Lift Up

John 12:20-33, CEB

20 Some Greeks were among those who had come up to worship at the festival. 21 They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and made a request: “Sir, we want to see Jesus.” 22 Philip told Andrew, and Andrew and Philip told Jesus. 23 Jesus replied, “The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 I assure you that unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it can only be a single seed. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25 Those who love their lives will lose them, and those who hate their lives in this world will keep them forever. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me. Wherever I am, there my servant will also be. My Father will honor whoever serves me. 27 “Now I am deeply troubled. What should I say? ‘Father, save me from this time’? No, for this is the reason I have come to this time. 28 Father, glorify your name!” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” 29 The crowd standing there heard and said, “It’s thunder.” Others said, “An angel spoke to him.” 30 Jesus replied, “This voice wasn’t for my benefit but for yours. 31 Now is the time for judgment of this world. Now this world’s ruler will be thrown out. 32 When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to me.” (33 He said this to show how he was going to die.)

INTRO

This Lent, we are invited and challenged to ask ourselves what’s up with our souls as we examine our call to get up to something good over these 40 days. In our “What R U Up 2?” Sermon series, we examine this call to be up to something good as a means of living out a holy Lent. We began by examining our call to wade into the troubled waters of life as God stirs us up so that we may Come Up better than before, empowered for the work ahead. Then, we explored our call to discipleship by examining what we are called to let go and what we are called to take on so that we can take up our cross and follow after Jesus. Next, we examined what we are called to lay aside and what we are called to take on so that we may Raise Up the body of Christ in new and different ways. Last week, we explored our call to Light up so that we might spread the Light of God into the dark corners of our hearts and through our lives to the dark corners of the whole world. This week, we continue our journey exploring ways we are called to be up to something good.

Our text for this morning starts off kind of weird and then seems to get more and more discombobulated as it moves throughout the chapter. It starts by naming some Greeks among those who had come up to worship at the festival of the Passover. Although some biblical scholars have argued that the “Greeks” in our text are Greek-speaking Jews, our gospel writer does not use the terminology found in Acts 6 that would imply the interested parties are ‘Grecian Jews’ or converts to the faith. Rather, their identification as “Greeks” suggests that they were gentiles.

One commentary notes, “Like Cornelius or the centurion who loved the Jews and built them a synagogue, such Greeks admired much that they saw in Judaism without becoming official converts and sometimes attended the great Jewish festivals in Jerusalem, where they were admitted to the court of the Gentiles.”

While Gentiles were welcomed into the outermost courts of the temple, entrance into the inner courts was forbidden to these travelers unless they were converted to the faith, with warning signs posted on the barrier/dividing wall that separated the inner courts from the court of the Gentiles.

We can likely assume that the Greeks were admirers of Judaism. Perhaps they had made pilgrimages before to participate in feasts at the temple in Jerusalem. Two weeks ago, we heard about how Jesus drove out the traders, coin collectors, and their merchandise. He insisted, according to Mark’s gospel, that the temple was ‘a house of prayer for all nations.’ If the reports of Jesus’ words reached the ears of those who have felt excluded by the religious laws and regulations, then they have been drawn to this Jesus who seemed to question the degraded worth and status of the Gentiles before God. Maybe they simply heard of Jesus’ ministry throughout Galilee. We aren’t told the reason why they want to speak with the Savior…yet we know that there was some hesitation to speak with Jesus directly, so they went to one of his disciples.

Philip must have seemed like a safe person because of his Greek name. Philip must have shared their hesitation and, therefore, consults with Andrew, who initiates the inquiry of the Greeks with Jesus. As Philip tells Andrew, and they, in turn, tell Jesus, Jesus’ response seems equally odd.

Jesus does not answer the Greeks. Instead, he launches into his last public teaching in John’s Gospel. Jesus replies, “The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” The writer seems to move on completely; the Greeks pressing for an interview disappear from the narrative. Nothing about the aftermath of the inquiry has been reported. What did they want to ask Jesus? Did Jesus grant their request? If so, how did the meeting go? The writer answers none of these questions, which begs the question… Why did he even introduce this whole incident?

