Sermon for March 18, 2018 – Fifth Sunday in Lent
Jeremiah 31:31-34 Psalm 119:9-16 Hebrews 5:5-10 John 12:20-33
What We Need – Seeds for Lent
Last Sunday, there was practically a coup in one of the Sunday School classrooms, as the teacher went to lead the kids in the confession and they said essentially – no we don’t want to. No more Lent… we are tired of the sadness of it all.
It’s been a heavy season this year, in the country, in our local community, and in the church – we have Lent accentuating it all.
On Tuesday, in Washington D.C., seven thousand pairs of children’s shoes were lined up on the southeast lawn of the U.S. Capitol building; in memory of every child who has died due to gun violence, since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012. The 7,000 shoes in the “Monument for our Kids” installment covered more than 10,000 square feet.1
On Wednesday, across the country, there were more than 3,136 demonstrations to demand better gun laws.2 Here in Portland, we had a Service of Lament at the Cathedral, led by Bishop Lane, to honor our national heartache. And those for whom we have been given to nurture, care for and protect. It was not a particularly well attended event – maybe because of the snow, but more likely because sitting in lament is not something we as a culture are apt to do. It’s no easy thing to be in that uncomfortable place – a complex combination of despair and hope.
Yet, it’s a place that we as a church and a tradition know well, and so it’s our work to do on behalf of the whole. To sing hymns and say the prayers, to honor those who have died, to witness to the despair of those who grieve, and to cry to God in anguish with the words of the psalms, to bear both heartache and hope, to bring all of our humanity to God’s self.
To be willing to see ourselves in the light of truth, and to repent of the part we have played in creating the complex issues involved. And, trusting in God’s steadfast love, to draw strength from one another, as we turn our faces toward justice.
Personally, I was so deeply glad to be there, that someone else had done all this for me – so that I could just show up and receive it. Be a participant, and let it work on me and through me. I was completely unprepared for how profound it would be to be there with Channing by my side – until she put her arm around me because I couldn’t keep the tears back.
When we got home I went to work finishing three different prayer shawls for people we love, who are in need of them. It’s been a long Lent for all of us.
So, we completely understand the rebellion in Sunday School; We, too, are weary of Lent. We want spring and planting and hopefulness, light and sun and warmth. We want to bear fruit instead of tears.
We want Easter morning – now please… We sound a little like the Greeks, or non-Jews, at the festival who come and say, “We wish to see Jesus.” Of course, what we want, like them, is Jesus the superhero, magic maker, worker of miracles. (In John’s Gospel Jesus has recently raised his friend Lazarus from the grave.) We, like many in the crowd that day want to be dazzled by one who can eradicate the power of evil and make it all right again. We want a superhero who will come with power and might and change everything instantly and easily for the better.
But what we want and what we need are two different things. We want a quick fix, a superhero, so we can be passive recipients, and life will be easy. Jesus is not that kind of hero. Which is good news, because what we need is something a great deal more complicated, and more enduring.
As Jesus tells them and us, the hour had come when he was about to be revealed in all his complexity. Power in weakness, glorified through humility. Life springing from death. Not simple, but true.3
Here in these verses in John’s Gospel, Jesus is giving us good, though not easy, news:
“Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also.”
In the Gospel of John, following Jesus is always the path to abundant life. He is urging us to reject the world’s narrow definition of life, for one that is broader and truly life-giving. The authorities of this world tell us, “Take what is yours! Grab what you can, because you are entitled to it. It’s every man for himself.” Jesus, on the other hand, urges us to choose ‘death’ to self-centeredness and greed.4 To see our lives in the context of God’s love and life.
Our lives are bigger than one small individual life span, more than one small human container can hold. Even from our limited perspective, we know this to be true. We are more than what we do. We are our families, our friends, our sphere of influence, those whose lives are changed because of our own. We are those who came before us and those who will come after. We are our communities, commitments and choices; we are larger than this one short life.
We abide in God’s life, and we abide in the lives of the community in which we live and move and have our being. God abides in us, and Jesus and God are deeply intertwined. Remember this is the ‘abide in me, and I abide in you’ Gospel.
Life is precious, Jesus is still clear about that, it isn’t to be given up easily or thoughtlessly. Even when considering losing one’s life to bear the fruit of the kingdom. Jesus himself considers the prayer like that prayed in Gethsemane – “Father, save me from this hour” and here in John’s Gospel, he rejects it. And he opts for this prayer instead, “Father, glorify your name.” To which he receives an instant response, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”
Not glory the way the world thinks of glory, but love, immeasurable love between the Father and the Son, which is then poured out for us.
As Rev. Mary Hinkle Shore writes,
In John, Father and Son are always on the same page: if you have seen one, you have seen and know the other. Furthermore, the glory of each is the love that they share, the same love that Jesus shares as he washes the disciples’ feet, the same love that he shows as he lays down his life for his friends and as, lifted up, he draws all people to himself.5
My friends, while it’s clearly true that Lent is not for sissies, there is comfort here and hope, and immeasurable love as well.
In our Sunday School classrooms today, as they hear the scripture from John (at their own level), they are planting seeds in cups of dirt, to see what will grow. Each of the classrooms considers the questions of the scriptures in an age appropriate way, but here are some for us to ponder from the middle of the age range (!)
Spring is finally here, even though it doesn’t look or feel like it yet! Do you remember how flowers look in the fall and early winter? They fall to the ground, get brown, and die. But when plants die, their seeds remain. And those seeds go on to make new flowers the next spring! How is a flower dying and new seeds coming to life afterward sort of like what we know about Jesus?
● I wonder why God said that it was time to keep God’s promise?
● What do you think that it means to “follow” Jesus, now, in our time?
● What seeds do we want to plant because we notice a lack somewhere?
● What is the garden of the world missing?
● What is the garden of our soul missing?
When the kids join us for coffee hour, we might want to ask them for the answers! These are great questions. The questions before us are equally challenging. Recently I was in pastoral conversation with someone facing the toughest of situations, who said these amazingly faithful words to me, “I know no one gets out of here alive, but how we walk this journey matters.” Absolutely, and profoundly true. How we walk, whom we follow – matters. How we live our lives, the choices we make, the way we care for one another, will matter more than anything else.
Will the time we have spent, the attention given, the love poured out, the work of our days, the life of our life, bear the fruit we want to show for it?
These last days of Lent, may we allow ourselves to abide fully in God’s self, even if it requires us to face the difficult places within ourselves; may we go where God is leading us, within and without, so we might plant seeds deep in our soul and discover what will grow. May we live into our abundant life in Christ. Amen.
1 Oscar Soria, speaking for the advocacy group Avaaz, as reported by Andrea Miller for abcnews.go.com
2 Sojourners News March 14, 2018 as reported in Sojo.net
3 Catherine Malotky ’86, Grant and Project Manager for the Center for Stewardship Leaders, Luther Seminary; God Pause, March 15, 2018.
4 Suetta Miller, Jesus Shows a New Way, Goshen College Lenten Devotions, March 16, 2018. 5 Rev. Mary Hinkle Shore, Commentary on John 12:20-33, Working Preacher, March 18, 2018.