The Greeks Wish to See Jesus

Scripture Lessons: Luke 7: 1-10 and John 12: 20-33 Sermon title: The Greeks With to See Jesus Preached on March 18, 2018 This last week I was so glad to get to know our neighbors better. I had lunch with Father Roger Allen, the rector at St. James Episcopal Church, and the Associate Rector, Daron Vroon, but before we went to have lunch they gave me a tour of the church. Like us, they've been here for a while, and like us, they've seen some changes. The new sanctuary was built in the 1960's, and the oldest part of the campus is a chapel that predates the Civil War. In it is the 3rd oldest working organ in the state of Georgia, and Father Roger told me that that very organ was torn apart by Union Troops, they filled up the pipes with molasses, then threw it into the street. That night, members of the congregation went out and collected the pieces, so eventually they were able to put the organ back together. A few years after the war ended, the organist was asked to play the reconstructed organ for a wedding. To be married were a nice Marietta girl, and a Union Soldier. The organist agreed to play, but to make her true feelings plain, she wore all black to the wedding, and as the bride walked down the aisle she played Chopin's Funeral March. Isn't that story amazing? Well, after the tour we went and ate sushi, and doing that so casually in Marietta, GA is amazing in and of itself. So, on the one hand, everywhere around here are reminders of two clashing cultures - you can't go anywhere in Marietta without thinking about the war between the states. But on the other, there are the signs of cultures not clashing, but cooperating. Our historic square that's seen so much is also home to diversity, where we can eat food from the other side of the world. And that's good, because Southern culture isn't known for its sushi. Think about all that we have access to because of the diversity of our community. Have you ever had a Mexican popsicle? You can get one down Roswell Road, and you should go try one because their popsicles are better than ours, just like French baguettes from that bakery on South Marietta Parkway (however you say the name) are better than the baguettes you can buy at Kroger. Different cultures bring particular gifts. I think that's true. But to get back to the Civil War, what do the Yankees who come down here do better than Southerners? Nothing. I'm just kidding. Mike Velardi told us last week about the menu he's preparing for when we host our neighboring churches for lunch hour holy week worship services. That he'll be preparing Mutsa-rella sandwiches with basil and tomatoes for lunch to go with soup, and I know that Mike's "mutsa-rella" sandwiches will be more delicious than had they been made with regular old mozzarella. Culture. When you think of culture and our world's history of immigrants, civil wars, foreign languages, and foreign food, you know that culture brings with it particular gifts and particular resentments. That's why you can't just gloss over this week's significant detail in the Gospel of John. It's not by mistake that the Gospel of John tells us that these particular people who "wish to see Jesus" were Greek. And what do you think of when you think of Greek culture? First thing I think of are gyros, or jy-roos, year-os, whatever you call them. But after that I think of this great culture whose influence is still obvious, even today. The gifts of Ancient Greece are Democracy. The philosophy of Socrates and Plato. The literature of Homer. The medicine of Hypocrites. I remember my Greek professor in Seminary telling us that she still believes that the literature of Ancient Greece has yet to be surpassed by any culture, and we were learning to read Greek in seminary because this New Testament that we read from every Sunday was originally written in Greek. Their language was the language of the world. Theirs was the culture imitated across oceans. They were the educated, the refined, and they possessed the great wisdom of the age. Why then do they wish to see Jesus? I've told you for the last two Sundays that the Gospel of John is full of important details, and this one is important. John doesn't tell us that these were foreigners or pilgrims, but specifies Greece, and that means something. It means they're not Roman, and that's interesting to think about. All over Jesus' neighborhood, since he was a kid, were Romans, but how many Romans "wish to see Jesus?" The only one I've been able to think of is that Centurion from our First Scripture Lesson, a Roman soldier, who called to Jesus out of desperation, that his slave might be healed. Isn't that when we're most ready to cross those boundaries of culture and class? When we're desperate for help? Consider the Greeks then. The age of Jesus was the age of Roman power and Roman rule. What was Greece at this point in time but the Rust Belt? The has been? As the Roman star rose, so the Greek star faded, and what does that mean? That means that like the desperate Roman Centurion, the whole Greek nation was full of people who were ready to ask for help. So, "among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, "Sir, we wish to see Jesus." Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus." Why all the back and forth here? I don't know, but when they finally got to him what did Jesus give them? What did he offer these Greeks that no one else could have? What was it that he gave that their own culture could not? He taught them about death. He told these Greeks, whose ancestors built the Parthenon, but that they had seen crumble, that "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." Do you know how that radical teaching would have sounded to them? I can't say for sure, but from time to time people will look at me with pity in their eyes, asking, "Joe, it must be a hard time to be a pastor at First Presbyterian Church. We've heard all about it. How the church split, and the membership declined, and the budget got cut. How are you doing with all that?" People who ask these kinds of questions - they don't realize that when a culture or a church has to face a time of desperation, it has been given the opportunity to reconsider her identity. That when a church faces a hardship, her congregation is invited to stand and fight for what matters. When people look on a church with pity, what they don't realize is that sometimes a grain of wheat must fall in order for new life to rise up and bear fruit - and so I tell them, "Every day is a joy and an adventure, because hope is alive, and God is good, and the Holy Spirit is at work shaping our church into something new." And we can say that, because we know that Christ changed the meaning of death. He redefined hardship. Christ flipped the meaning of suffering. He transformed the grave - this dark place that all people throughout history have feared. He made it into the womb where ever-lasting life is born. But no human culture knows anything about that on her own, and only the desperate cultures go looking for such truth. Rome was busy crucifying criminals to preserve their power, because ultimately, that's what human institutions are all about - preservation of what is. I think that's true. Consider the Greeks. In their hay-day, what did the Greek doctors want to do - preserve life and extend it as far as possible. The philosophers were only considering ways to live well while your heart was still beating. Then you had Dionysus, the Greek god who said, "You're going to die anyway, so you may as well drink good wine while you can." What did the Greeks have as the Parthenon turned to ruin and the Romans rose to prominence while coopting their culture? The Greeks were up a creek without a paddle, because it won't do you any good to preserve life or enjoy it when you're looking down the barrel of decline. That's why Christ taught them about death. That's why he told them that through death, comes new life. Now that's a radical teaching for every culture. And the next verse is even more radical: "Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this will world will keep it for eternal life." What does he mean - he means that we need to think again about this way of life that we're fighting to uphold. This reckless defense of gun rights. And this foolish idea that only gun owners are to blame. We can't be open to the Holy Spirit if we're so busy holding on to self-righteousness. Do we really want to hold on to the conviction that it's someone else's problem when children are dying? Politicians can't fight for what's right if they're solely focused on re-election. That's why our doctors have to think, not just about length of life, but quality of the life that we have left - for so often when we struggle blindly just to hold on to what we have, we are resistant to what God would give if we would simply let go. Don't work so hard to save this life, that you miss the invitation to something better. C. S. Lewis wrote in his great book Mere Christianity, that we are all like children, making mud pies in some back alley, who are reluctant to accept an invitation to the beach. For too often we fight to preserve the life that we know, rather than accept God's invitation to something far better. Those who love their life will lose it, sooner or later, no matter how hard they fight for it. All of what we have we will lose. That's just the way it is. So, don't ever forget, that that those who are willing to let go of their life in this world, who are working for something better, who are trusting God to provide a New Heaven and a New Earth, all of you will be like the child who leaves the mud pies of this present age for the ocean's bright sun and cool waves. What has to happen for all of us is this - we can't be confined to who we are, and we can't be fighting to preserve what we have now. Neither of those matters nearly so much as who he is and where he's leading us. Amen.