John
12:20-33
The other night, I happened to catch a
small part of a TV program about “voluntourism.” It’s a relatively new idea, in
which people pay to go somewhere – like Haiti or rural Africa – and offer to
help to make a difference for a week or two. In one story I saw, a middle-aged
white American woman was holding an African infant and interacting with the
child. Later, the woman said to the camera, “I was singing Twinkle, twinkle, little star over and over again. The child and the child’s mother had
no idea what I was saying. But the mother was delighted that I was able to take
her child and help her stop crying.”
In another scene, two women were
talking about the diaper rash on the babies they saw. They commented that the
children were wearing only rags. When they returned, they would bring cloth
diapers and soap and teach hygiene to the mothers.
When these women made arrangements to
travel to Africa to serve as volunteers, I’m sure they had no idea that they
would end up singing to a crying baby, or planning to return to teach mothers
about diaper hygiene, but the joy of doing so was shining through their eyes. We
can only imagine what the African mothers they encountered were thinking about
these American women.
In today’s gospel reading, some people
who speak Greek – which probably means they were Jews from an area far from
Jerusalem – want to see Jesus. They approach the disciples and ask for an
opportunity to meet Jesus. By this time, however, Jesus has tunnel vision. He
has no time for private interviews with new people. His eye is on the cross and
the mission after it.
“If a seed doesn’t die and fall to the
ground, it can never sprout and grow and produce fruit. In the same way, I must
die and be buried, and be raised from the dead, so I can give you all the gift
of eternal life. The same goes for all of you. If you hold onto the things you
have in this life, you can never have access to the good things God has for you
if you let go of what you already have. You must give yourselves away in order
to really live.”
Every time Jesus tells the disciples
he will die and be raised, they always focus on the dying part. They don’t
understand the “being raised” part, so they don’t spend much time thinking
about it. They don’t want Jesus to die. It’s that simple.
We like to hold onto what we have,
even if it isn’t much. We don’t trust God to replace what we have with
something much better. And we hear these words from Jesus as losing something,
giving up something. We don’t hear the other part, the getting something even
better part. Jesus is clear. If we give up something, we will gain even more. And,
we will bear God’s kind of fruit. We often don’t know when we are bearing
fruit, because we are looking in the wrong place for it.
Bearing fruit may seem like the girl
with a bucket. Several times a day, the girl walks from her house to the nearby
stream to get water for household tasks: cooking, bathing, cleaning, laundry.
The bucket has a hole in it, so it takes her longer than it takes other
children to get enough water for each task. She has to make more trips to the
stream to fill the water barrel.
One day, the girl was feeling sad about
how long it took her to carry the water. “I could be helping you more, Mother,
if I had a bucket without a hole in it.” But the girl’s mother smiled and
turned the girl around. “Just look at the side of the path where you walk. What
do you see there?” “Just some weeds,” the girl pouted. The mother told her
daughter, “Those are not just some weeds. Those are beautiful daisies, which
would not be blooming there if your bucket didn’t leak water out onto them
every time you brought water to the house.”
We like to know that what we are doing
produces the right kind of fruit, and enough fruit to matter, according to our
method of judgment. We like to use tally marks: I gave away 500 flyers and only
2 people came to our event; I give 25% of my income to the church; I’m not any
good at doing churchy things, so I won’t even try.
But, God has different ideas of how
much fruit and what kind of fruit we are expected to produce. In order to see
what we are able to produce, we must allow ourselves to be used by God. We may
instantly see the produce of our seed-planting. It may also take years for us
to see how the seed we have planted takes root and sprouts and grows into fruit.
Most of the time, we never know what fruit God has produced through our
seed-planting.
Helping people come to faith in Jesus,
or to join our congregation is one kind of fruit. Or perhaps the fruit God asks
us to produce is welcoming strangers, or visiting the homebound, or teaching
about Jesus, or feeding hungry people, or caring for the sick. We may never
know the fruits of our labors, because the results are not so visible. We also
may never know the fruits of our labors because we are looking in the wrong
place for them.
The water-carrying girl never noticed
the daisies she watered with every bucket she carried. The women volunteers in
the video I mentioned did not know when they left home that the simple gifts of
singing to babies, and washing babies’ bottoms could make such a difference.
The fruit they bore had long-lasting impacts on their own lives and the lives
of the African families they encountered.
As you look back in your own lives,
what seeds did others plant in you? Who told you the stories of Jesus? Who took
you to Sunday school? Who forgave you when you deserved punishment? Who sat
with you and prayed with you during a time of trouble or sadness? Who laughed
with you in times of joy? Who invited you to do service in Jesus’ name? Who
served you in Jesus’ name? Who loved you unconditionally?
What seeds do you know you have
planted in others? With whom have you shared the stories of Jesus? Who did you
take to Sunday school? Who have you forgiven even they did not deserve
forgiveness? When have you sat and prayed with someone in a time of trouble or
sadness? With whom have you laughed in a time of joy? Whom have you invited to
do service in Jesus’ name? Whom have you loved unconditionally?
What seeds do you hope you have
planted? It is only in giving ourselves away that we plant lasting seeds, and
obtain for ourselves a long-lasting relationship with Jesus.
Please pray with me: Jesus you died
for us, even though we would prefer that you never had to die. Plant your seeds
in and through us, so that all may know your deep love for us. Amen
