UCC Church of Charlotte

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Sermon for Sunday, March 29, 5th Sunday in Lent
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Sunday, March 29, 2009 8:28:25 AM
From:
Phil Hobson   
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To:
Phil Hobson 


For Whose Sake?
Jeremiah 31:31-34 
John 12:20-33

Grace and Peace to you this morning.  Grace and Peace.
    
We are getting near the end of the story.  Jesus has come to Jerusalem.  The face-off with the powers that be is about to take place.  And so we come to this morning’s reading, where some Greeks have come up to the festival and want to see Jesus.  
    
In our usage, a Greek means someone from Greece, as opposed to Romans, or Phoenicians, or Gauls, or Egyptians, or from some other place.
    
But in Roman occupied Israel, there are two groups: Jews and Greeks.  Greek was not a nationality among nationalities.  It meant Gentile, non-Jew.  So Paul can speak of “in Christ there is neither east nor west, slave nor free, Jew nor Greek, male nor female.”  Even though Greece has been supplanted by Rome as the military, political and economic center of the world, Greek culture was still dominant.
    
“Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks.”
   
But Jesus doesn’t meet with them.  He speaks to his disciples of his death, and a few verses after our reading, goes and hides himself from the crowds.
    
Which makes us wonder, who is he here for?  Why does he snub these Greeks from having an audience.  They aren’t the ones trying to arrest him; that’s the Pharisees.  They aren’t the ones who will put him to death; that’s the Romans.
    
It brings up the question, for whose sake does he say these things, and for whose sake does he die?  Is it just for the lost sheep of the house of Israel?  Or is it for the world?
    
There are a couple of possibilities for who these Greeks might be.  They could be pagans who worship anything and everything.  If there is a festival, it is better to hedge one’s bets and go worship there, too.  Sort of a blanket religious insurance policy.  Worship all of them so that if any of them are listening, you are covered.
    
They could be converts to Judaism, who are religiously Jewish, but ethnically not.  This one seems less likely, for some mention of their conversion would make more sense.
   
 A third option, that they were pagans who had attached themselves to the temple and the synagogue, makes more sense.  These were the ones who weren’t full-fledged members of the community, but found in the Torah and the teachings and the worship of Yahweh something life-giving.  Many of the synagogues of the day listed pagan names among those who helped finance the building.  Luke calls these people the “God-fearers.”  They weren’t Jewish by birth or by conversion.  They lived a more Jewish life, sought the covenant of God more than the pagan practices of their neighbors.  They haven’t turned their lives over fully, but they show up for Hanukkah and Passover.
    
These God-fearers were one of Paul’s target audiences for his letters.  People who knew enough of the teachings of covenant, enough of the stories of Abraham and Moses and the prophets for the Gospels’ and Paul’s language to make sense, but not so firmly rooted in Judaism as to fight this upstart group of radicals who followed the way of Jesus.  People who were attracted to the covenant of God, but had not gotten set in their ways yet.
    
One way to make sense of this story is to remember that people can only hear you if they are moving toward you.  It is hard enough to talk to someone moving away from us, but ever try to talk to someone who is dead set on staying put, right where they are?  We can talk all we want, we can reason and plead and offer excellent arguments and beautiful illustrations, but if they aren’t moving towards us, they will never hear what we have to say.  And yelling louder just gets them to move away.  The louder the faster.
    
The timing of Jesus speaking here and showing what is about to happen is curious.  His first disciples are all Jews.  There are even some Pharisees and scribes and council members starting to follow his Way.  He has been out into Gentile territory, and people there have started to follow him, like the woman at the well and her village.  Now he has some of the God-fearers showing up.  Some of those half-pagan/half-Jewish folks want to see him.  So now that he has people of every category moving towards him, it is time, not just to teach, but to show what the Messiah must do.
    
This passage isn’t here to say salvation is only for one group and another gets snubbed.  Even with Matthew’s pagan, foreign magi being the first to bring tribute, the Gospels all start off with his message and healing and the kingdom being about a rather small circle, the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  But in each one, it opens wider as we go.  It isn’t just for one people’s sake that Jesus came.  For God so loved me and mine?  No.  Us and ours?  No.  The world.
    
Which is where Paul gets his language of there being no east or west, slave or free, male or female, Jew or Greek in Christ.  Such distinctions, used by the world to divide and dismiss, for one to lord over the other, to say one is better than another and it is us versus them, these fall away when we see people as Christ sees them.
    
It isn’t about who we are, where we are from, who are parents were, what we have accomplished, how much we have made or produced or earned or saved or given away.  It is about in whom we trust ultimately.  It is about where we put our faith, and what we do with it.
   
It is about living in the expectation of faith, expectation of the resurrection, expectation of the new covenant that Jeremiah preached, where God’s ways are written on the hearts of people so we don’t have to go around thinking we have to judge and correct, walking around ashamed or shaming.  A day when the fullness of God is known, when we live in right and good relationship with our world of neighbors and our world.  Where we know who we are and whose we are.
    
Some write off such a vision as too idealistic, too pie in the sky, too impossible given how easily we fall back into the ways of the world.
    
Some believe in such a world, but have been disappointed so many times by how long it is taking to get here that they would just as soon give up on hoping.
    
But some have come to live in the expectation.  They seek to live the way the world might yet be.  They don’t wait for their neighbor to show compassion, they show it themselves.  They don’t wait for their neighbor to be generous and helpful.  They get generous and offer help themselves.  They don’t check and see if it is safe to live the way Jesus taught, they just go ahead and do it as best they are able, trusting in the teacher and the lessons.
    
And it is good to remember that Jesus isn’t here just for them - God so loved the world.
    
So whether we are living expectantly, as faithfully as is humanly possible, or simply struggling day to day, trusting only in ourselves, or the market, or whatever else, God loves us.
    
Let me say that again, God loves you.
    
And when we finally get that, and all that it means, maybe we too will live expectantly, in the hope and joy and peace of Good News giving that we might live.
    
Thanks be to God.
Amen.