Fifth Lent
John 12:20-33; Hebrews 5:5-10; Jeremiah 31:31-34
This past week we decided rather spontaneously to go visit our youngest son at Bowling Green University in Ohio. We had not visited him at school since we dropped him off last August and we realized that we always used to try and visit his brothers at least once each year when they were in college. Jonathan, being the youngest, often flies below the radar of our parenting priorities but with the school year rapidly drawing to a close we realized that fair is only fair. Monday, after all, is also his birthday so Thursday after the morning Bible Study we headed off on the five hour drive and a 24 hour excursion to see Jonathan.
When I was growing up in Minnesota in the days before e-mail, text messages, IM's and cell phones there was a common phrase used by people who wanted to meet or get to know someone a little better. It was the words, "I'll stop by to see you some time" or the open ended invitation, "Why don't you stop by and see me?" The point of "seeing" someone was to get to know them better. In the language of dating relationships there used to be the question, "Are you seeing anyone right now?" which was another way of asking about other commitments. There was also the school house and corporate phrase that often caused anxiety attacks, "I want to see you in my office." In each case the use of the phrase "to see" meant far more than to simply observe with your eyes. So going to see our son was not just a matter of physically observing him but a chance to briefly enter into his world. One thing most every parent quickly discovers is that anytime they stop by "to see" their college student they will need to not only visit the dorm room and meet some of the classmates but also invest a little more into the life of the college student through buying dinner for roommates and the inevitable shopping trip for some item or two that the student has been waiting to acquire. I don't think I have ever stopped by "to see" one of my college student sons and not had to buy at least one meal and some "special" item.
Clearly, "seeing" someone for whatever reason does not come without some personal cost, and that doesn't mean only money. At the simplest level there is the investment of self and time. If I want to see someone who is in the hospital it will not cost me much in dollars but it will take time. If I want to see a Chicago baseball game (opening day is here) or a painting at the Art Institute or a play or concert I know I will need to commit not only time but some dollars. And if I want to see a certain popular dignitary, actor, performer, politician or public official, I know that the best approach will be to invest my time and energy into having someone who knows the certain public figure provide me an introduction. There are people in this congregation who actually know people who know people who could arrange for me to meet some rather amazing public figures. That's how you get to see the people you want to see. You seek out someone who knows someone who can make the connection.
So it was that there came Greeks who were in Jerusalem for the Passover who desired "to see" Jesus. Now one of the things we should probably note is that 2000 years ago these Greeks were about as close to us suburban Christians as we could find in those days. They were, like us, Gentiles by birth, not of the Jewish community. Their upbringing had probably been defined by rituals that focused on making them successful in their businesses and communities. They were pragmatic, practical, focused on productive living; active both in probing ideas and controlling their world. We are not sure if these Greeks were in Jerusalem as tourists or as possible converts to Judaism. What we do know is that they sought out the disciple of Jesus who had the most Greek sounding name, "Philip". Philip, who shared the same name as Alexander the Great's father, Philip of Macedonia. And Philip took the Greeks to the other disciple with a Greek name, Andrew, the first disciple Jesus called to follow him.
"Sir, we wish to see Jesus," they said. A seemingly simple request but when the request was made known to Jesus he declared it a sign of things to come. Something truly new was about to break forth.
Today is the final Sunday in Lent before Palm Sunday and Holy Week and this lesson points to the ultimate turning point of faith and human history. Up to this point in the Gospel of John, Jesus' ministry had been described as a ministry to and among the people of Israel but now the world was at the door. Greeks, conquers of the known world, founders of the Roman Empire, authors of the great foundational philosophical ideas that would inform all western thought for the next two millennia concerning logic, science, ethics and morality. Greeks wanted to see Jesus and he responded by discerning in this moment an opportunity for something more than just a few hand shakes and autographs. "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified" is what he announced. Up to this moment the focus had been on the teaching, the preaching, and the healing of the Jewish community but now the focus shifted. Now the Son of Man was to be glorified.
