Lent 5B
March 17, 2024
John 12:20-33
INTRODUCTION
This week’s theme is vocational joy. While vocation is something we normally associate with doing something, like a job, today’s texts will show us how we might find vocational joy instead through loss.
First, from Jeremiah, a prophet normally known for his doom and gloom. And yet here, he gives us beautiful words of hope – which is a real surprise, because his situation is anything but hopeful! The Israelites have just endured a disaster: military defeat, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the exile of the Israelites to Babylon. And yet, into this, Jeremiah offers this covenant: that although they have lost everything from their lives, everything they thought made them who they were, God has not left them. Indeed, God has given them what they need the most and written it on their hearts, where it can never be taken from them or destroyed.
The passage we hear today from John is on the other side of disaster – this occurs right before John moves into the Passion narrative of Jesus’ suffering and death. Yet John does not see this as a disastrous event. Rather, Jesus says, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified!” In other words, “This is it, folks! My whole purpose is about to come about, and it’s gonna be awesome!” Yet surprisingly, he uses an image of death and loss to declare this: a seed, falling into the earth and dying in order then to bear much fruit. Death and loss, he says, are essential to get to the life that follows – for seeds, for him, and also for us.
As you listen to these texts, look for signs of new life. Look for the ways God enters into the places or fear, pain and loss, and does a new, life-filled thing. Let’s listen.
[READ]
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Tensions are high. Jesus is now in Jerusalem, having just raised Lazarus from the dead. This final sign is the last straw for the authorities, who are now actively scheming a way to arrest Jesus and take him down. Jesus knows he is a hunted man, and is not long for this world. Word of his ministry and miracles has spread widely – even a couple of Greeks, out-of-towners, have heard about Jesus and are looking for him: “Sir,” they say to the disciples, “we wish to see Jesus.”
In response, Jesus launches into his final public discourse before we turn toward the Passion story. Responding to their wish to see him, Jesus tells them what, exactly, they will see: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,” he says, “it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” Whoa, maybe that’s more than those Greeks had bargained for!
I have been captivated this week by that image of a seed dying and bearing much fruit. It is such a simple image, really, but powerful in its simplicity. In short: sometimes things have to die, be lost, in order for life and goodness to be borne. It seems contrary to logic – I mean, death is death, right? The ultimate end? And yet that’s not how it works in nature. In nature, a seed must die for the plant to grow. It is planted, buried, and then life breaks out and sprouts, leaving behind the shell in order to grow and bear fruit.
What a fascinating, painful, and exciting metaphor for our lives. In theory, I love the idea of new life, and growth, and bearing fruit. Sounds great; I’m here for it! But, when you think over your life and the moments of the most growth and change… were they not also accompanied by loss? Or perhaps a significant loss is what spurred the growth in the first place. Something that shook your very foundations even, and maybe even your self-concept. A job loss or retirement, a marriage or new baby, a major move, the end of a significant relationship… even just going to counseling and digging into your patterns and ways of being in the world to discover why you are the way you are or believe and act the way you do… With any of this, it can feel very much like a death, the loss of a previous way of being, a previous self-understanding, a previous vision of your future.
It can happen communally, too. Just look at the ways the world has changed since the pandemic! From fashion trends to how we work to how we worship and practice faith to how we parent and educate – so many things changed as a result of the immense loss we experienced as a global community. Everything functioned differently for over a year, and we all did some evaluation of ourselves, our values, and the way we operate, and when life began to sprout again, it looked different.
Now, it can be easy to focus on the loss part, but I’m particularly interested this week in the life that sprouts as a result – that is where our theme of vocational joy comes in. Theologian and author Frederick Buechner, in writing about how we discern our vocation writes, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” Where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet. It’s so beautiful, isn’t it? That intersection is the place where we bear much fruit, as Jesus says, where our joy is able to burst out of that shell and push through the dirt to bring something meaningful and useful to the world.
And yet… it can be so hard to discern where that intersection is, because of all the stuff all around us. I don’t just mean physical stuff, but all the baggage and busy-ness and emotional and spiritual junk we haul around. It all seems immensely important, and yet it keeps us from life, from joy – from that discovering and living into the “deep gladness” Buechner writes about.
Suddenly, the possibility of death and loss takes a new form, something productive. Imagine that the very thing you thought was so important suddenly disappears, dies – a relationship you’ve been fighting for in vain, a hope or expectation that has not panned out like you envisioned, a job that paid well but left little free time, a commitment that takes more than it gives. At first, it is shocking, even devastating. That thing was important to you, after all. Maybe you even felt it defined you and gave you purpose. And now it is gone, dead – and now what will you do? What will happen to that void it left behind? That grief is very real.
But then, from that dead shell… life starts to emerge. Into that void creeps the possibility of something you hadn’t before had the space to imagine. It feels… lighter, even joyful. It feels like life, new life. Without that thing clinging to your shoulders, you are able to look out, and up, and recognize the world’s deep hunger, and the way that this new sprout, emerging out of the devasting void, might meet that hunger, in ways you had not before considered. And suddenly, you find… a vocation. You find vocational joy.
It is not usually an easy process. The death part is hard, no two ways about it. We might scream and cry for the thing that died to come back. We can’t imagine life without it. It kept us safe. It was familiar. We loved it.
It can seem impossible in that moment of grief to imagine that new life might emerge. It can even feel unfaithful to the thing that we have loved and lost, that we had been clinging to. But Jesus’ remarkable words here won’t let us dwell in our grief forever. He assures us instead that a seed planted and dead is a seed with potential – to grow and bear fruit. He says that when we are able, finally, to let go of, to lose, those things we thought we needed, those things we thought defined us, we will not be left stuck in the mud and muck, but will instead discover true life – perhaps the place where our deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet, perhaps the place where we can truly see Jesus, perhaps a place to rest and listen to where Jesus calls us next. Whatever it looks like, this place is not only the deathplace, but the birthplace, the place from which we can, with God’s help, bear much fruit, and even to find joy.
Let us pray… Loving, life-giving God, you call us to that place where the world’s deep hunger, and our own deep gladness meet. Sometimes to find that place, something else needs to die. When we face loss, show us also the new growth you are bringing about, so that we might find vocational joy. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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