In the Wilderness - Affirm & Love!
5th Sunday in Lent - Renewal in the Wilderness
John 12:20-26 (The Message)
Rev. Nancy Pfaltzgraf
When I was in my first year of seminary, the pastor of my home church asked me to deliver the message on the Sunday designated to honor all college and post-graduate students. "I can't," I protested, "I haven't taken the preaching class yet."
"Don't worry about how to preach," he replied. "Just tell your story and let God speak through your life."
Eventually I agreed, but as the time approached I became more and more anxious. What did I have to say that made any difference to anybody? But despite my anxiety, the day finally arrived. At the appointed time, manuscript in hand, filled with many thoughts and emotions, I stood, looked out at the sanctuary full of family, friends and companions on faith's journey and walked to the pulpit. As I stepped up and laid my manuscript down I saw it -the engraved bronze plate that graced the pulpit, facing anyone who dared to stand there and speak a word to the waiting congregation. The plaque contained the simple words of the Greeks in today's reading from John's gospel: "Sir, we would see Jesus." In that moment, I understood; my call was and is a call to let Christ's healing love flow through my words and allow Christ's compassion and grace shine from my heart.
"We would see Jesus." Whether we always understand it in those words or not, that's the quest of all who come each week to study and pray, to work and worship; we want to experience Divine Love, Healing, Joy and LIFE, true LIFE! In the midst of our everyday lives we want to catch a glimpse of the Grace. In the midst of our anxiety and fear about the future, we want to feel God's love. In the midst of our brokenness and pain, we want to experience Christ's healing. In the midst of lives which seem to lack meaning and purpose, we need the Spirit's guiding light. In the midst of raising our children and caring for aging parents, we seek the renewal. "We, too, would see Jesus."
Now, I don't know whether or not you noticed it, but the gospel writer doesn't tell us whether or not those Greeks ever did meet Jesus. They approach Philip. Philip goes to Andrew. Andrew and Philip go to Jesus and Jesus responds with a brief parable about a grain of wheat being planted and broken open and bearing fruit. It is a strange interaction indeed. But, like much of the gospel of John, its truth is woven into the very fabric of its strangeness.
So what is going on here? This gospel was written for a community many years removed from the time of Jesus' earthly walk. Not a single person who had actually known Jesus in the flesh still lived. So using these Greeks to represent those in his community who had no hope of actually seeing Jesus in the flesh, John uses this story to assert that it is possible for those who can no longer see the earthly Jesus to experience Christ. And Jesus' brief parable points the way.
"Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over." [John 12:24]
This is a painfully simple yet profound truth. You can have seeds for the most luscious sweet tasting tomatoes, but if you never plant then -no tomatoes. You can have seeds for your favorite apple, but if you just hang on to the seed, you will never taste the apple. Flower seeds contain only the potential for the flower; if they are not buried, watered, fertilized, if they do not break open and sprout and eventually grow the flowers will never bloom. It's just the way it is.
"In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you'll have it forever, real and eternal. [John 12:25]
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Buried deep within each of us is a seed that carries the potential for a life, True LIFE, the Abundant LIFE Christ came and comes to bring. In the 13th century German pastor and theologian, Meister Eckhart, said it this way: "The seed of God is in us. Given an intelligent and hard-working farmer, it will thrive and grow up to God, whose seed it is; and accordingly its fruits will be God-nature." These fruits of the God-nature are what the Apostle Paul calls the fruit of the Spirit, listed in many translations as "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." [Galatians 5:22-23 NRSV]
During the season of Lent we have been using the word Renewal to examine the various aspects necessary to grow this fruit. We have acknowledged the necessity to Retreat; the necessity to step away from the hectic pace of everyday life and open heart, mind, body and spirit to God's loving presence. We have recognized that we must enter this time apart with the expectation that we will be met by Divine Love and Grace. We have discovered that when we pay attention, noticing the many ways God still speaks into our lives we come to a new experience of Divine Presence. We have come face to face with the truth that when we encounter the Holy One it will inevitably lead to a little temple cleaning -removing those attitudes and habits that keep us from living the life we are created to live. Then we settled into the truth that we must learn to wait for all this happens in God's own way, in God's own time. Today, we come face to face with the need to affirm the truth that as old ideas, old understandings of who we are, old habits, old securities are swept away we enter a time of unknowing, a time of uncertainty, a time of darkness in which the seed, buried in our soul, breaks open. In her book When the Heart Waits Sue Monk Kidd says it this way:
Whenever new life grows and emerges, darkness is crucial to the process. Whether it's the caterpillar in the chrysalis, the seed in the ground, the child in the womb, or the TRUE SELF in the soul, there's always a time of waiting in the dark. ...When we enter the spiritual night, we can feel alone, encompassed by a fearful darkness. What we need to remember is that we're carried in God's womb, in God's divine heart, even when we don't know it, even when God seems far away.
Even though this is a natural process of growth which happens again and again in our lives, the church -it seems to me- has emphasized the Light far more than the darkness. We talk and act as if darkness is a bad thing. If we are to stay in the darkness long enough for the plant to sprout and grow and new fruit to emerge, we need to affirm that darkness is as necessary to our soul's growth as soil is to a harvest of wheat.
But when we do, the fruit that grows, the harvest that comes is always LOVE. Returning to Paul's description of the fruit of the Spirit, The Message translation gives us a vivid picture of the many dimensions of this LOVE. It is seen as we develop:
... affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. ... a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely. [Galatians 5:22-23 The Message]
When we affirm this process of transformation and growth, when we trust that in the darkness God is present growing in us the fruit of the Spirit, and thus begin to bear the harvest of LOVE Jesus makes a bold promise: "you'll be where I am, ready to serve at a moment's notice." [John 12:26 TheMessage] That's the answer for the Greeks, for the seekers in John's community and for us: we will see Jesus as we grow into loving servants ready to risk our safety and security, step beyond our comfort and ease, let go of life as we know it in order to become what we are created to be incarnations of Divine light and love, mercy and compassion, justice and grace who answer God's call with the simple words "Here I am, send me". [Isaiah 6:8 NRSV] Amen.
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