Be Careful What You Wish For

John 12:20-33

Now 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. Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 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. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.

“Now my soul is troubled. But what should I say – ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.

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“Be careful what you wish for.” That’s all that came to mind when I read this week’s Gospel about those Greeks, those curious souls who show up out of nowhere wanting to meet Jesus. “Be careful what you wish for.” I’ll come back to them in a minute. But, “But be careful what you wish for.”

I think about the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Purdue Boilermakers – and their basketball fans – who were glad, maybe even relieved, to see their teams’ first-round opponents in the NCAA tournament this weekend. Only to be surprised and dismayed and embarrassed, even, to lose to the likes of Oral Roberts University, and North Texas. Be careful what you wish for.

I read this week about a family who was excited about their dog’s pregnancy, only to have her deliver 21 puppies – Neopolitan Mastiff puppies, to boot. Those are some big hounds. Be careful what you ask for.

And we’ve all heard about those lottery winners who wish for and win so much money that, when they get it, it ruins them, because they’re unprepared for what a windfall of wealth like that can do to a person’s perspective.

You get the idea: “Be careful what you wish for.”

And so, back to those Greeks in Jerusalem so many years ago, from this morning’s Gospel. They show up for the celebration of the Passover, where Jesus and his disciples and lots of others have gathered for the festival, and they ask to see Jesus. 

Maybe they’re curious. Maybe they’re skeptical. Maybe they’re considering conversion – or need some healing – or know someone who does – we don’t really know just what they’re up to or exactly what they’re looking for, in Jesus.

We just know they want to see him, presumably because they’ve heard good things. And it seems to me these Greeks, these Gentiles – and Jesus’ disciples and everyone else who was around to hear it, for that matter – get a lot more than they probably expected or bargained for when Jesus starts to let them know what’s to come.

I wonder if Jesus is still trying to break it to them gently when he says, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain of wheat. But if it dies, it bears much fruit,” because, Jesus isn’t talking about wheat in a field. He’s talking about himself on a cross. So what he’s saying doesn’t sound so good – when you get beyond the imagery and the analogy and the metaphor of it all.

What Jesus knew was that his trip to Jerusalem for the festival of the Jewish Passover was going to turn into more than the party everybody else was looking forward to – the Jews the Greeks and everyone in between.

Jesus knows he is that grain of wheat. Jesus is about to fall. Jesus is the messiah who must die in order to accomplish God’s will – for himself and for the world. The disciples didn’t seem to always get it, but I’m trusting and hoping, by now, that we do.

But that’s not even the hardest part of it all, there’s even more to this story – to this life’s journey of faith for that matter – if we listen to all that Jesus predicts and promises about his own demise today. He says, “Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there my servant will be also.”

“Whoever serves me, follows me?” “Where I am, there my servant will be also?”  If serving Jesus means following him to the cross, how badly do we want this job?  If Jesus has plans to be at Calvary, am I the kind of servant who wants to meet up with him there? Is this really what I’ve gotten myself into? Is this really what I bargain for when I pray about being a better disciple; about living more faithfully; about doing God’s will in my life and for the sake of the world?

“Be careful what you wish for,” right?  I wonder if this is what those Greeks thought – and Jesus’ closest disciples, too, for that matter – when he hits them with all of this that day in Jerusalem.

See, I imagine what drew people to Jesus back in the day is very much like what draws people to Jesus now. And, to be honest, what has drawn people to Jesus over the ages isn’t always what God had in mind. So much of the time – then, as now, it seems – what draws people to Jesus is the miracles and healings, the beautiful preaching and clever teachings, the casting out of demons and the walking on water. What draws people to Jesus so much of the time is the Christmas and Easter of it all – the cute, cuddly baby in a manger with all those angels and candles and silent, holy nights; or the empty tomb, rolled away stone, resurrection, and the Alleluias of Easter morning.

But what Jesus promises today – for those first wannabe followers and for all of us, too – is that things are about to get ugly.

He says “the hour has come…to be glorified,” but you and I know now that by “glorified,” Jesus means “crucified.” He means whips and spit, thorns and nails.  He means betrayal, denial, and abandonment. He means despair and darkness and dying. And it sounds like he expects something from you and me in all of this, if we really mean to follow him.

No, the crucifixion isn’t to be for us. No, we’re not asked to endure the whips and the thorns and the nails of it all, necessarily. But we are called to something, and it isn’t always easy or pretty or what we might have signed up for. And with Calvary and crucifixion and the cross looming, we’re called to wonder what that looks like. “Whoever serves me, follows me.” “Where I am, there my servant will be also.” “Be careful what you wish for.”

We serve and follow Jesus when we sacrifice, when we do without – like Jesus did; when we sacrifice our pride, our security, our popularity – like Jesus did; when we make ourselves and our desires small so that God’s will and God’s ways can be glorified – like Jesus did.

We serve and follow Jesus when we welcome the stranger, when we love our enemies, when we forgive who the world will not – like Jesus did.

We serve and follow Jesus when we stand up and speak up and defend the rights of others who are suffering, even if that means risking something ourselves – like Jesus did. (Our Asian-American neighbors seem to be in particular need of some love, attention, and justice these days.)

We serve and follow Jesus when we proclaim a love and a grace and a mercy so big it is an affront to the ways of this world.

So, yeah, let’s be careful what we wish for when it comes to following Jesus. But let’s be bold and faithful and courageous about it all, too. Let’s let God’s forgiveness lead us to forgive in a new way. Let’s let God’s faith in us grow our faith in God. Let’s let the love of God for each of us, move each of us to love one another. Let’s let the generosity of God move us to be more generous; the sacrifice of God, in Jesus, to inspire your own sacrificial living.

