Being Where Christ Is

"Being Where Christ Is"

John 12:20-33
March 29, 2009

Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They
came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see
Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus
answered them, “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 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. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.
“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. Father, glorify your name.” Then a
voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd
standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken
to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the
judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am
lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to indicate the kind
of death he was to die.

The past couple of weeks have been an interesting moment in our history as a country,
for a lot of different reasons, but for me, it’s been most interesting to watch our own
rage about the retention bonuses for AIG employees who helped create the financial
meltdown. To see the rage of ordinary folks about this—and to see these AIG
employees be rewarded for sticking around the scene of the crime, and then to see
their defenders moan about government interference in running a company, a
company that needed a 170 billion dollars of our tax money to keep afloat, and is 80%
owned by you and me—it’s a really interesting thing to behold. Or at least it is to me.
Now, we can agree to disagree about how active the government should in the
economic recovery, but what almost seems universal is a sense that something has
gone terribly wrong, that somehow we have lost our way, and certainly corporate
America seems to have lost its mooring, especially in its ethics, and its sense of
entitlement, entitlement to lots of money even when its loses lots and lots of money. Its
seems as if the system has gotten all of whack—that if you do poorly, you’re as likely to
get rewarded as you are to lose your job, which seems the opposite of capitalism, at
least my rudimentary reading of capitalism.

But, you know, the reality is that the system, the powers that be, have been out of
whack for a long, long time, meaning that this is nothing new. I suspect that during the
good times, or the lack of bad times, we just don’t recognize it as much—it isn’t as if
greed is a new thing, a new phenomenon, but when everyone is involved in the system,
when we’re all playing the game, and trying to get our share, we seem to have less
problems with those who run off with more than their fair share. It’s just that times like
this, times when the inequities become apparent are the times when we realized how
hoodwinked we have been to the ways things are, of how truly greedy we can become,
and how quickly we become aware that the system is broken…and maybe we also
become aware that the system has always been broken.

The system, the man, the powers that be, all of these things are exactly what Jesus
confronted thousands of years ago. I mean, think about it: one of the few stories told
across all four Gospels is the one where Jesus overturns the tables in the Temple,
where he confronts a religious system that seems intent on profiting off the poor and
disadvantaged. Religion has become about getting more, and doing it in the name of
God, something I know never, ever happens with people of faith nowadays. Hah! And
the reality is that Christ gets thrown under the bus by the system, both the religious
system and the political system, because he is seen as a threat, as someone who might
undo the way that things have always been done, or at least the ways that threatened
the people in control.

In our passage today, Jesus is visited by some Greeks, or at least they try to visit him—
it’s never quite clear whether or not they actually get to talk to him, but what the visit
does is to spur on thoughts from Jesus about the meaning of his life, and, really, some
reflection about how the system will soon have its foot on his own neck. There is a
quiet resolve here, but it’s still tinged with the human, with the human feelings of
sadness, maybe even worry—the Scriptures say that Jesus was troubled at what was to
come, what seemed destined to come, but he accepted it, he embraced it, even if the
embrace was half-hearted, and full of sadness. It had come to this: the system, the
powers that be, the way of the world, the ruler of this world, was to have sway over the
coming days and weeks, and it was to have its way with him—something sobering for
even the most spiritual among us, I suspect. Surely, he was concerned about himself—
yes, as much as we tend to make Jesus otherworldy, there is no doubt he would be as
scared and disturbed as we would be in such a moment—but I also think he was
disturbed that the system, the powers that be, would once again, win, or have their
day. It’s one thing to complain about how corrupt about the system, it’s one thing to
complain mightily about the greediness of corporate America, but it’s quite another
thing to actually see it in all of its brash, terrible darkness, to see it having its way with
your 401K. As much as we have benefited from capitalism, as much as capitalism is
probably the best we are going to do on this side of eternity when it comes to ordering
the economic universe, its moment like this that remind us of how much shadow there is
hidden in all of that light. Likewise, it is the same with this moment—as much as the
message Jesus has been preaching and living is really good news and a calling into
question all those things that dehumanize us and dehumanize others, our fellow
children of God, it is quite another thing to know that what you have been questioning
and calling into question, the powers that be, will pay you back by taking your life, will
put you quite literally in the ground!

That death, of course, that death, is so important for us followers of this Nazarene,
because this one death sets us free from prison; it opens up the doors, and shows us a
way to live and a way to die. That image that Jesus uses, the image of a seed being
put in the ground in order to grow, that is beautiful to me, and one can see what Jesus
is pointing to: the seed of his life would make no sense if he did not experience the
final human journey, the journey of death—he could not be another Elijah, another
Melchizedek, those in biblical lore that never tasted the bitter pill of death. Living and
dying, they are a pair, aren’t they, something I’ve been thinking about lately. Some of
you have heard me speak of Clifton Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, Georgia, the
congregation I attended while I was a student in seminary. Clifton was a special little
congregation that I discovered while searching for a different kind of Christianity, and
different it really was. The church was housed in an old house, in which the church ran
a homeless shelter for 36 men 365 nights a year, and on Sunday, the men would roll
up their beds in the sanctuary, which would let the church members put out the folding
chairs, which then sat the 35 or so who gathered there for worship every Sunday.
Church members, and other folks from other churches would staff the place at night,
which was always interesting, at least it was for me. Clifton was also the first More Light
congregation in the Southeast, which is basically the Presbyterian equivalent to Open
and Affirming in the United Church of Christ, which added another layer of specialness,
at least it did in my heart.

