March 29 - Lent 5

Bearing Much Fruit
John 12:20-33
Lent 5 – March 29, 2009

Andy & I decided to try our hands at gardening again this year. We grew a few things last year – mostly herbs, but this year, we're gonna get an earlier start & actually plant some vegetables. So, this past week, we bought some seeds. I brought some along. They all have different directions about what they need – some need to be planted inside earlier in the spring to get a head start on growing outside in the summer. Some need to be planted deeper than others. Some need to be planted spaced further apart from each other than others. Some need more sun, some need more water.

But you know the one thing they all have in common is that they must be planted in order for anything to happen. None of these packets says, “Buy these seeds, take them home, & place in a sunny place in their envelopes & wait for them to grow.” It just doesn't work that way.

What a shock for the seeds! Inside these nice little packages, they are comfortable. It's safe inside the envelope. It's nice and dry, light can't get in, so they can sleep all day if they want to. They're with seeds that are just like them. Inside the package, none of the seeds has to worry about wind or rain or dangerous bugs or grubs or worms. I think that if seeds could think, they'd probably be quite content to stay where they are, right there in that package, a happy, uneventful little existence that doesn't ask too much of them. Seeds in their package can live their lives as usual without anything happening for quite some time.

But even though they may be safe inside their sterile little envelopes, these seeds aren't really alive either. Their true life is dormant within them. Until they are planted – until they fall into the earth and get buried – nothing happens. The whole point of their existence - to bear fruit – is impossible while they remain in the packet. The only way they can produce a harvest is to get dumped out of the envelope & into the dirt – that is where their true life begins! You can guess where I'm going with this, can't you?

In the reading from John's gospel that we heard today, Jesus says, “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.” Jesus is talking about his own life here, saying that he must die if his work is to be accomplished, knowing as he says these words that the end is near, but it's not just his life he's talking about. He's talking to his 1st disciples, and to us too. And he says, “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.” If we want to serve Jesus, it means we have to follow him, wherever he goes. And the thought of actually doing that can be a scary thing. It can make us think twice about whether or not we actually do want to follow him.

Because following Jesus means that we, the seeds, have to be willing to be dumped out of our comfy, cozy seed packets, the 4 walls of the church, and get out there in the dirt of the real world, because Jesus is out there. When we read the Bible, we most often find Jesus, not in the temple, although he does spend time there, but out with the people, finding the lost, healing the sick, feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger and the outcast. Too often, we Christians are content to stay inside the church, where we are safe and dry, where all the other seeds look and think and act like us, where we are protected from the wind and the weather. Much of the time, we'd rather stay inside the seed packet where we know what to expect and nobody asks us to shed our protective outer covering and risk changing, risk dying to ourselves, in order to grow, in order that we might bear much fruit.

But Jesus says dying to ourselves is just what we have to do if we want to experience the true life he offers. When we love our lives and the status quo more than we love Jesus, we miss out on all he has to offer. When we choose our own wants and desires, when we remain self-serving instead of offering our lives in loving service to others, as Jesus offered himself for us, we lose the only life that will last.

It is a risky thing, this business of following Jesus wherever he goes and learning to serve as Jesus served. But it's what we seeds were made for – and it's not without its reward. Jesus promises that whoever serves him will be where he is. If we follow Jesus through death in the dirt, we know that we will also share in the new life that he brings. It is a rich life bursting to the seams with God's bountiful harvest, given to us to share with all people, so that everyone may be fed. It's the true life that will last forever – and it only comes from Jesus.

Amen.