Let’s be careful – and prayerful – about what we wish for, because this following Jesus thing isn’t always easy. But we do it, trusting – like Jesus did – that it leads to new life for us and for others, on this side of the grave and beyond.

Amen

Purpose Driven Puppy

Mark 1:14-20

After John was arrested, Jesus came from Galilee proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God has come near.  Repent. And believe in the good news.”

As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fisherman. He said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” Immediately, they left their nets and followed him. As he walked a little farther, he saw James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John, in their boat mending the nets. Immediately, he called them and they left their father in the boat with the hired men and followed him.

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We have engaged a pretty serious training regimen for our new puppy Rosie – something I’ve never done with any other dogs in my life. She’ll be a year-old in March and she spent a week away from home at a place called “Purpose Driven K9” a few weeks ago, learning how to do a few things – like “heel,” which means to walk in-stride, always to the left, and slightly behind the person who is holding her leash. And she’s learning to “auto-sit,” too, which means that when her person stops walking, not only does she stop walking, but she sits without her human having to say or do much to encourage it. And she’s also learning to “place,” or to “stay” in one spot – and be glad about it, too.

If you’ve ever met a puppy – especially a puppy named Rosie, who lives at my house – you can imagine that the idea of staying in “place” – and being glad about it – is a pretty high bar.

All of it is in service to, what her trainers and the program call, achieving “Coffee Shop Mentality.” “Coffee Shop Mentality” is achieved when your dog can sit still, maintain a relaxed state of mind and a calm presence – even out and about in the world – sitting at the coffee shop, perhaps, in spite of whatever dogs or people or squirrels might be around to otherwise tempt and distract and excite them.

But it all seems to begin with following. So, of course, today’s Gospel brought it to mind.

Jesus is out and about, rounding up followers and, unlike Rosie, James and John and Simon and Andrew just seem to follow, to do what they’re told, right out of the gate. No cynical questions, like Nathanael asked last week, when he first met Jesus. (“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”)  No hesitation that – Mark’s Gospel reports, anyway. No tangible end-game, either, really – except for this strange promise of “fishing for people,” which isn’t really all that tempting a lot of days is it? (Sometimes I’d rather just fish for fish, or nothing at all.)

But Jesus seems to simply walk on by, extend the invitation, and those first disciples follow him. They “heel,” if you will. Like perfectly trained, purpose driven puppies.

And what I love about Jesus is the same thing I wondered about when I saw the handful of dogs in Rosie’s obedience class – every one of them different from the next and nothing but a bunch of mutts. We’re not exactly sure what Rosie is … some mix of black lab and German Shepherd, we were told. Her canine classmates included one possibly purebred Husky, but otherwise the breed or pedigree of the other hounds was unclear to me. Again, nothing but a bunch of mutts as far as I could tell.

And Jesus’ disciples weren’t much to crow about when it came to pedigree, either. Fishermen, tax collectors, some women who never even get named right out of the gate. But, just like any good dog trainer, Jesus seems to think he can work with anyone – and that everyone has something to learn, some way to grow, something to offer with a little guidance, some inspiration, a good example, and a whole lot of love.

And I think that’s because the time had come near for him. Like Jonah in our Old Testament reading, so many generations before, Jesus was calling anyone who would listen to pay attention to what was going on in their lives and in the world around them, to recognize their part in it, and to repent, to change, to be transformed by the Good News God was trying to bring to bear upon the world, instead.

See, Jonah was driven to speak out against the wickedness and evil and violence among the people of Ninevah.

Jesus was moved by much of the same, and motivated by the arrest of his friend John the Baptist. He was feeling the call upon his life from that day down by the river, when he was declared “beloved,” and “Son of God,” and “the one with whom God was well pleased.” So, Jesus was moved to help that Good News come to pass, to get the ball of God’s grace for the sake of the world rolling in a new, big, abundant sort of way.

And there’s enough in our lives and plenty going on in the world that I hope moves us to want to live more faithfully, to recognize more honestly our part in the brokenness that surrounds us. As hard as it can be to acknowledge and admit, we are the people of Ninevah, I believe, with plenty of wickedness and evil and violence for which to repent and long to repair. (I’ll spare you the litany of those specifics for now. I feel like I’ve been banging that drum enough lately.)

But, like those first disciples by the sea (and like my dog, Rosie, too), our ability to change and to be changed, to be transformed and to find and live into our purpose, begins with following.

In the face of all that surrounds us, we stay close… and behind… and keep our eyes trained on our master.

We stop every once in a while and we listen carefully for the next command – because there are so many distractions and temptations to do otherwise.

And sometimes God leads us to green, peaceful pastures and beside still waters. 

Sometimes there are mountains and sometimes there are valleys. There are rough places and straight paths, too.

Sometimes God leads us into the center of Ninevah or toward no place we’d recognize or choose if we could.

Sometimes God leads us through sickness and fear and grief and gladness.

But the hope and point of it all, is that God is always leading and always calling us to follow. And God has already arrived and is always waiting, too, in whatever lies ahead for us.

So I’ve decided our “coffee-shop mentality” as Rosie’s trainer calls it, is something, like what it means to live and to be in the world, but not of the world as people of Good News: to know and understand and be grateful for our place in the grip of God’s grace, such that the hardships and challenges and temptations that surround us don’t have the power to unsettle or tempt or distract so much that we lose our focus on where God is leading:

Always home. Always toward mercy and forgiveness and redemption. Always in the name of Jesus, the one who calls us and leads the way, first – even through death and the grave, so that we might follow him with obedience, faith, and hope toward resurrection and new life in his name.

Amen