My first year in seminary I didn’t do a lot of church going, for a lot of complicated
reasons, one of which was a deep discouragement with the church in general, but
Clifton and its beautiful uniqueness, it helped me to find my way back home to the
church, for which I will remain every thankful. This past week, I found out that Clifton
had closed awhile back, there is no more worshipping community there, which is
heartbreaking to me, because of what it meant to me, and the people that I knew there,
and what they taught me about God and life together. It put me in a funk for a few
days. And then I contacted another former member, and she told me that the homeless
ministry was still going on, and that apartment complex for homeless folks that was just
getting off the ground when I left is still there, housing people, though it is struggling, as
many non-profits are in these tough economic times. In many ways, the worshipping
community of Clifton Presbyterian Church had to die in order to fully focus on what God
had for that ministry, which is sad, and yet, it’s just part of the rhythm of life, as seen in
Christ’s own life—to live you must sometimes die to the old ways of doing things, which
is what Christ seems to be saying in our passage today, and, more importantly, we
have to be willing to let go of the life we’ve always know so that we can have the life that
is being given to us in the present. Losing one’s life for Christ’s sake means to be born
into a new life with new ways of doing things, where the system doesn’t have the kind of
power and sway that it did in the old life. Jesus says we ought to hate our lives in this
world, which simply means that we ought to hate the way the system works, the AIG’s,
the diminishment of people we find in our economics, or our sexism, or racism, or
homophobia, or whatever, whatever says no, when God clearly says yes.

And, most importantly, more important than anything, I think, is where Jesus seems to
be saying that we ought to be where he is—Jesus says, “Whoever serves me must
follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also.” But, of course, figuring out
where Jesus is, is actually the hard part, isn’t it? When I was reminiscing about Clifton
the other day, I’ll never forgot a time when Currie Burris, the pastor of Clifton, and I
were having lunch at a restaurant near my seminary, and I was arrogantly dismissing
the work of First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta, one of those huge, white steepled
church, populated with lots of important people, with a lot of their money. From my
point of view, Clifton was clearly more faithful to Christ’s message than they were,
because of all the wonderful work we did with the homeless and with being inclusive,
etc, etc, etc. Currie was not buying it, and he quickly shot me down, reminding me that
First Presbyterian had its own special mission as well, that it was doing or trying to do
what God had called it to do in particular, and that it was unfair to compare the two
churches, or to assume that one was more faithful than the other. And as much as I
disliked what he said, even my self-righteous heart couldn’t deny what he said was
true. Even they were bucking the system, the powers that be, though perhaps it was a
different kind of bucking than Clifton. The reality is that we are all part of the same
family, but we have different jobs, different purposes in this world. There is a wonderful
story about some Princeton Theological Seminary students who were at the lunch line.
The chef had propped a sign on a big bowl of big, juicy oranges that said: TAKE ONLY
ONE. JESUS IS WATCHING YOU! At the other end of the lunch line, there was a large
plate of freshly baked, steaming hot, chocolate chip cookies. One of the seminarians
had put a hastily written sign over it that said: TAKE AS MANY COOKIES AS YOU
WANT. JESUS IS BUSY BACK THERE WATCHING THE ORANGES. Of course, Jesus is
doing more than one thing at once, thank goodness, but are we doing one of those
things, those things that Jesus is doing—that is question for us, right?

But finding out what our mission is meant to be, and where Jesus is, that is the hard
work for us, isn’t it? Of course, it means thinking out of the box, and it means thinking
about different ways of living out the faith, and it means considering whether or not we
have the courage to die to old ways of doing church, the way we’ve always done them.
Thinking outside the box means thinking outside of this place, and really asking
ourselves the question: where is the Christ present in this town, this county, this part of
Michigan? And are we there? And are we willing to do die so that we can live again,
can have eternal life, so to speak? And no, I’m not saying we are going to close up
shop, that is not what I am saying—but I am asking the question—are we willing to die
to the way we’ve always done things so that we can live a new life, a life where Christ is
even more present with us than he is right now? Clifton did ministry where Jesus
was…and so did First Presbyterian, which shows you that Jesus can be in a couple of
different places doing very different things at the same time! But we so often ask the
wrong questions when churches try to figure out their purpose—we ask ourselves what
we should be doing, rather than asking ourselves what Christ is doing right here, in this
town, in this place, in this neck of the woods. I believe in this church and I believe we’ve
got a lot of ministry left to do—a lot, because this really is a very special, very different
place, a place where Jesus is—but we’ve got to look outside this beautiful box and ask
ourselves where else Christ might be and whether or not we ought to be there as well.
If we’re going to live, we’re going to have to die, so says the divine rhythm of the
universe, and we have to do that personally, as individuals, as we have all had to do at
different times in our lives, dying to the old ways of doing things so we could do new
things—and we have to do that as a community of faith. I don’t know what that means
for us a community of faith, but in the midst of being disturbed by that truth, that to live
we must die, just as disturbed Jesus, I’m a bit excited as well, because we all know what
happened to Jesus after he died, right? Life out of death, hope out of hopelessness,
joy out of mourning, and resurrection out of crucifixion. Amen.