sermon from March 29 - John 12:20-33

In my hometown, just outside Washington, DC, there is a place called 7 Corners. It’s a huge crossroads where at least 4 different major roads meet. There’s a shopping mall there, also called 7 Corners, and I remember as a kid thinking it was a long way from our house, though now I know it’s only about a 20 minute drive. When I learned to drive, an early challenge was navigating the complex system of lights at 7 Corners, and still coming out on the right road when I got through. I think of 7 Corners sometimes when I come to a decision point in my life, when I am not sure what to do, which way to go, when I am at a crossroad. The noise and confusion, the impossible busy-ness and the difficult navigation, the hundreds of other people trying to get it right themselves, but seeming to get in my way, throwing my own certainty into question. That is how I often feel when I come to a major decision point: how do I know what is right? How do I know which way to go?
Jesus is at a crossroad. As today’s gospel reading opens, Jesus has just entered Jerusalem, and his public ministry is coming to an end. In just a few verses, he will begin washing the feet of his disciples, and shortly after that he will be betrayed by one of his closest companions, and handed over to death. Yet even as he is beginning to look toward that moment, still people are coming, looking for him, wishing to see him, hoping to believe. How does Jesus handle this moment? How does he navigate this crossroad? In some ways, it seems like his fate is sealed already. In the last chapter, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, and in response the religious leaders decided that Jesus must die. But Jesus could yet choose a different path. He could recant, he could apologize for his behavior, even as he stands before Pilate it seems like he could talk his way out of death. But to what end? What kind of a choice is it that he could make?
Right now, at the crossroad, he could continue to gather followers to himself. Look! here are some Greeks,being brought to him by Philip and Andrew, the two men who brought him the first Jewish disciples. He could welcome these new Gentile disciples and grow a following that could perhaps threaten the political and religious establishments. He could become the King of the Jews, it seems he could even become King of more than Jews. Worldly power is in his grasp, if only he chooses to take it. Jesus is at a crossroad.
Standing at the crossroad, Jesus says, “the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 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.” The grain of wheat that is planted in the wet, muddy earth of springtime, begins to poke its head up through the mud, and by the summer, it has grown into a stalk of wheat, with many grains ready for harvest. It seems clear that to us, who already know that Jesus will die and rise again, that Jesus is talking about his own death. That seems straightforward enough. But then he adds the next verse, “25Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26Whoever serves me must follow me” and I feel a little sick.What does it mean to follow Jesus? What does it mean to hate my life in this world? Does my crossroad have to look like Jesus’ crossroad? What if the grain of wheat does not get planted? A grain of wheat might also be ground up, along with others, and made into flour, and then into a loaf of bread. Something the confirmation class and I know a bit about after last week’s bread-baking extravaganza. But either way, the grain has to give itself up somehow, it has to die to itself as a single, isolated grain, in order to live in a new way, either as a stalk of wheat that gives life to new grains, or as part of a loaf of bread that gives life to a living body.
Standing at the crossroad, Jesus is talking about setting aside oneself, in order to give life to many. It’s a profound statement, to be sure, but I can’t help thinking at some level, “Sure, but that’s Jesus.” He knows who he is and what he’s up to, especially here in John’s gospel. Though we hear other stories, in Mark and Luke and Matthew, where Jesus prays in Gethsemane, prays until he bleeds to have this cup pass from him, in today’s story he say with perfect certainty, “what should I say — 'Father, save me from this hour'? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. 28Father, glorify your name.” How can I hope to match that certainty? That clarity of purpose? That readiness to do God’s will?
A friend of mine, a Catholic man, was at a crossroad in his early 20s. At the time when all of his friends were getting married and starting families, he was wondering if he should join a celibate brotherhood, and commit himself to a communal life without marriage or children. He prayed and prayed, “Lord, should I start a family? God, should I join the brotherhood? Tell me which one to do!” But he got no answer. Then one day, he changed his prayer. Instead of asking for a directive, what should I do, he asked this time, “God what would please you?” And the answer came, “Glorify me. Live your life with Me, with God, at the center. If you do this, then either choice will be the right one.” At the crossroad, what mattered was not so much the path he chose, as the reason for the choice.
Jesus at the crossroad said this prayer, “Father glorify your name.” Or perhaps he said, “not my will, but Yours.” Whatever the words, the prayer is the same, it is a prayer that places God at the center. Jesus said this prayer, and then he went to the cross. Jesus, God incarnate, chose to die, chose to join us even in that worst kind of suffering. And in making that choice, Jesus overcame death’s power. God chose to glorify God’s self. By overcoming sin and death for us. Because Jesus died for us, and rose for us, we too can choose. We can set aside worldly power, worldly ideas of perfection, and we are free. Free to step forward boldly in love, to God’s glory. When we stand at a crossroad, we can pray the prayer that Jesus prayed. It is the same one that he taught us, the one we pray when we don’t know what else to pray, “your will be done on earth as in heaven.” Jesus gave himself for us on the cross, and Jesus gives himself to us again and again, in the bread and the wine of the Table, where we become the Body of Christ. Jesus’ gift to us is that, like the grain of wheat that is planted, or like the grain of wheat that becomes bread, we have already died with him. We are no longer single, isolated beings. We are already One, and so we are free to choose our paths without fear. We are free to choose love. God has glorified God’s name, and God will do it again.

Amen.