thompson and took him into his own home. Under the care of his new friend, Thompson was able to stop using opium and yield to the God who had been pursuing him all along.
Later, Thompson wrote “The Hound of Heaven,” which has
been called one of the greatest religious poems of all time. First
Thompson speaks of his flight from God: I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears I hid from Him and under running laughter.
Then Thompson speaks of the Divine Pursuer: From those strong Feet that followed, followed after, But with unhurrying chase, And unperturbed pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, They beat — and a Voice beat More instant than the Feet — “All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.”
Finally he listens as God says to him: All which I took from thee I did but take, Not for thy harms But just that thou might’st seek it in My arms. All which they child’s mistake Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home: Rise, clasp My hand, and come. ... Ah fondest, blindest, weakest! I am He whom thou seekest! We can run from God throughout our entire lifetime. We can steel ourselves against his still, quiet voice. We can even refuse to yield when he does something more dramatic to get our attention. But we can’t do those things and also be at peace and know full joy. So ask yourself: In what ways has God been calling? In what ways have you said yes? In what ways are you still dodging God, the relentless but loving pursuer? Those are questions that can only be answered personally, but know this: When you allow yourself to be apprehended by God, you are likely to discover he is the Source of the peace and joy you’ve been seeking all along. Anne Rice discovered that, and so have countless people over the centuries who have returned to the fold of God, drawn back by the Divine Pursuer. |
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