Scripture/Sermon of the Day

20 Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. 21 They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” 22 Philip went and told Andrew, then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. 23 Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 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. 25 Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.

Jesus Speaks about His Death

27 “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. 28 Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” 29 The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” 30 Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. 31 Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” 33 He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.

I. The Old Testament reading for today isn’t in the bulletin but it’s from Jeremiah. The prophet says — I’m paraphrasing —

“I will make a new covenant with you, says the Lord, because your ancestors broke the one I made with them when I took them out of Egypt. They broke it even though I was their husband, says the Lord. So here’s the new covenant I will make with you — I will put my law within you — I’ll write it on your heart and I will be your God and you will be my people. And you won’t have to teach each other about me now. You won’t have to say, “Know the Lord,” because you will all know me. I will forgive all your iniquities and sins.”

II. If God’s law is written on our hearts, it means we don’t have to think about what is God’s will and what isn’t, and the difference between good and evil. We won’t have to think “What would Jesus do?” Remember WWJD? It won’t be necessary. With God’s law written on our hearts, we will do, as if by instinct, what Jesus would do.

III. This happens over time. Look at the people in the Bible — they change, over time. Jeremiah says, “The days are coming….” Yes — the days and the months and the years. It happens over time — God changes us.

IV. This is what practice does — it writes what is being practiced on our hearts so, over time, we don’t think about what to do — we do it as if by reflex. I’ve been learning a song on the guitar called 12 Sticks. It’s a Rev. Gary Davis ragtime song and it has many parts and takes me three to six months to learn and play fluently and up to speed without a lot of mistakes — playing it over and over and over, hundreds of times. Eventually it’s written on my heart and I play it without thinking.

V. Our spiritual practice is like that. We practice putting other people first. We practice serving others, and reading scripture and meditating. We practice slowing down, and doing just one thing at a time. We practice being kind, and not gossiping, and as the apostle Paul says, not insisting on our own way. A lot to practice. Jesus said we have to die — a lot — and be born again, closer to God, and die again, and be born again.

VI. I’m reading a book again that I read about five times when it first came out — THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED by M. Scott Peck. He makes a statement in the early chapters about mental health and the “extraordinary” capacity it demands of us to be flexible with our conflicting needs and goals and responsibilities. We must learn the art, he says, of “giving up.” Or, as Jesus said, “dying.”

Peck said he was first taught this one summer morning when he was nine years old. He’d just learned to ride a bike, and was joyously exploring the dimensions of his new skill. He came to a steep hill that had a sharp turn at the bottom. As he coasted down the hill, picking up speed — he felt ecstatic. Like he was flying! He did not want to give up the ecstasy by using his brakes. He decided that he would maintain his speed and make the turn. He would do both. But his ecstasy ended quickly as his bike ran off the road and the speed propelled his bike into the woods where his arms and legs and face were badly scratched and bleeding. The front tire of his bike was bent by its impact against a tree. Peck said, “I lost my balance.”

“Balancing,” he said, “is a discipline because the act of giving something up is painful. In this instance I had been unwilling to suffer the pain of giving up my ecstatic speed in the interest of maintaining my balance around the corner.” He learned that “the loss of balance is more painful than the giving up required to maintain balance.” But here’s the thing — THIS “GIVING UP” or “DYING” MUST BE RELEARNED THRUGHOUT OUR LIVES.

VII. In our reading today, some Greeks came to Phillip and said, “SIR — WE WISH TO SEE JESUS.” Jesus can be anywhere. He can be here — in us! I saw him, of all places, last Sunday night watching the Academy Awards. It was before the big show started, which Jimmy Kimmel was hosting. And his late-night partner, Guillermo, was there, trying to interview some of the stars of the evening. And it was sad because as he stood there with the mike, and called to the celebrities, they ignored him, or looked at him and continued walking. But one didn’t. Charlize Theron. When Guillermo called her, she stopped, and looked at him and smiled. Then she came over and he interviewed her, often joking, and she’d play along with his jokes. He wanted to do a toast with her with Tequila, which he had in Barbie and Ken bottles, which unscrewed at the head. She said to him, laughing — “How many mouths have touched this?” But she took a swig with him. And then, before leaving, she hugged him. When he looked at the camera to speak, he had tears in his eyes. It was touching — she’s a huge star, and he’s not. But she seemed as excited to be with him as he was with her. As she walked away, he said, to the camera, “That’s my wife.” It was his way of saying, “I love her.”