Everything Changes

John 12:20-26 NRSVue

20 Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. 21 They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” 22 Philip went and told Andrew, then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. 23 Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain, but if it dies it bears much fruit. 25 Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.

Intro

This week, we continue our sermon series, “Re-Shaped:  What We’re Made For.” Throughout this sermon series, we acknowledge that, sometimes, change is difficult for us to embrace. Yet God made us to change. As we hold these two ideas in tension, this sermon series helps us open our minds to God who created us and the ongoing call God has on our lives. We began with the prophet Jeremiah, acknowledging that we were made for this, and we embraced our call to remain as clay on the potter’s wheel, being refashioned and reshaped for the purpose God has for us, both as individuals and as a congregation. Last week, we built on this as we explored Jesus’ baptism and our own call to be transformed from the inside out as we change our hearts and lives, use all of our emotions, and grow into the people God has called us to be. This week we continue as we learn to let it go.

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 theologian writes, “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, including 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. 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 probably seemed like a safe person because of his Greek name. The name Philip comes from the Greek. 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. From here on out in John’s gospel, it is focused on the disciples and on getting ready for the cross. Jesus replies to the public, “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.

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 has not yet been fully realized. 

One Theologian writes, “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. Jesus says “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.”

You see, our call this morning is to let it go. If God made us for change, then God made us to let it go. God made us to let go of the ways of the past. God made us to let of striving to be in control. God made us to embrace the Spirit’s work in the world. If we didn’t let it go, the church wouldn’t be at the point that it is now. If we didn’t let it go, some of the pastors who served this church would never have been allowed in the door. If we didn’t let it go, some of the members over the years would never have darkened the door. If we didn’t let it go, we would stay inside the church praising God and never step out of our comfort zone. 

“Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” Friends letting it go, means losing our life, rejecting our ways, and living God’s ways. So often, we are tempted to do whatever it takes to preserve our ways of life. And as a congregation we can be tempted to do whatever it takes to keep the church going, even if it the church isn’t functioning as the church. I’ve heard story after story of congregations that lose the vision, fail to let it go, and instead spend their whole existence maintaining the building and trying to pay a pastor. If that's all you’re doing, are you truly being the church? If all you are doing is maintaining your spiritual life are you really a disciple of Jesus Christ?

One theologian puts it this way, “One ‘loving’ his life will seek, at all costs, to preserve and protect himself from risk and danger, especially scorn and rejection. To ‘hate’ one’s life means just the opposite: to run the risk of rejection and scorn, knowing full well the likelihood of loss.”   Friends being disciples of Jesus Christ requires us to let it go. It requires us to risk rejection by the world and scorn by our friends. We can’t remain as clay on the wheel; we can’t change our hearts and lives, if we don’t let go of the ways of the world, the ways of the past, and the ways we would prefer it. 

The truth is, we must let it go to embrace who God is calling us to be. Much can be learned from the movie Frozen. Series creator Marcia McFee writes, “In the narrative of Frozen, Elsa is hiding her true self until she just cannot do that anymore. She lets go of her fear and anxiety and leans into who she is created to be. Pretending to be who we are not, or trying to keep up appearances, or resisting change because we think we are safer “staying put” takes so very much energy that could be used for a life that grows, flourishes, blossoms.”

We are called to let go and embrace new ways of being so that, as we grow into who God calls us to be, others can see Jesus in us. We don’t know what the Greeks in our text ultimately wanted. We do know that they wanted to see Jesus. But we also know that there are Greeks among us today. They are outsiders, who come looking, asking to see Jesus. Which begs the question, do we realize how many people look at Christians wishing to see Jesus? One of the top reasons people in our community list for not coming to church is that when they look to Christians, they just don’t see Jesus. They word it as seeing Christians as hypocritical. Our default response to this is to question it. Don’t they know that we aren’t perfect? Don’t they know that everybody sins and everybody falls short? We try and put it back on the people who aren’t a part of our communities of faith. 

Yet our call is to let it go. We are to let go of our default responses, and strive to be more faithful disciples. We strive for change. When we let it go, when we embrace a life of discipleship, when we respond to Jesus by trusting the change God is leading us to, we may live out our lives so that when others look at us, they see Jesus. That’s what it means to be re-shaped, to change our hearts and lives, and to let go of what is holding us back. For when we let it go, when we embrace who God calls us to be, we begin to truly live. 

This morning, we have another opportunity to let it go. We have the ability to let go of our expectations, to let go of our ways, to let go of the way things use to be and come to the table of God. For when we lay aside our past understandings, when we lay aside our hesitancy to take communion more than monthly, when we come to the table, we will encounter the living God. In the bread and the juice, God’s Spirit is at work drawing us to the table that we might meet Jesus in this place. What would it look like to let go of our hesitancy and really believe that we will meet God at this table? It just might give us the strength to continue day after day, as clay on the potter’s wheel, changing our hearts and lives, letting go of our own desires and the ways of the world, as we live into the change God places before us. 

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