A miracle was preparing

Sermon for the Fifth Sunday in Lent (March 17, 2024) at St. James’ Episcopal Church in Hyde Park, NY. View the scripture readings and the Collect of the Day.

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Jesus said, “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.” from John 12:20-33

Edited Transcript

May only truth be spoken here and only truth be heard. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Please be seated.

Today's gospel begins with Jesus in the Temple. He's there with his disciples and some Greeks come. This is the first time that this has happened in the Gospel of John! Greeks come; these are people who are not Jews. They are not the people that up to now Jesus' ministry has been to and with. These Greeks, they're visiting the temple and they say to one of Jesus' disciples, Sir, we wish to see this Jesus.

And Philip has not dealt with this before. He's not exactly sure what to do. I mean, does Jesus want to talk to these guys? Is it appropriate? So he goes and he finds Andrew and he says, These guys want to see Jesus!

And Andrew says, I don't know what to do. I guess we should ask Jesus. And they get an answer they probably weren't expecting.

They say, Hey Jesus, there's some Greeks here that want to see you. And Jesus says, now the hour has come.

It's almost as though the arrival of these strangers, these foreigners, is a signal for Jesus that what he's been preparing for is now here. It's now at hand. He knows now that the time for his crucifixion is here.

And we read this on the Fifth Sunday in Lent as we prepare to enter into Holy Week and to journey with Jesus to the cross and through it to resurrection.

I don't dare to say that I know what's happening in Jesus' mind. I don't dare to wonder if Jesus changed his mind, but it's almost as if he, in knowing that these Greeks have arrived asking to see him, it's almost as if he has a new insight into his calling, his purpose. He says, Now the hour is at hand. And he says, When I am lifted up, I will draw all people to myself. Not one people but all people.

It's as though this new dimension opens up. I'm not here for just one nation, just one people. I'm here to do what God has put me here to do for everybody's sake, for the sake of the whole world.

And he tells this parable about the seed to amplify that understanding, that realization, which he wants his disciples to share with him. He says, a seed, unless you let it fall to the ground and die, it remains just a single grain. Just a little grain all by itself. But if you let it fall into the ground and more, if you let it go under the ground into darkness, it bears much fruit. It grows and does something unexpected. If you let it go out of your hand and let it go into the earth and let it go into darkness, it stays not a single seed, but it produces more than you ever could have asked for or imagined!

Jesus' purpose is not only for one, but for everyone! And so, the seed.

And in the season of Lent, in the season where the days are lengthening (this is where the word "Lent" comes from, from "lengthening"—the days are getting longer!). There's lots of metaphors in the Gospels from Jesus' time that we maybe don't understand so well like the sheep stuff. We don't know that much about sheep. But most of us know a little bit about seeds and how they work. And in this season of Lent, a lot of us might be planting seeds or preparing to plant seeds. In our Parish Hall on the south-facing window sills, there are little seedling seed starts growing for our Community Garden.

And you know that you take this seed, right? It's tiny and it looks dead, and you take that seed and you bury it under the ground, you cover it, and now it's hidden.

In the Gospel of Mark. Jesus tells another parable about seeds. He says, A man, the kingdom of heaven is like a man who planted seeds. Then he goes to bed, then he wakes up... goes back to sleep that night, the next day wakes up again. So he sleeps and rises night and day, and all the while the seed grows. Jesus says, The seed grows; he knows not how.

But there under the earth in the darkness, that seed that we plant, that we let go of and turned over, is doing what we never could have imagined if we didn't see it every year! This little dead looking tiny thing in the dark is growing and it's going to sprout and it's going to produce much fruit. It's this everyday little miracle and we're used to it.

But it's happening underground, in the dark. We sleep, we wake, we might water the earth, we might try to adjust to make sure we get enough sunlight, but the growth is hidden from us and it's absolutely out of our control. No matter how much I strain, I cannot make a seed grow.

Jesus is saying he's like a seed. When he is crucified, he dies. He is buried, he's in the tomb, the stone is rolled over it, everyone walks away. And in that tomb, something happens that we could never have imagined. We couldn't have made it happen. We wouldn't even have known to ask for it.

And it's a total mystery and it's utterly hidden from our sight, just like a seed in the ground.

So I asked myself, where have I seen this in my own life? And I remembered my favorite book (I have a lot of favorite books!). This is Gilead by Marilyn Robinson. You guys will laugh, but my favorite book is about a minister.

So the book takes the form of a long letter by an old man who is a minister in Iowa. He's remarried late in life. So he has a very young son, about five years old, and the whole book is a letter from John to his little boy, a letter that his little boy will read when he's old enough, and after John has died.

So he writes this:

"I could have married again while I was still young. A congregation likes to have a married minister, and I was introduced to every niece and sister-in-law in a hundred miles. In retrospect, I'm very grateful for whatever reluctance it was, but kept me alone until your mother came. Now that I look back, it seems to me that in all that deep darkness, a miracle was preparing. So I am right to remember it as a blessed time and myself as waiting in confidence even if I had no idea what I was waiting for."

This idea that in every one of our lives, and especially in the times of our lives that are darkest, God is nurturing a miracle: something better than we could have asked for or imagined.

I had another story I was going to tell and I told it to Christopher and he said, I bet you can come up with a better story. And I said, humph. So I did.

A couple weekends I was a Girl Scout Career Fair a few weekends back, I was telling these little girls about the life of ministry, and I said, one of them asked me, well, how did you know you wanted to be a minister?

And I said, well, God told me. But then it took me 12 years. Christopher knows there was some darkness in that time. It was a long time.

And if I had had my way, it would've gone much more efficiently. But then I wouldn't be here. This is better. It's better than I could have imagined. It's better than I could have asked for. In those dark times, God was preparing this.

I think that most of us, if we look back on our lives with the benefit of a lifetime of experience, we can find those seasons of darkness. Seasons where we wondered, where is God? And why is this happening the way it is? And I bet we can see how in that time a miracle was being prepared for us. And maybe we can only see it years or decades later.

And some of us are in a time like that right now. And there is a miracle happening where we can't see it, where we can't imagine it. And it's probably better than anything we could have asked for.

Looking back on this season of Lent, that it's all been about trust.

It's about knowing that God is working in our lives to stir and to create something that we may have no knowledge of, no control over, and maybe even no hope for, but underground... what we thought was dead or dying is already preparing for new life.

And it's ours to look back on those times in our life and say, there, God, you were there and I didn't know it. And so here too I trust, I believe that you are bringing new life into this world. Amen.