WE ARE REFORMED” The Rev. Stephen Smith-Cobbs Trinity ..., Slides of Christianity

Download WE ARE REFORMED” The Rev. Stephen Smith-Cobbs Trinity ... and more Slides Christianity in PDF only on Docsity! “AGAIN AND AGAIN: WE ARE REFORMED” The Rev. Stephen Smith-Cobbs Trinity Presbyterian Church, Herndon, Virginia John 12:20-33 March 21, 2021 Today’s gospel lesson from the lectionary doesn’t come in scriptural order for Lent. In John’s gospel, Jesus has already entered into Jerusalem, already heard the cries of Hosanna, already seen the palm branches wave in his honor. For us, in the church calendar, we focus on Palm Sunday next Sunday. However, from a seasonal perspective, this passage fits perfectly, as yesterday was the first day of spring and today, we are observing Creation Care Sunday. The dogwood tree outside our house is beginning to show buds on its branches. Plants that have been dormant for many months are now beginning to show signs of life. Creation is re-creating with spring. In our scripture from John, Jesus uses the analogy of a wheat seed dying and falling from the plant to the earth, and speaks of the new life that springs from it – as well as the new life that will come from his death. The story begins with some Greeks who were among those going to worship at the festival. On their way toward worship they came upon Philip, whom they told, “We wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew and then Andrew and Philp told Jesus. Jesus answered “them,” the text says – Philip and Andrew – he never does speak to the Greeks. And the answer is a bit odd – “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 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, will 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 my servant will be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.” Talk about non-sequiturs! It’s a baffling metaphor upon first hearing. Learning that some “Greeks” want to see him, Jesus launches into a mini-sermon. From our vantage point we know that Jesus is talking about his impending death and its meaning. Because the implied reference is to the cross, a lot of ink has been spent and spilled over the centuries trying to make sense of these verses – and, for the most part ignoring the setting for Jesus’ statement, the inquiry of the Greeks on their way to worship. Commentators focus on how Jesus uses the metaphor of a grain of wheat falling and dying to talk about his coming death. The church has come up with all kinds of theories regarding the meaning of the crucifixion, what theologians call doctrines of atonement. The most pervasive theory in the western church, running from the early church fathers right up to the present, is something like this – “that God demands death in order for life to emerge, that only the violent sacrifice of a perfect and sinless Jesus could appease a God whose honor has been affronted and whose anger has been aroused.” This is the prevailing view in the church; many are not aware that there are other views. So many Christians over the years – and even today – and many non-Christians believe that “God is basically an angry Father who demands sacrifice in order to balance the injustice of the universe caused by sin.” Contemporary theologian Michael Welker says this view is “nothing less than destructive of faith. It has promoted an image of God that is deeply un-Christian: This God is always seeking compensation.” In my own theological journey of faith, I’ve come to agree with him. But this view is so ingrained (no pun intended) into the Christian experience that when we hear a text like this, of falling and dying, most of us hear it with sacrifice in mind. As it is, this view is problematic, because it’s easy to think a follower of Jesus must despise the world and that we are to hate our lives within it. It does seem that Jesus is saying that earthly life has no inherent value unless it dies. He seems to be warning against loving life. This has led some Christians to assume that loving the world too much, delighting and taking pleasure in this world and enjoying the beauty of people and of creation is a sin, a threat, a temptation. They believe that this world means nothing, only the after-life matters. These are often the same folks who argue we don’t have to be stewards of creation, don’t have to worry about climate change, or social injustice, or racism, or poverty because this world doesn’t matter. But this world does matter! God so loved the world that God gave the only Son. God called this world, this creation, good and commanded us to be its stewards. We have been given this good earth – majestic mountains, fertile soil, rivers and lakes and oceans teaming with life, and every living thing, including humankind in all of its diversity. Every one of us was made in the image of God, each one precious in God’s sight. This is why today we must stand with and pray for our Asian-American siblings against the rise of violent and hateful acts of racism, especially in the aftermath of the killings this week in Georgia. We are not to submit to the evil that is the source of hate, but to resist evil by surrendering to the way of sacrificial love embodied in Jesus. Christian theologian and psychologist Mary Tennes writes that, when we consider what Jesus is saying here, it’s important for us to differentiate between submission and surrender. “Submission means giving over what is true and authentic about ourselves, giving it up because another demands it. When we submit, we do so out of fear that the person who demands our submission will hurt us or abandon us if we refuse. Submission is the opposite of abundant life.” I want to highlight her reference to abundant life because “abundant life” is perhaps a better way of translating “eternal life” – or life touched by eternity. It means overflowing life, life that spills over the edges like a sloshing water bucket. It’s eternal in the sense that it has no limit, it’s unending, and so God’s life is abundant, creative, full to over-flowing. Surrender, on the other hand, is not giving ourselves over to another out of fear, but rather, giving ourselves over to a larger sense of what we are most deeply created to be and do in God’s world. Surrender, says Tennes, is motivated by hope. Surrender calls us to risk, to give up the familiar, to be willing to be reformed in a new creation. This is what Jesus did on the cross. What motivated Jesus to surrender himself on the cross? I would suggest there’s something deep that motivates him. I believe his faithful surrender is motivated by love. And I also believe it’s the context of love that allows us to see Jesus, to see the God who shines through the face of Jesus. And within love we hear this text tell us something profound: in order for a life to truly glorify God, something within us has to die. We don’t want to hear this. Our human egocentricity has to die, to be knocked off dead center (literally), so that Christ can become center. But to know the abundant life Jesus offers us we must die to sin itself – to anything which gets between us and God. God does not ultimately seek to destroy life, but to give life, abundantly. If we are to see Jesus – and to see who he really is – it requires a reforming and recreation of us, a change in us – and change, as Denise Anderson reminds us, even when welcomed, means death.