The Rev. Carol S. Wedell
March 29, 2009

We live in a death denying culture.  Even though all of us know that we will die eventually, we live as if that weren't true.  This is understandable for those who are very young, because the odds of them dying any time soon are very low.  But for the rest of us, we do ourselves no favors by ignoring the obvious:  death, like taxes, cannot be avoided.

The truth is parts of us are dying all the time. You probably just lost half a million or so cells in the minute or two that I've been here in the pulpit.  We all lose about 100,000 cells per second. Fortunately, just as many cells are being reproduced in a healthy body. Healthy bodies have this constant cycle of dying cells and rebirth of new ones. Some scientists say that we are regenerated every seven years.  I like the sound of that - because, well, it makes death seem very far away!

Think of the way we talk (or more likely don't talk) about death.  Often we won't say that someone died.  We'll say that he passed away, or that she has gone to be with the Lord.  I've heard folks say simply, "she passed yesterday" and had to stop and think what it was that was passed!

When seminars are offered to consider issues concerning the end of life, it is usually only those who are over 70 who attend - or at least think they should.  I've led several of such classes. But have Mark and I taken the time to put down our wishes on paper, or to talk seriously about what we would want to happen in the event of both of our deaths?  We do have a will, recent enough to be usable - which is often more than many people can say.  I am always surprised when people who are very cautious and pay attention to detail in other areas of their life simply will not or cannot consider the details surrounding death - their own, or those closest to them.

Part of this comes, I think, from fear; fear of the unknown, fear of possible pain, fear of loss, fear of not being in control.  We may join Woody Allen when he says, "I'm not afraid to die.  I just don't want to be there when it happens!"

But as those who seek to follow Jesus, Lent is the season when we focus on Jesus' death. We are called to look death straight in the face.  Candidly, I would rather preach on Jesus' life. Yet on this last Sunday of Lent prior to Palm/Passion Sunday our gospel reading from John powerfully points us to the cross. While Easter celebrates the event that made death nontoxic, Lent contemplates death.  And interestingly enough, matters of life and death do grab our attention.  Think about what makes it into the news.  Even though we don't want them to, issues around death pull us in.

We need to remember: following Jesus is a matter of life and death. Or, to put it another way, life and death matter to those who follow Jesus. During Lent we follow Jesus all the way to Golgotha.  This is a time to reorient our life of faith to Christ's way of the cross --even if our human condition is allergic to this vision of sacrifice and suffering.

Our gospel reading this morning is not sugar-coated.  The gospel of John, so different than the other three, hints at Jesus' death throughout. The cross for John is not a tragedy to be reversed by the resurrection, as it is for Luke, nor is it the occasion of Jesus' entering from public ministry into his divine office as Christ, as it is for Mark. Jesus' crucifixion in the Fourth Gospel is his glorification; "it is for this reason that I have come to this hour."  

To place today's reading in context, we need to remember that it has not been long since Lazarus, still wrapped in grave cloths and smelling four days dead, stumbled out of the tomb and into the waiting arms of his sisters and friends. Now that life is getting back to normal (can life ever be normal after somebody is raised from the dead?), one might expect the focus to turn to the impending feast of Passover. Thousands have come to Jerusalem; the streets are filled. Yet the presence and power of Jesus are not overshadowed by any celebration.

And that is exactly what scares the Jewish religious establishment.  They simply do not have control over Jesus or the crowds that gather around him. The responses of the people to Jesus' recent actions are quite divided.  Some want to destroy him.  Others want to learn more. 

Some Greeks approach Philip and ask to see Jesus.  This is noteworthy.  This isn't a Jew seeking Jesus.  These are people outside of the fold, likely to have come a long distance.  And then they play a kind of game of "telephone."  The Greeks speak to Philip.  Philip talks to Andrew. Finally Andrew relates the request to Jesus.  But instead of an answer Jesus makes it clear that the fact that the Gentiles are now seeking him means that "his hour has come."  Throughout the gospel of John, Jesus repeatedly says that his hour has not come.  But news of these Greeks turns things around.  Saying that "his hour has come," is a kind of code language, a euphemism indicating that his death is imminent.

Then, instead of an answer, Jesus offers a proverb that seems totally out of place.  (Find Peterson)  "Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit."

I'm quite sure that many, if not most of you know more about seeds and plants than I do, but from what I've read, I know that a seed consists of a protective seed coat, some kind of storage tissue with nutrient reserves, and a dormant plant embryo.  Under the right conditions - which ordinarily includes being placed in soil, the dormant plant embryo can be "awakened" to germinate and grow into a mature plant.  Some botanists say that each seed has an on/off switch that lets the seed grow.  At some point, if the seed is turned "on" it begins to sprout.  Then what was once a mere seed transforms into a flower, fruit or grain.  The seed "dies" when it is given up to the earth.  It lives by being transformed into what it was meant to be.

So it is for Jesus -and so it is with us. New life, rebirth, transformation cannot happen in our lives without our letting go of that which holds us back.  Jesus welcomes his death as a necessary moment in making new life, eternal life, available to all. Jesus speaks of another way: those who cling to the life prescribed by the world will lose true life. Life can be "kept" only by letting it go.  The word used here for "world" doesn't mean the whole of creation.  Rather it means that reality that exists in estrangement from God.  It might best be translated "the system."  The ways of that system are domination, violence and death.

What sounded difficult then is equally difficult today. That system still holds us captive and takes us down paths of death rather than life.  The way we live does have consequences.  Our current economic mess has certainly demonstrated that!  So what are those things that hold you back?  What is it that we can't let go of?   