You see, Jesus isn’t concerned with the request or its specific nature but the implications of the request. “The hour has come,” says Jesus. It is important to Jesus that his disciples have some understanding of what this hour will come to mean. Yet, he speaks to them in the form of a proverb. “I assure you that unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it can only be a single seed. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.” One has to wonder…if this proverb is one that makes sense in the moment or not.

The tension in this passage is thick. The crowds are divided between wanting to be with Jesus or wanting to kill him. Verse 19 names this tension: "See! You've accomplished nothing! Look! The whole world is following him!” The tension continues to rise. The laws meant to keep order are coming undone. We know all about these divining lines and laws. They’ve been seen throughout history. The divide between Jews or Gentiles, Slave or Free, Black or White, Male or Female, Straight or Gay, Abled or Disabled is the work of humanity…we are a people who like to divide; we like to stir up and even maintain division.

Here, what is essential is that even the Gentiles have come seeking Jesus. So, the time has come for Jesus to head toward the cross. In John’s gospel, Jesus is determined. The Word of God has taken on flesh and dwells among us. Jesus knows that he must fulfill God’s plan. John’s gospel is concerned with right theology…and theologically speaking, whether the request of the Greeks is granted is not theologically relevant.

Why? Because even if Jesus had met with them, the dividing lines, the barriers of injustice, the wall of separation like the one found in between the temple courts are the hinge on which the world hangs its rules and regulations; it is the means by which the world allows for injustice, and oppression even still today. Jesus has not been lifted up; the common ground of God’s pervasive and Holy Love of God has not yet been fully realized.

One commentary notes, “The initiative for reconciliation comes from God’s own self. The No of humanity, with its resulting radical incapacity to reverse itself, could be changed only by the Yes of God, but this Yes must rise also to God out of the genuinely human.”

God reconciles God’s self to humanity not by denying the world's suffering but by entering into it, and in Jesus Christ, God calls us to enter into the world’s suffering as well. “I assure you that unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it can only be a single seed. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their lives will lose them, and those who hate their lives in this world will keep them forever.”

We, as individuals, love to place ourselves in Christ's position. We often fail to hear and heed the work of the Holy Spirit. We act as though the church is the only means one can know God's healing and saving activity; we are the only ones who participate with God in God’s saving activity in the world. Yet, the truth of the matter is that the Holy Spirit operates in the world in ways that transcend the people of God. God does not sit around waiting for the church to act…if God did, we would still be Gentiles who aren't welcomed into the house of God. We’d still be enslaving people. We would still deny the giftedness of women to be clergy. To hear and heed the Holy Spirit means we must hate the individualistic nature we hold whereby our soul abides only in ourselves and not with others or with God. It means we must seek out where God is at work in the world…we must take up our cross and die in the ways we strive to “preserve God’s integrity.”

Self must be displaced by another; our endless and shameless focus on ourselves must be displaced by a focus on Christ. God invites us through Christ’s sacrifice to put the kingdom of God, the love of God, and others first; I have found that learning to love others leads us to begin loving ourselves more fully, too.

Martha Mcfee says this: “What if the hardships we experience can give us opportunities to really experience the hope that lifts us up? Maybe the kind of hope that reveals the miracles around us needs a little bit of “heat” to lift us up. That isn’t to say that we should seek out hardship arbitrarily. But I think it does allow us to acknowledge that hardship in our lives, hardships every single one of us faces, can also be opportunities to experience the very hope that can bring us through or out of that hardship.”

I was once asked…how have the hardships you endured shaped you? It has taken me a lot of reflection, a lot of counseling, and a lot of prayers to name that the hardships I have endured have enabled me to have a deeper capacity to love. I love others more fully because I am more empathetic; I love others more fully because God has loved me through all the trials. May that’s the point? Our call to be made perfect in love is not flourished by our own souls…for they are bent inward… until Christ opens us up, and we need the continual blessings of Christ, the experiences of his death, and our death, his resurrection, our resurrection by Christ power to see, know, feel, and even be consumed by God’s love…that the barriers we have created among one another might come crashing down.

So, come to the table and experience God’s love. Feel the barriers come crashing down as God in Christ, through the cross, intercedes for us. Come and dine, come and die, come and live. Those who love their lives, who live only for themselves, will lose them, and those who hate not abiding in Christ and others will live into the fullness of life. For in God’s love, we are lifted up that we might spread that love and lift others up.

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.