Death of a Seed

"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."
John 12:24

Well, Holy Week is fast approaching. And of course, now is the time when my blogger-conscience starts bugging me about not having posted here in a good long while. But a solution presents itself: Below is the transcript of a sermon I preached this past Sunday (Lent 5B, March 22nd) that some have found useful. Hopefully you will, too. Blessings on your Holy Week and Easter.

Gospel text: John 12:20-33

It wouldn’t have occurred to me

To think like a seed.

It’s an interesting window into Jesus’ mind:

The way he sees people. The way he sees us.

It wouldn’t have occurred to me that to a seed,

Growth might not be an attractive thing.

Even though growing is what seeds have evolved over hundreds of millions of years to do, for an individual seed,

who’s never been through it,

It would be a death.

Your skin—your boundaries of who you are—would be ruptured.

The only identity you’ve ever known—a particular seed in a particular place and time—would cease to exist.

A new thing would exist in its place,

and what that is, you can’t control.

It’s up to God.

Thinking like a seed, it’s terrifying.

But thinking like a farmer,

You realize it’s all the seed is meant to do.

The only way to truly be alive.

Jesus says, “Those who love their life will lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

I don’t think Jesus means that the only people who’ll go to Heaven are those who are in constant agony in their earthly lives.

Based on how he uses the word elsewhere, I think “hate” here means more like reject.

That if you cling to the identity the outside world wants to give you, that outer shell, what you consider to be your life will be very short.

But if you reject that identity, and admit it’s not who you are, then God can reveal to you something deeper, something real,

something infinite.

If you’ve never been through that kind of

growth, it is like dying. It’s letting go of who you think you are, without being entirely sure who by God’s action, you’ll become.

I mean, you know you can’t be a seed forever.

Transformation is coming.

It’s just a question of whether you’ll enjoy becoming something more.

In John’s Gospel, Jesus has a lot to say about “the world.” He doesn’t just mean the physical, “earthly” realm as opposed to some separate “heavenly” realm beyond the blue. It’s more of a shorthand for Jesus’ mission field—where he works. That part of existence which doesn’t know him. That which needs to be saved. That which rejects Jesus and his followers, yet which God still loves. It’s not a place so much as a value system, an institution, a way of thinking, but also a spiritual force.

It’s the dominant force in the human spirit far too often, the part of us that values only the outer shell of that seed:

what we can see, what we can get, whom we can influence.   

It’s the system in which your identity is nothing more than a set of attributes: a pile of money and possessions, the pages of a resume, the letters after your name, the number of your Facebook friends or twitter followers, the number of employees who report to you, the acreage of your territory, the way your body compares to a photo-shopped body in a magazine.

It’s a system that tries to make eternal, the things that are temporary, as though this life we see is all there is.

It’s a system that ranks us by the numbers, yet somehow makes sure none of us measures up.

And despite this constant abuse, it’s a system in which we can get way too comfortable.

It’s like the pothole on your commute that’s there for so long that you swerve without looking, or the aching tooth that makes you chew all your food on the other side of your mouth.

It’s a status-quo that we forget is even there.

Especially if we’re benefitting from it.

If our power and prestige is coming at the expense of injustice against someone else.

If our comfort comes at the cost of others’ pain.

If that’s the reality of this world, you can understand why so many choose not to see it.

Jesus says his kingdom is not of this world.

But he’s not here to lead us out of it either.

He’s here to drive the ruler of this world out.

To take down the whole system.

He’s here to show us there’s another way:

A system of acceptance, instead of rank.

A system of love, instead of judgment.

A system of forgiveness, instead of score-settling.

And the way he’s going to do that is to be lifted up, for everyone to see, not on a throne, but on a cross. Not by conquering, but by dying.

When Jesus says his hour is coming, and that he’s going to glorify God, that’s what he’s talking about. He’s talking about this moment, in which he utterly rejects

everything the so-called “world” has to offer.

When he rejects the lie, that all that matters is how strong and pretty a single grain of wheat looks like on the outside, and shows us that what really matters is the life that’s growing on the inside.

When Jesus willingly accepts the most shameful, painful place in this world’s system, he shows us that even death itself is only a transformation, and dying in the world’s eyes, is the pathway to being truly alive in God.

When we die to ourselves—to our selfishness, our need to be the best and the strongest—we can live for others, and for God. We can start living the resurrection life Jesus promises,

Even now.

In Baptism, we died in the world’s eyes.

We renounced the powers of this world that rebel against God. We rejected the identity, the status, the rank that the world wanted to give us. That identity got left down there in the water, like the outer shell of a seed.

God connected us to the death of Jesus,

And the Holy Spirit then gave birth to our new

Identity: an identity that has nothing to do with what we have, or look like, or can accomplish, and everything to do with God’s love for us.

That’s where the growth starts.

That’s where the transformation starts.

There in the water.

It really should give us pause.

It should be a little daunting,

giving up the false personae that the world gives us, and not knowing what God’s growing us into.

It might be more comfortable to feel as though nothing will change—that the rules of this world will always apply. Once a seed, always a seed.

But God wants so much more than comfort for us. God wants transformation. Growth. Death…and resurrection.

And through Jesus, we receive it.

Amen.