In Mark 2:15-17 Jesus is having dinner with a social outcast identified as Levi the tax collector. Some of the religious elite notice Jesus kicking it with Levi and his many tax-collector/sinner friends and they want to know why. Jesus responds, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners." Jesus is not seeker sensitive he is sinner sensitive.
The new reality - the Kingdom of God - that Jesus has ushered into existence through his life, death, and resurrection is a gift offered to all of humanity and not just those who are "seeking" God. Romans 5 tells us that God proves his love for us in that while we were not seeking him he was seeking us. God has acted on behalf of you and me before we even knew we needed someone to act on our behalf. The penetrating reality of the Kingdom of God is not dependent upon my searching or seeking after it. The Kingdom of God expressed through Jesus is a reality actively seeking those who aren't seeking it.
There once existed a reality that now looks like a dream. It was a reality in which love, honor, mutuality, wholeness, and peace defined God's relationship with humanity, humanity's relationship with itself, and humanity's relationship with all of creation. That dream has once again become a reality through Jesus and it is offered for the entire world...as we Christians like to say, "For God so love the WORLD that he..."
God is not sensitive only to seekers he is sensitive to sinners like me. 14 years ago God didn't meet me in a church coffee shop, he met me in a bar. He didn't meet me through a Christian radio station, he met me through the mysticism of Bob Marley. He didn't meet me through an annual revival, he met me through a hospital emergency room. He didn't meet me in a Worship Center, he met me in a county jail. God didn't meet me because I was seeking him, he met me because he was seeking me.
The Good News is that there is a God who doesn't wait for us to seek him before he seeks us. The Good News is that a dream has become a reality, and I don't know about you, but I'm tired of dreaming.
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