 Holding on to regrets strangles hope before it can lift us to new life. Trying to control events and other people leads to frustration, excessive stress, and exhaustion. Forgiveness and letting go of control are spiritual exercises in the art of dying so that new life may abound.

Jesus calls us to live a cross-shaped life. Have you noticed that in some churches, especially the mega-churches that have more of a stage up front, the cross is not noticeable - if there is one at all.  Jesus is telling his disciples - and any one else who will listen, that following him will mean reversing their expectations of life, redefining what is valuable, accepting in their own lives a certain measure of loss, suffering and powerlessness.

And that is really hard for most of us.  We've grown up in a culture that tells us that winning, being successful and powerful are absolutely the most important things in life.  But our failure to let go and let some things die is a primary spiritual disease, for new life can't come without some death. To be sure there are many kinds of death that surround us:  poverty, economic collapse, hunger, sickness, war. Jesus challenges the mindset that has self-preservation as its highest goal. If self-preservation controls us, he says, we'll end up losing our life. It's only when we're willing to give our life away that we'll truly have life that matters -- for now and for eternity. Saving our own life cannot be our ultimate goal.

This passage gives us a window through which to view and interpret suffering and death. Not the suffering brought on by things like cancer or earthquakes, but the suffering we choose to endure. Suffering that comes when we choose against self-preservation in favor of putting the needs of another first.  Not the death that comes tragically and unexpectedly, but the death to our over-inflated sense of self. Our instincts toward self-preservation are so high, at times, that we have a hard time taking seriously the idea that we might be called to do anything else. Our instinct to avoid the path of suffering and death is born not only out of our aversion to pain, but also out of our rationalization that we're more effective if we're healthy and happy.  That is what the system tells us.  And those are precisely the expectations that Jesus comes to reverse.

Barbara Brown Taylor puts it this way:

What he is telling us is that if we do everything in our power to protect our lives the way they are - I f we successfully prevent change, prevent conflict, prevent pain - then at the end we will find that we had no life at all.  But if we hate our lives in this world, which as far as I am concerned can only mean if we hate all the ways we cheapen our lives by chasing comfort, safety and superiority in this world -if we hate that enough to stop it and start chasing God instead - then there will be no end to the abundance of our lives. (From Preaching Sermons on Suffering:  God in Pain, p. 62 - as quoted in Lectionary Homiletics Vol. XX , Number 2).

Most of us will never face a firing squad and be given one last chance to deny Christ before we are blindfolded and shot. It is the daily choices we make that reflect whether we're entrenched in self-preservation, or whether we genuinely give our lives away, day-by-day.  Christ becomes the mirror in which we see images of new possibilities for ourselves.  In that mirror we see ourselves no longer bound to self-preservation, but freed to serve others.  We see ourselves seeking more to be faithful than to be successful.  We see a life that is more full and rich - more abundant than we can imagine.

In the film To End All Wars Jesus' words about a grain of wheat needing to die in order to live as God intends is used at the funeral of Dusty Miller.  The film is based on the memoir of Ernest Gordon, Through the Valley of the Kwai.  Gordon writes about his journey from agnosticism to faith during World War II, a journey in which Dusty Miller played a key role.  Gordon was a British army officer when he was captured by the Japanese and sent to a construction camp on the River Kwai in Burma.  Along with hundreds of other POWs, he was forced to work on the railroad on which their captors planned to send their army to invade India.  When Gordon fell prey to a number of diseases, he was taken to the tent where the occupants were expected to die.  However, a group of men, led by Dusty, took Gordon to a private shelter and brought him food and tended to his diseased-wracked body.  Dusty was the one who dealt with the horrible wounds, and never complained.  When Gordon asked him why he did it, Dusty said that it was the thing to do.  They talked about faith.  Later on Gordon learned that the food which was brought to him each day was from Dusty's own meager rations.  Because of Dusty's self-giving love, because of his willingness to reverse the cultural expectations of putting self first, Gordon was drawn into the Christian faith.  Later on Dusty literally sacrifices his life for another man, and it is then, at his grave site that Gordon reads our passage this morning.  (Adapted from Lectionaid, Vol 17, Number 2, page 19).

Whatever it is that needs to "die" in each of our lives, we will all have choices to make.  When we think of "life and death" issues, we assume that the right answer is always to choose life.  Jesus shows us how to reframe the question.  Instead of seeing matters as "life or death," we can look at them as "self-preservation or life-giving sacrifice."  This doesn't mean being a doormat for others.  There is no value in suffering for suffering's sake.

Following Jesus, however, will require that we take a good, hard look at our lives and start cutting out things that come between us and our ability to serve God and others. This radical shift in perspective and subsequent priorities may lead us to hate that in which we once delighted. What was once perceived as valuable may be seen to be of little worth. We may become embarrassed, if not ashamed, of behavior of which we were previously so proud. The goals that we once considered to be crucial for our welfare and happiness may become distractions to realizing the goals that accompany the vision of the glory of the crucified Son of God. 

Being truly found in Christ--not just saying you are a Christian or that you believe certain things, not just putting a Jesus fish on your car, not just showing up at church on Sunday mornings--being a follower of Jesus will require that we go where Jesus goes.   And in choosing to reverse the expectations of the world, we discover the freedom and joy found in losing our life and surprisingly, finding a life that cannot be lost, a life that embodies what God intends each of us to be, a life that is worth living.

 Friends, the hour has come.