Day in the Church Year: 5th Sunday of Lent
Gospel Passage: John 12:20-33
In today’s gospel reading, Jesus speaks to the crowds gathered for Passover in Jerusalem, a foreshadowing of the week’s unfolding. He says, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, if 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.”
I have a box filled with small bags of seeds under my bed, far from sunlight, saved from flowers and beans, arugula and kale grown in my garden the previous season. These seeds will one day take root in my garden again, but for right now, they lay in a box in the dark. They hold within them the capacity for life when coupled with soil and water and sunshine. Truly beautiful and miraculous. Early in my gardening days, I wondered why people grew such funny looking vegetables that no one knew how to cook. Kohlrabi, parsnips, Jerusalem artichokes. Through reading and talking with farmers, especially those who farm with organic heritage seed, I learned that seeds hold only so much capacity. While some seeds can lay dormant for generations in the right conditions, others may fail to produce if not planted the very next year. Seeds rely on people to put them in the ground, to grow the vegetable, and to save the resulting seed at the end of the vegetable’s growing cycle—in order to extend the life of the seed. Without allowing the dormant seed to be buried in soil, without allowing the seed to “die” to use Jesus’ term, new life is not possible. The seed cannot bear fruit without being planted, with “dying.” The seed cannot bear more seed—which enables even more fruit in subsequent generations—without dying.
Jesus compares a grain of wheat with his own life. If he were to hold onto that grain indefinitely, forever saving it, using his almighty power to extend its life, unwilling to let it be buried in soil and touched by water and sunlight, it could never produce more wheat. But a grain of wheat, a seed, that allows itself to be buried and then sprout and grow can feed the world. So too with the life of Jesus. Jesus lets go of his life—in order to bring life to the world.
I think about those seeds far from soil, water, and sunlight in the box under my bed. I love having them, keeping them, sorting through them, knowing they are there for me whenever I choose to plant them. So much richness in that box, a history of all the plants that have lived in my yard. But if I keep these seeds in the box under my bed, they will never produce fruit, and they will never produce more seed. They will simply lie dormant in the box under my bed. If they lie there long enough, they may lose the capacity to produce fruit and more seeds.
We might be tempted to hold onto our lives in a similar way. To not risk. To avoid difficulty. To circumvent vulnerability. You’ll get no finger pointing from me; I am so very familiar with this tendency. I run up against my desire to control various aspects of my life...and only by the grace of God do I recognize the joy of letting go...sometimes. Honestly, I wish I could just learn how to let go once and for all! Maybe that is a spiritual practice for an upcoming season. But in the meantime, I hear Jesus instruct the crowd: Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. I don’t think Jesus is instructing the crowd and us to despise our lives or despair of the world but rather to let go of our tight control on our lives.
What I mean: I spoke with someone on the phone a couple days ago who shared that her husband has what she terms “crazy dreams” about business ventures and acts of compassion and places to move. Of course we can’t do that, she said to me. And maybe they can’t and shouldn’t given the circumstances of their lives, but how often do we each do this: dismiss out of hand dreams that God may have for us, a call God may have placed on our lives—because it doesn’t fit with our own plan for our lives?
What I mean: This same person, the woman whose husband has “crazy dreams,” said, “You know me. I’m mainstream. I’m conventional. I don’t do those things.” Sometimes, we get bound up in our identity. For her: mainstream or conventional. For any of us: perhaps our professional identity, our liberal or conservative identity, our idea of what it is to be a moral person. Truthfully, while sometimes these identifies are life-giving, other times, these identities do not serve us when they stop us from considering God’s call.
What I mean: In this pandemic, I have personally learned and heard many others articulate a recognition of how they used to use their time. Do we want to go back? Maybe not. Maybe we have discovered in all these restrictions ways of being that bring greater life to us and others. When forced to let go of certain aspects of the lives we have cultivated, perhaps we have realized some pieces we will let go of indefinitely. The opposite may also be true: perhaps in this pandemic, when forced into new patterns, we have come to recognize aspects of life that are truly life-giving that we need going forward.
Our question of the day is: What does it mean for you to let go of tight control on your life—that you might respond to God’s call? To read the community’s response, go to the Facebook live stream worship for Sunday, March 21.
Our lives are like seeds waiting to be planted that they may bear fruit not only for us but for the world God so loves. Planting our lives in the rich soil of God’s call is risky. For Jesus, letting go in his life meant literal death...but we know that death is but a path to life. Thanks be to God! Amen.