Sermon 4/2/06
On Purpose - John 12:20-33
(view lectionary notes for this text)
Last year, a movie version came out of the hilarious Douglas Adams book, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I always like to read the book before I see the movie, so I picked up the book, and read through the first in the series before seeing the film. One of the main themes in the book is a plot line that has “a race of hyper-intelligent . . . beings who buil[d] a computer named Deep Thought to calculate the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.” The computer spends 7 million and a half years pondering, and finally comes up with the answer: 42. "Forty-two!" they respond. "Is that all you've got to show for seven and a half million years' work?" "I checked it very thoroughly," said the computer, "and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you've never actually known what the question is." (1)
Adams obviously writes with a sense of humor, but I think he also writes with an awareness of our human condition. We are seekers, and questioners, and we want answers. My mother likes to share the story of a time when I was very young, and she found on my night stand, a letter to God that I had written in red crayon. It went like this, “Dear God, I have lots of questions. I know you have the answers. Can you please right them here?” Then I had left a big blank space, and left the red crayon for God to answer with. My mother sat down and talked with me about the different ways God talks to us, and that God might tell me things in my heart instead of on paper. But today, she always says she regrets telling me this – I had faith God would answer in crayon. Maybe if she faith had too, she wonders, maybe God would have written all the answers for me. And we do want the answers. At least I do. I like to figure things out, and my faith life is no different. I want to know who God is, and what God’s like, and what God wants from me.
I think we all want the answers to these questions, at least in part. We do want to know what life is about. We want to know who God is to us, and what we are to God, and what we can and will be. That is the journey of life. We want to know what our purpose. What is the purpose of life, in general, but more specifically – what is the purpose of my life – of one’s own life? What is your purpose? Perhaps you don’t think of these questions in particular, but if you look at best-selling booklists, you might be persuaded that our purpose in life is a topic that’s on a lot of people’s minds. For example, one of the most popular books of late to hit both the Christian and secular book market is Rick Warren’s series – The Purpose Driven Life and The Purpose Driven Church. Millions have purchased the books. I had to read Purpose Driven Church in seminary. Churches today participate in programs like, “40 Days of Purpose,” focused on Warren’s books. He clearly hit on to something that touches us in our hearts. We want to know what we’re for. We want to know our purpose.
Our gospel lesson today, here on the edge in this Fifth Sunday in Lent, the last before Holy Week begins, we find a text that’s filled with purpose. Some Greeks – in other words, some Gentiles, some non-Jews, ask to see Jesus. Philip and Andrew go to tell Jesus. Jesus responds in a way that may seem off topic: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” But he continues, “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.” This part of the passage should sound somewhat familiar. It is both a common passage for funerals, and a common theme of Jesus’ preaching: everything you know means exactly it’s opposite. First is last. Losing is saving. Death is life.
Then Jesus turns his focus to his own ministry. He admits that his own soul is troubled by what he knows is coming. “But what should I say,” Jesus asks, “Father, save me from this hour?” “No,” Jesus answers his own question, “it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.” Then Jesus hears God’s voice, affirming what Jesus is doing and what he must do, and Jesus tells the crowds that God’s voice is to help them believe, and he promises to draw all people to himself.
This is a scripture text about purpose, and Jesus knows his purpose. He is very aware of the consequences he will face if he continues to preach his radical message of love, the life-changing message that God’s grace and favor can’t be earned by piety but is God’s gift to us. It isn’t a purpose he takes lightly or easily. Indeed, we read that Jesus says openly that his soul is troubled. How could he not be troubled and anxious? But that’s hardly the point, he says. The point is, he’s here to do what he’s meant to do. “And what should I say,” he asks, the skepticism ringing in his words, ‘Father, save me from this hour?’ No. It is for this reason that I have come to this hour. In other words, Jesus’ life and presence on earth has a purpose. What would the point be if in the end, he turned away from his purpose because it was too difficult, too hard? The meaning of his life is wrapped in his actions – his preaching, as the saying goes, can only be powerful in the proof of practice.
And Jesus preaches and teaches an example for us to follow too. “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.” In other words, a seed, a grain, has some purpose in itself. But unless that grain dies, in a sense – goes into the ground where it can be nourished and spring forth new life – unless that seed does that, it has a very limited purpose. To fulfill its true purpose, a grain must be buried in the earth, and be broken apart, and be completely changed into something else.
Our lives are like these grains Jesus speaks of. We can have some purpose on our own, an individual grain, an individual soul going through life. But we won’t find much fulfillment that way, and we won’t be living into our full purpose as creations of God. What is your purpose? To find out – to live into the fullness that God offers us, we must be willing to be planted, even if it feels like we’re going to some dark places. To find our purpose, we must be opened, even if we experience the pain of being opened. To find our purpose, we must be cultivated and cared for as we grow into something beautiful, even if it feels like we don’t even recognize ourselves as what we once were. And what should we say? God, we’d rather find ourselves and our lives to be meaningless? We’d rather be empty than filled by you? No, it is for God that we were created, and in God that we find our purpose.
As we gather at the table, let us be filled not only with the gifts of bread and wine, but also with the life that these gifts represent. Let us come and be filled with meaning. Come, and be filled with purpose. Amen.
(1) From Wikipedia entries on Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and 42.