March 29, 2009
John 12:20-26
“For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.” ~ Psalm 51:3
Rev. Allen V. Harris

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I have some serious questions for Jesus about this passage: How exactly do you mean for one to “lose one’s life” for your sake? Why on earth would you call us to “hate our life in this world” in order to obtain eternal life?

Jesus, you know that we are no stranger to the loss of life in this world. During this current economic and spiritual crisis, death has become all-too-real for many of us. Just this past week renown journalist and commentator, Bill Moyers, in his public television program, Bill Moyers Journal, quoted Peter Dreier, who teaches politics at Occidental College in California about death. Dreier’s article, “This Economy is a Real Killer,” cites research estimating that for every single percent the rate of unemployment climbs in the United States, an additional 47,000 people die - half from heart attacks. More than 800 are murdered. And nearly twelve hundred commit suicide. (1)

We are no strangers to “losing one’s life,” Jesus. In addition to heart attacks, suicide, and murder, we know too many people who fall prey to death through drug overdose, arson, cancer, HIV/AIDS, and hate crimes. Worldwide scores of people die resulting from starvation, malaria, dysentery, the result of slavery and armed conflict.

All this is on top of the myriad of mini-deaths we and our friends and families experience where the heart is still beating but the life of the individual is gone. Through divorce, abuse, isolation, and job loss, many have lost their life and just simply exist, Jesus. They are the walking dead.

Yes, we know death, Jesus, but none of the death we know intimately feels like it brings us closer to eternal life. In fact, most of the death we know about seems to pull us away from you and from the Beloved Community towards which you call us. Most of the deaths we experience fill us with doubt and dread, cause us to question you and our faith, and give up. Most death drives us to do things that surely break your heart and fragment our relationship with God. But, you couldn’t mean this kind of death.

So, if this isn’t the kind of death to which you call us, then what are you talking about Jesus? If not the death we know all-too-well, day-in and day-out, then what kind of death brings eternal life?

Is it a martyr’s death? We abhor the “suicide bombers” in Israel, Iraq, Ireland, and even in New York City. They cry out that it is because of their faith that they do their terrible deeds. This can’t be so. This is not true.

But we are certain that you are making some connection between our faith and death. Could the key to this death be in your very next words: “Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.” What if the death to which you are calling us comes from servanthood and is a dying to a way of life, a way of being in the world that disrespects you, our neighbor, ourselves, and especially God? Are you inviting us to experience a death of things in our lives that isolate us from you and one another: alcoholism, conspicuous consumption, greed, drug abuse, sexual addiction, all those things that undermine the health of true community?

Surely this is true. But even this is not the death that you exemplified, for you were entirely devoted to honoring God, yourself, and all of life. You epitomized the Beloved Community in your very being. So there must be more to this call to a servanthood death.

During this season of Lent we have again become painfully aware, blessed Jesus, that the death you were journeying towards that fateful week was neither a vengeful act of an angry god nor a payment for our sins demanded by a greedy god, but, rather, it was a death at the hands of our world’s principalities and powers that were threatened by your call to your followers to die to self and live for something larger. The authorities are always threatened when someone invites the people to worship something other than the powers themselves.

The principalities and powers of your day were violent… the tyrannical Roman government and its many stooges along the chain of command, the religious authorities who had sold their souls in order to live comfortably between the oppressed people and the oppressive powers that be, and even the people on the streets who were more willing to cast their lot with those who showed off gold and glory than with those who showed humility, compassion, and peace.

The principalities and powers of our day are no less dangerous… the tyrannical marketplace that demands we sacrifice our neighborhoods and our networks of friends and families in order to get the lowest price at the store or the highest price for our property… the religious gurus who are demand our undivided and unthinking allegiance to their agendas in order for them to be comfortable and live in cushy mansions and drive fast cars at the expense of vulnerable widows and widowers, overeager youth, and desperate housewives… and even the people on the street who are more willing to cast their lot with those who show of gold and glory than with those who show humility, compassion, and peace.

You knew a thing or two about confronting the powers that be. Perhaps, Jesus, you had in mind people like John Lewis, Amelia Boyton, Hosea Williams, James Reeb, Viola Liuzzo, and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. when you talked about a grain of wheat falling into the earth and dying. Perhaps you imagined their treks in March of 1963 from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery, Alabama to protest the poll taxes, literacy tests, and inane techniques used to keep our African American sisters and brothers from fulfilling their constitutional right to vote in fair and free elections. Maybe you understood from your own confrontation with the principalities and powers of Pilate and Herod how their confronting Sheriff Jim Clark, Governor George Wallace, and the Selma, Alabama police force might lead to violence.

I would imagine, dear Jesus, that you were painfully aware that doing the right thing may have it’s consequences, and that you grimaced with a terrible understanding on March 7, 1965 as peaceful demonstrators were attacked with clubs, tear gas, and bull whips by those charged with upholding the law. And you must have smiled when finally, after the intervention of the federal government the marchers were peacefully able to enter Montgomery and celebrate on the steps of St. Jude Catholic Church. It would be only five months later that President Lyndon Baines Johnson would sign the Voting Rights Act prohibiting most of the unfair practices that had been used to prevent Americans from registering to vote. (2)

Ah, Holy Jesus… This is the death to which you call us: the death that surely comes when we serve God by standing in solidarity with our sisters and brothers in great need. This is the death to which you call us, to live for something so great and so good that we might just have to die for it.

You knew that your insistence on the worship of God alone would bring out the worst in those who are divine pretenders. You knew that empowering the least among society was a risky thing and would confront most those with the most to lose. You knew that anything truly worthwhile comes with a price, and that price is often ultimate. You knew, and so you tried to help us understand…

“Very truly, I tell you, 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. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.”

Help us, Jesus, to die to ourselves that we might live for you.

Amen

(1) From Bill Moyers Journal, PBS Television, March 20, 2009 air date; interview with Marta Peleaz at http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/03202009/transcript1.html 

(2) “Voting Rights in Selma, Alabama; Bloody Sunday” By Jessica McElrath, About.com at http://afroamhistory.about.com/od/bloodysunday/a/bloody_sunday.htm 
and
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, “Selma To Montgomery Marches” at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selma_to_Montgomery_marches

 

Rev. Allen V. Harris
Franklin Circle Christian Church
www.FranklinCircleChurch.org


 

Copyright 2009 -- The Rev. Allen V. Harris

Franklin Circle Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

1688 Fulton Rd., Cleveland, OH 44113-3096