"Glory" is a word that is used in the Bible to reveal something about the power of God. To behold God's glory was to gaze as close to the face of God as anyone dared to gaze and still live to tell about it. It was to see that which moved beyond the ordinary realms of daily existence to that which made God divine, transcendent and other. In this moment Jesus provides a glimpse into God's future for the world and all humanity. Jesus points to death and the cross. He literally plants the seed of our redemption and the source of our hope beyond this life. Jesus declares that the power and the glory is found not in what we have but what we have given ourselves up to. "Those who love their life lose it and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life."
For the great conquering powers of the Roman world in which Jesus lived this kind of talk made little sense. Power for the empire came through the occupying armies and the demands that all nations paid tribute to the greatest nation in the world. Jesus revealed God's power not in what was grasped or demanded but in what was given up--the sacrifice of self and life. His teaching, preaching and even his miracles illustrated again and again the too human challenge of knowing the difference between letting go and hanging on.
With the baby population we have in this congregation we regularly have a small child on the verge of walking. Many times I have witnessed the young child pull herself up maybe using one of the couches or the coffee table in front of the fire place in the narthex. It is always fascinating to watch her experiment with balance by alternately hanging on and letting go. Ultimately, of course, she will go no where until she decides to let go.
This past week was spring break which meant for many families in the congregation a time for visiting colleges and making final preparations for the teens to leave their home for the last 18 years and step out into a world of new challenges and opportunities. Parents and teens are always surprised by what things they can and cannot let go of as they head off to the next chapter in their lives. One of Jonathan's roommates has a stuffed bear sitting on a shelf over his desk. It is a piece of his childhood he could not leave behind as he came to college.
Every couple we marry is caught in the challenge of holding on and letting go. The best marriages are alive because the couple find ways of letting certain habits, patterns, and obsessions die while they find new life in forms and places unexpected. It is not always easy. I know a bride who called off her wedding because she could not imagine not having her own check book, her own bank account, her own money. Her self and identity was so wrapped up in what was hers that she could see no way to share herself and all that she had. Likewise, I have seen a number of husbands who refused to buy a car that had more than two seats. His car was his car not the family car. His identity and self was more important than any sense of family.
Jesus said, "Those who love their life lose it". The problem is not love of God's gift of life but loving a self created life. Obsessing over a self defined life. Making an idol of what is called "my life". No marriage can survive for long where the two remain two and have not found the one who called them in love to his altar and table of grace. The blessings of forgiveness and grace which daily brings new life to marriages and relationships, requires the letting go of hurts and mistakes. Life is found in putting aside, putting to death, that which would divide love and loyalty.
A number of members of our community have moved into the retirement stage of their life and are struggling with the need to decide what possessions they will carry with them and which they will leave behind. The church rummage sale in June is a testimony to our life of things to which we cling and things that we let go. It is a paradox of life that we must continually learn what things to let go of and what things to cling to. Some of these are small moments involving day to day decisions. Other times they are milestones involving birth, marriage, death. The problem is that we get all kinds of mixed messages from the world around us--the media, family and friends, our places of business, community, ideals, possessions, the very people we cling to and let go of. In climbing what seems to be the ladder of success we let go with one hand, grabbing wherever we can. We step up with a free foot, step on what ever seems to support us for the moment. The problem is that often we get to the top of the ladder and find ourselves against the wrong building. We find that we have let go of and hung on to the wrong things. The poet T.S. Eliot questioned in his Choruses from the Rock: "Where is the life we have lost in the living?"
This is the final great delusion. That we can successfully cling to anything by our own will or power. As we have seen again and again, every time we grab for God we get a false god, an idol of our own making. Every time we choose what we believe is the good and perfect, we find that it has become tainted and misguided. The gift of grace is a gift of the Spirit, not of our choosing but offered by God. The call to give up something is actually the call to give into God. In learning to walk it is not that the child lets go of all supports but rather that they accept that they will occasionally fall. The child learns to believe that even when she falls there will be someone there to pick her up.
At first this will be physically but eventually this will also be emotionally, mentally and ultimately spiritually. It is not so much that we let go as that we let God. Let God forgive us so we can forgive ourselves, let God bless us so we can bless others with all we have, let God invite us to this table of grace so that we can invite others to share in the ministry of Christ's church.
It is not so much that we let go as that we let God, let God reveal to us a free gift bought at great cost on a cross. We draw to the close our Lenten journey in the company of Greeks with a simple request, a basic request from the heart, "Sir we would see Jesus."
Amen