Christian by Vocation
Text: John 12:1-8, 20-33 (esp v. 24-26)
By: Rev. Terry Carty
Date: 3-25-12
Place: Kingston Springs United Methodist Church
Season: Fifth Sunday in Lent
Main Point: Dying with Christ is a different kind of martyrdom in most of our lives. It is hating our soul in this world, dying to secular ambition, and living to eternal standards – i.e. becoming hand-maiden to Christ.
I find it very difficult sometimes to read scripture and to appropriate it to my living. Does the same thing happen to you?
The scriptures that we just read for instance. Did you find that you heard the one about Mary tenderly washing Jesus’ feet with her hair, but you basically can not remember the passage that I read because it was so difficult? Or did you reject it from consideration?
Christian discipline calls us to consider the truth of all parts of our Bible. Today I want us to particularly consider some passages that are difficult. I encourage you to grab a pew Bible and read as I read this aloud:
24 I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. 25 The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.
When I first read this in preparation for preaching it, I thought of a character in Dan Brown’s book The Da Vinci Code. The book puts us in the mind of the albino monk Silas, who ritually tortures himself as a lifestyle of penance. He is filled with self-loathing to the point that he uses a whip to beat his own back and he wears clothing that causes his discomfort. Is that really what Jesus meant when he spoke of hating our life in this world?
My working title for this sermon was “Dying.” But as I struggled with the scripture I began to see that it was far different from a call to martyrdom. Many people have literally died for their faith in Christ, but this may be calling us to something much more accessible than that.
Let me clear a couple of things up so we can hear this in a different way. First, the passage does not say that the one who hates life with keep it forever. It says whoever hates his or her life in this world will keep life in eternity. The phrase “Life in this world” and the connection to the arrival of the Greek Jews who have journeyed to Jerusalem for Passover are indicators that Jesus is talking about those who love or hate life in this world-order. This is referring to people’s station in life – status in the eyes of the world. You can’t take it with you.
Let me give you an image to think about. I remember when my little boy was about 2 years old and he loved to play with the blocks in the church nursery. They were all different colors and shapes. Sometimes he would stand there with a block in each chubby little hand and look at another block that he really wanted to pick up. I could see his little mind wrestling with the dilemma of whether he could put down one his blocks in order to pick up the other one that appealed to him.
Keeping life in eternity does not mean just living forever enjoying the status that he have garnered in this world. We have to put down the status that we may have worked very hard to get in this world, in order to pick up our place in the eternal world. And the eternal world has already begun. Do we chose to hold status in the world order or to release it and pick up our place in the eternal order?
The second thing I want to clear up is the reference to whoever serves Jesus must follow Jesus. The word that is translated serve is really ‘deacon’ which roughly means to be a hand-servant. One who serves the every needs of Christ.
It is not coincidental that the 12th chapter of John begins with the story of Mary washing Jesus’ feet with her hair and anointing him with costly perfumes. She shows us the image of the servant, the deacon, the hand-servant. She surrenders all earthly status to take the most lowly attitude in society. And Jesus elevates her status to the eternal.
As our season of Lent draws closer to Holy Week and to the cross, I see implications here that Jesus calls us to make Christianity our vocation – our calling in life. Many of us have worked our way through education and through life experience to gain the respect of our supervisors and our co-workers. We may have trophies on our shelves or plaques on our walls somewhere to celebrate our achievements and our awards.
But is Jesus calling us to place our pride in selfless servanthood to Christ’s purposes? Is the dying that he talks about really a death to seeking accolades for achievements in this world’s standards – and a new life borne of eternal standards?
I don’t think that we must quit our jobs, sell our cars and houses, and take a vow of poverty in order to reject this world order. I think that it is a turn of the heart to that of a hand servant that sets our life in eternal mode.