SERMON 3/25/12 Lent 5B

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John 12:20-33“Wewish to see Jesus.”  In a rural town in WesternKentucky, a quaint little church had been in existence for well over 100years.  The First Christian Church earlyon, saw so many folks arrive at their doors to be a part of this thrivingcommunity.  The people of this churchalways openly welcomed and embraced new folks, folks who like the Greeks intoday’s gospel, were wishing to see Jesus. With each new person came new ideas and new ways of doing things.  The whole church lived into this culture ofwelcome, and they seemed always to be eager to try “out of the box” ventures inorder to bring others to know Christ.   A few years ago, the leaders noticed thatattendance had dropped off and the growth they had once experienced seemed tobe diminishing, and many feared they were in decline.  They decided to invite a consultant to helpthem do some deep soul searching, and they discovered some unexpected truthsthat were a little difficult for them to hear. Thelittle church had been so busy looking inward, that they failed to realize how muchthe community around them had changed and without their notice.  Many of the families that had once lived inthe little town, had fled many years ago when the local coalmine closed.  In addition, they missed the major shift thathad happened in American religious life over the last 25 or 30 years.  Denominational loyalty, which once was a guaranteedsource for bringing new members into the community, had all but disappeared asnew seekers were looking for authentic glimpses of Jesus.  People were now crossing denominational linesin a desperate search for spiritual engagement.  The little church also missed the fact thatnearly an entire generation was no longer to be found in the church. These newrealities came as quite a surprise, and it brought great fear among themembership.  Whathad only fifty years prior, been a thriving, growing, risk-taking community, nowremains a mere shadow of what God was truly calling her to be.  Although this story sounds a bit foreboding,the truth of the matter is, there is great hope, because God is always makingthings new, if we are willing to release our tight grip on what has been, sothat which we are being called to become, might emerge. Itis never easy to die to what we have been so that we can live again in to theblessed reality that God is calling us into. "Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” There are some interesting things going on today in the Gospel.  People outside the Jewish community were arrivingto get a glimpse of this new Rabbi Jesus. The Greeks were considered outsiders to the Jewish community, so theirarrival and desire to see Jesus was quite a shock to his disciples.  “Sir,we wish to see JESUS!”  You can almostimagine Phillip getting a little nervous about these strangers coming to meetthe Lord.  Phillip might have said, “Hangon, I’ll be right back.”  Phillip grabbedAndrew and the two of them ran to the Lord . Whenthey arrived, Jesus like so many times before gave them instructions, veiled inallegory and metaphor.  He said somethingabout single seeds dying so there might be much fruit to blossom.  They both probably looked at each other witheyes rolling in their heads, “Here we go again, another parable.”  Jesus explained, “If you who love your lifelose it, and you who hate your life in this world you will keep it for eternallife.”  Inother words, Jesus was telling them to drop their preconceived notions aboutthis community, and who was welcome and who was not.  He said, “when we die to ourselves and ourown personal desires, and when our own comfort becomes less important than allowingChrist to live in and through us, we will find a life that iseverlasting.”  When we die to our oldself, we will find the life God promises: a life of joy, peace, transformation, mercy and grace, and the best partis we have the opportunity to share that life with others.  In dying to our old selves, we find life thatwill last and others will see Jesus in us. Leavingbehind that which we were, in order to embrace that which we are becoming iswhat Our Lord is talking about when he speaks of “dying to self.”  Jane Tomaine in her book, “St. Benedict’sToolbox: The Nuts and Bolts of Everyday Benedictine Living” wrote, “Over time .. . conversions bring us to a different place.  We become a different person.”  New possibilities, never before consideredexperiences, personal transformation does not happen when we are static, whenwe accept the status quo, when we are comfortable, or when we are lethargic.  Someonewho experiences the death of a relationship through the pain of divorce mayemerge on the other side of this experience a new person.  Someone who leaves a life-long career to goback to university to pursue another degree, must face the pain of dying totheir old career, to emerge on the other side in a new vocation.  The person who leaves a home that they knewand loved, a life that fed them and sustained them for years, may have toendure a painful death of identity, to emerge in the new place and find newlife.  TheGood News Jesus brought us was not about status quo. Jesus’ radical message ofself-giving love, Jesus’ ministry of healing and reconciliation stood incontrast to a static religious system and a social system that was exclusive, oppressive,and self-indulgent.  The religious andpolitical leaders wanted to quiet Jesus’ movement because he threatened the establishment,and his radical message eventually cost him his life.  Jesus was a change agent, a transformer,reformer, a “turn-upside down the tables,” full revelation of God in flesh; theblind saw, the lame walked, the broken-hearted rejoiced, and the mournerscelebrated.  God is always infusing newlife into moments of death. TheChristian life is not a life focused on arriving at a particular state toremain there.  The Christian life is anever-ending change, ongoing transformation, and life filled with circumstancesin which we fall down and get back up again. When we live life in Christ, wecan like Our Lord, look into the face of death, and say, “Your power isdefeated,” because we believe new life is on the other side.            Death is the great enemy of humankind, and death comes inmany forms.  Physical death is a realityyes, but death’s power lurks in other areas of life as well: emotional,relational, and communal.  When we failto allow the Spirit to transform us, we succumb to the fear of death.  Death thus, holds us in the grip of statusquo.  Death binds us into lethargy andimmobility.  Death stops us in our tracksand holds us back from God’s promises, and that promise is that death is not theend.  Jesusfaced it, defeated it, and emerged resurrected from it.  Jesus taught us that the only way to overcomethe fear of death is to die to one’s own self; to look death in the eye, and say,I will allow the promise of new life to emerge in me; I will allow conversionof life and transformation to happen;” and new life will be on the other side.  Tomaineonce again in her book wrote, “Conversion of life and the transformation itbrings doesn’t happen in a vacuum but in community: family, friendships, workgroup, or church community.”  Like the Greekswho came to see Jesus, there is a movement about all around us today and thereare new generations who really want and need to see Jesus.  The Good News has leaked out and it is onceagain being proclaimed in the streets.  Allaround us, people are testing the waters of faith and are dropping into thechurches, hoping to get a glimpse of the Master’s face through the lives of hisfollowers.  Are we ready for that?  If we are truly listening, we are being toldevery single day, “I want to see Jesus.” We the church must accept a new reality, that we are the only lensthrough which people will see Jesus.  Thedifficult part for many of us is, our lens must be re-focused for folks who maysees things very differently from the way it was so many years ago.  Ina world that is changing exponentially, we may have to face a new truth and aspainful as it may be. accept Our Lord’s command and really die to our oldselves.  If we are to remain a reflectionof the Master’s face, in the years to come, we must be willing to shrug offthat, which keeps us from emerging into that, to which we are beingcalled.  We may have to die to our oldselves, so the new life the Spirit is infusing, might become incarnate in andthrough us.