Thursday, March 19, 2015

The Grain Proclaims (Reflections on Lent 5 Year B)


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Cinny was a cute blond with almost terminal cheerfulness. Seriously. The girl was just adorable and she lit up every room she was in. You couldn't help but like her. She was like everybody's kid sister. She was a classmate of mine in the Theater Arts Department at California State University about a million years ago.

One day the instructor of our Theater Management class decided to start his lecture by asking us students to share the single most positive thing going on in our lives. I had just returned from San Francisco where I'd had a screening audition for a professional showcase. I had done brilliantly at the audition and was set to perform for the casting people of several regional theaters. When it came my turn to share, I proudly announced my accomplishment to my classmates. When Cinny was asked to share, she told us, “I'm a Christian, and my faith brings me joy!”

I don't know what the other students thought when they heard Cinny testify, but I felt like a complete jerk. I was a Christian, too, but I had just selfishly blown an opportunity to do the thing which all Christians are called to do—proclaim Christ and glorify his name.

In the gospel appointed for the Fifth Sunday of Lent, John 12:20-33, we read about some foreigners who are longing to see Jesus. John calls them “Greeks,” a generic name for anyone who spoke that language and was not an ethnic Jew. Philip and Andrew might not know if it's quite kosher to bring these gentiles into the presence of their rabbi, but they don't deny them access either. John doesn't give us the whole story, but he does have Jesus tell us that he has come to “draw all people to myself” (v.33), so I'm thinking the Greek guys got the audience. Jesus is inclusive like that.

I guess the reason that I like this passage is because it's one of the appointed passages to be read at graveside. I'm called upon to do lots of funerals, so I read this passage several times during a year. I try to clarify to the mourners that the reference to hating one's life in verse 25 doesn't mean acting like a petulant fourteen-year-old girl (“OMG! My life soooo sucks!”). Rather, “hate” in this context is probably best understood as the antonym of “love.” It might better have been translated as to be “unconcerned” about the things of this life, thereby freeing oneself to be concerned about eternal things—things which will live on after our mortal bodies have stopped functioning.

In this story, Jesus knows his time is growing short. Maybe the fact that these foreigners have taken an interest in him tips him off that his fame has reached the point where the powers that be just have to stop him. Who knows? But I find his simile very apt. If you hold on to a grain of wheat, all you have is one grain. If it falls into the earth and “dies,” it bears much fruit (v.24).

There's an old saying that the learning doesn't start until the lesson is over. That is, once the teacher isn't around to tell you what to do anymore, you either know what to do or you don't. If you do, it's because a part of that teacher is living in you. The seed is planted and bearing fruit in your life. What's more, it's bearing fruit in the lives that your life touches and in the lives touched by everyone who was influenced by that teacher. When Jesus was with us, there was only one of him. When he was “lifted up” on the cross, his message grew in the hearts of his followers, influencing them and, ultimately, the entire human race.

When I preach this at graveside services, I ask the listeners to think of the things their departed loved one taught them and to do those things in remembrance of the deceased. For Christians hearing this message, I think the seed that is planted is the glory of God. As Jesus glorified the Father through his obedience, we are called to glorify Jesus through our proclamation. There are hearts in this world which hunger to see Jesus, and they need to see Jesus in us.

The challenge in this gospel lesson is how bear the fruit. It's pretty easy for a guy like me who walks around in a black suit with a clerical collar. Whenever I consecrate the Eucharist, I proclaim Jesus. People expect this of me, but for lay people it might be a challenge to wear faith so openly. But if we see Jesus in others, it's easy to be Jesus to them. Proclamation can take the form of charitable work, speaking out against intolerance and prejudice, a welcome to a stranger in worship (even if you've seen that same “stranger” for years!), or simple kindness and decency. It might be something as simple as my old classmate's declaration, “I'm a Christian, and my faith brings me joy.”

In verse 26 Jesus tells his friends, “Whoever serves me must follow me.” Fertilization and cultivation of the seed of Christ's glory requires that we follow him. That means we do the things the teacher taught us—we pray, we sacrifice, we give thanks, we endure suffering with patience, and we unashamedly believe in the goodness of God. These are the things which will bear fruit when we ourselves are gone. If we do nothing else in this life, let us proclaim Christ.

God bless you, my friends. Do some proclaiming this week, okay?

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