The Rev. Joseph Peters-Mathews is the vicar of St. Hilda St. Patrick. The sermon for Sunday, March 21, was preached as a response to John 12.20-33.
“Those who love their life lose it,
and those who hate their life in this world
will keep it for eternal life.”
Discipling,
not disciplining.
Today in the gospel text
John writes about those who have heard Jesus’ name
and want to see him in person.
These Greeks have come for a festival
and say the famous line
often burned in pulpits,
“Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”
In response to these Greek’s desire to see Jesus,
Jesus tells the disciples and these Greeks
that he must lose his life
and that those who follow him
must do the same.
“The hour has come
for the Son of Man to be glorified.”
Jesus’ glory in John’s gospel
is his life-giving,
self-giving,
work of reconciliation:
being subject to death on the Cross
and defeating death
in the resurrection.
The time has come for Jesus to be glorified.
The time has come for Jesus
to let go of his life
for the redemption of the cosmos.
He says,
“Now my soul is troubled.
And what should I say—
‘Father, save me from this hour’?
No, it is for this reason
that I have come to this hour.”
Those of us who are paying attention
have our souls troubled, too.
The demonstrations of last summer
are almost a year behind us,
but systemic and personal racism
aren’t gone.
Those of us studying The Cross and the Lynching Tree
have been troubled to recount the realities
of lynching in this country.
We’re sharing in the history;
sitting in the stories
that this country would rather forget.
Not telling those stories,
not remembering that history,
leaves those wounds to fester.
Without telling the truth
and working for true reconciliation,
the wounds fester.
Some of that festering
came to a pop earlier this week
when eight women of Asian descent
were murdered.
White supremacy is baked into our culture,
and the police spokesman —
who has been removed —
said the gunman was having a bad day.
With a sick toddler, husband, and self,
I, too, had some bad days this week.
I didn’t murder eight people on any of them.
White supremacy
Is baked into American Christianity,
and only by looking at ourselves —
from the mainline of downtowns’
endowed churches with respectable members
to the store fronts
and offshoots —
will we see and know
Jesus’ true glorification.
Our book group is starting;
and lots of congregations and traditions
are working to unlearn our Whiteness…
but there’s much work to do
in every corner of every church.
Jesus tells us the good news today,
the good news of why we should look at our hard pasts
and let go of what holds us back
from our reconciliation with God and one another:
“Those who love their life lose it,
and those who hate their life in this world
will keep it for eternal life.”
Jesus lays down his life
in his glorification.
Jesus, the son of God and savior of the cosmos,
is willing to undergo a shameful death —
a death called for by a mob —
hanging from a tree,
for crimes he didn’t commit.
“The hour has come
for the Son of Man to be glorified.”
“When I am lifted up from the earth,
I will draw all people to myself.”
Through Jesus’ self-giving
and defeating of death,
God is redeeming the world.
As Jesus draws all people to himself
he sets the example
and tells his followers what they must do
to follow him.
“Those who love their life lose it,
and those who hate their life in this world
will keep it for eternal life.”
Jesus’ call isn’t
to be self-hating
or disciplining —
because it is Lent or because we are human.
Jesus’ call is to let go
of the things that hold us back
and inhibit our redemption,
inhibit our salvation,
inhibit our wholeness and healing
in mind, body, and spirit.
Through Jesus’ self-giving
and defeating of death,
God is redeeming the world.
We saw this week
an ugly display of how
our redemption and salvation,
our wholeness and healing
in mind, body, and spirit,
can be inhibited.
So long as we cling to the old ways,
the ways of white dominance,
the prioritizing whiteness,
the willingness to ignore the past,
those wounds can’t heal.
Those wounds won’t heal.
Our country, society, and souls
won’t heal.
That’s not the end of the story though.
Discipling,
not disciplining.
Through Jesus’ self-giving
and defeating of death,
God is redeeming the world.
In following Jesus,
and putting our whole trust in his grace,
God is redeeming the world
through his disciples.
As we prepare for the font
to baptize Nolan and reaffirm our own promises,
Jesus asks us to be his disciples.
Those who love their life lose it,
and those who hate their life in this world
will keep it for eternal life.
Jesus, in being lifted up on the cross,
has drawn the whole world to himself
as God redeems the cosmos.
Jesus, in being lifted up on the cross,
has told us in both word and deed that
we must die to our lives
and live only in him.
Jesus, in being lifted up on the cross,
has born the cross of white supremacy
and built the way for salvation,
and healing in mind, body, and spirit.
Will we be willing
to lose our lives baked in white supremacy
and follow Jesus?
Through Jesus’ self-giving
and defeating of death,
God is redeeming the world.
Moving toward the font,
living our lives,
will we be Jesus’ disciples?
Amen.