Fifth Lent - April 2, 2006

At the conclusion of the service, the congregation filed out of the nave to greet the new minister.  As one gentleman left, he shook the hand of the minister, thanked him for the sermon, and said, “Thanks for the message, Reverend.  You know, you must be smarter than Einstein.”  Beaming with pride, the minister said, “Why, thank you, brother.”

The following Sunday the same man repeated the same message, “I am sure you’re smarter than Einstein.”

Every Sunday for a solid month the man repeated the same line.  Finally, one Sunday, the minister asked, “What exactly do you mean that I must be smarter than Einstein?”

The man replied, “Well, Reverend, they say that Einstein was so smart that only ten other people in the entire world could understand what he was saying.  Reverend, no one can understand a thing you’ve been saying!” 

I hope to be understood during this weekly visit with all of you.  It is difficult to always do that and especially when the Gospel can take the preacher in several different directions.  That’s true of today’s Gospel from John.  Greek gentiles have come to the Passover to worship.  They must have taken a wrong turn on their way to find the statue of Apollo or one of the other panoply of Greek gods and wound up at the greatest of the Jewish festivals. 

Apparently, one of the reasons for this side trip was to find a man named Jesus and to talk with him.  They had heard some things about him.  They find the disciple with the Greek name “Philip” and approach him.  “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”  Philip didn’t know what to do, so he takes the group to Andrew.  Andrew was the great problem-solver in the band of disciples, so he takes the request directly to Jesus.  “There are some Greek folks outside who want to see you.”

Notice that Jesus doesn’t say, “Well, send them in.”  He says, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”  Then we hear some references to grain, earth, death, and fruit bearing.  Something is said about loving life and losing life, serving him and following him, that where he is the servant will be, too.  Then we hear that his soul is troubled, that he cannot ask the Father to save him from this glorifying hour, that this hour is precisely the reason he is where he is, and that the Father will glorify his name.  A voice is then heard, like the peel of thunder, saying that the name of Jesus is glorified and will be glorified again.  Jesus then tells the crowd, presumably including some wandering Greeks, that the voice came for their benefit and not for his and that the judgment of the world has arrived and the ruler of the world will be driven out and that he will be lifted up from the earth and will draw all people to himself.  And I want to shout, “Wait a minute!  All that comes from some inquiring Greeks who want to see you?”  Of course, the proper theological answer is that the arrival of those who represent the rest of humanity, the gentile Greeks, and the rest of us, is the signal that his mission, message, and ministry will not be confined to the Jewish world.  He will be for all people.  All people will now come within reach of his saving embrace.

This Gospel also points out in stark relief some of the amazing paradoxes of our faith.  These are central to what we are to believe and form the very heart of the Christian message.

First, only through death can life come.  A grain of wheat is ineffective and unfruitful as long as it is preserved in safety and security.  It is only when it is thrown into the cold earth and buried, as if in a tomb, that it fulfills the purposes for which it was created.  It becomes what it is designed to be only as the old dies and a dramatic transformation takes place.  Death very often gives new life to the church, just as the Lord’s death gave it birth.  It is only when a person buries his or her selfish, personal ambitions that they begin to be of real value to God and thereby to God’s people.

Second, only by investing our lives do we retain our lives.  If we love our life to the point that we are motivated only by self-preservation there will be no great acts of heroism or sacrifice.  If we are ruled by selfishness and security we must, by definition, be egocentric.  No one lives well or long who attempts to live egocentrically in a Theo centric world.  If we avoid all strain, sit by the fire, and hoard life we may exist longer, but we will not have been truly alive at all.  Not many people are dying from overwork in this technological culture but a great many are dying from boredom and self-induced monotony.  Investing our life for some great cause that brings people nearer the Kingdom of God will make boredom vanish like an April snow.

Third, only through service comes genuine greatness.  A young boy in elementary school was asked what part of speech “my and mine” are?  He answered more truthfully than he realized when he said, “They are aggressive pronouns.”  The modern world of boomers, x’ers, and millennials seems to allow little room for self-emptying service.  Oh, it is socially acceptable to belong to a church or a service organization but for many it’s just for career advancement of in case they wish to run for public office.  Paternalistic greed is alive and well and seems to be upwardly mobile.

It is a sad indictment of the inability of the church and the society in which it lives that so many are in life, work, business, marriage, and church for little more than what they can get out of it.  Many remain members of those institutions only if what agrees with their prejudices and stereotypes is being done or talked about.  Many will stay on the fringes of the church and throw an occasional dollar or two in the plate at Christmas or Easter as long as the minister does what they think he or she should do.  Those are the same people who wonder whey their children cannot make lasting commitments to anything or anybody.  It is a truth far greater than we know that one cannot drop out of something one has never truly joined.

Many today are becoming rich through the free enterprise system.  The gap between the haves and the have-nots continues to widen and few see that as the greatest threat to that very same free enterprise system than any possible outside force.  We must begin to address such inequality or risk placing certain fundamental things in great jeopardy.  It remains profoundly true that we make a living by what we receive; we make a life by what we willingly give away.

There is a challenge issued to each of us as we near the end of this Lenten season.  We will come closer to meeting that challenge is we remember that only by death can life come, only by investing our lives do we retain our lives, and only through service comes genuine greatness.  It is only as we learn what that means can we grow in the likeness of our Creator who came into the world like us in order that we might know how to be truly alive.

I know I’m not smarter than Einstein and I know you understand what this is all about.  If not, I trust that in God’s good time that will be revealed.  Amen.