Elma United Methodist Church

From Seed to Bumper Crop

Elma United Methodist Church

From Seed to Bumper Crop

Dan Shelly

Elma United Methodist Church

April 2, 2006

(John 12:20-33, Jeremiah 31:31-34)

 

Our gospel lesson today is one of those little gems within Scripture that contains lots and lots of different stories within it, each of which you could focus on when you’re working on a sermon.  In fact there are so many different things there, that it makes it kind of hard to choose which one to talk about.  So in choosing our topic for this week, I decided to look back over the past few weeks just to see where we have been and try to use that to put today’s reading into context.

 

As I did that, it began to remind me of when I was a kid and went off to summer camp.  There was a lot I didn’t like about summer camp, and coming home from camp always felt a little like getting out on parole, getting sprung from somewhere you really wanted to get out of!  But one thing I did like was Saturday evenings because that meant it was movie night.  On Saturday evenings they’d pile all of us boys into a converted barn used as an auditorium, and show us some of the most ancient, dusty, old, black & white movies you can imagine.  Slip Mahoney and the Bowery Boys, James Cagney singing and dancing in Yankee Doodle Dandy, early Tarzan films.  It was all action and adventure, and we would start out the beginning of each movie night by seeing a new episode of one of the serial adventures of Flash Gordon.  Now these weren’t from the color version made in 1980, these were the vintage Flash Gordon films from the 1930’s starring Buster Crabb as Flash.  Each week Flash would blast off in his space ship (which looked an awful lot like a sparkler on a string) and try to save the universe, and his beautiful assistant Dale Arden, from evil villains like Ming the Merciless from the planet Mongo.  And each week, Flash would find himself in some mortal danger just as the episode ended.  Then we’d have to wait a whole week just to see how he escaped once again from the chilling grips of certain death.  And to start off each episode, they’d have an introduction going something like “Last week when we left our hero, he was trying to rescue his assistant Dale, but found himself instead hanging on to the edge of a cliff for dear life…”  This was supposed to catch you up and get you ready for the current episode.  You may recognize this cinematic devise because Stephen Spielberg shamelessly used it in the making of Star Wars.  He too loved these old series adventure movies.

 

And that’s what I thought of when I looked back over the last several Sundays.  As we journeyed with Jesus over Lent he has called us to a time of prayer and fasting, allowing our faith to grow and strengthen.  He has challenged us not to be like Veal Calf Christians, raised on nothing but milk and never venturing outside the walls of our stalls, but instead invited us to be about our Father’s work in the world.  He grabbed a whip, and showed us how to move from Veal Calf Christians to Zeal Filled Christians.  Jesus invited us to let go of our comfortable lives, pick up our cross and follow him.  And last week, Jesus called us to be God’s light of healing in the world. 

 

This week, we find Jesus once again in Jerusalem, but he appears to be a bit wistful as he contemplates the road that God has given him to travel.  He asks, “What should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.”  And what is it that he tells his disciples that he’s come to this hour to do?  He tells his them,

 

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.

 

Jesus knows that he can continue to do a lot of good in his individual ministry.  He’s seen people healed, people restored to both spiritual and to physical health.  His followers have heard of the coming Reign of God, and many have believed.  And right here in Jerusalem, daily Jesus was teaching to large crowds in the temple.  By any account, things were going really well for Jesus, the crowds loved him, and almost everything he had hoped for was happening around him.  But Jesus also knew that he was just one single man.  He could hang on to the ministry that he was doing, and I suspect that God would have continued to bless that ministry.  Jesus could have hung on to his life just as it was, but he knew that his current ministry was effective only in touching the lives of a few of the people in this corner of Israel and that even that ministry would be short lived and eventually lost.

 

Jesus also knew that God’s vision was much broader and much wider.  God’s vision of salvation included a new covenant the encompassed the entire World, but for this to be fulfilled, Jesus needed to let go of his own wants, his own desires, the success of his individual ministry.  Like that single grain of wheat that falls into the earth and dies, God’s vision required Jesus to follow God’s will for his life – God’s will that made little sense to those in the World.

 

This new covenant, God’s vision for the World was expressed for us today in our reading from Jeremiah:

 

I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. 

 

Like a grain of wheat falling into the ground to die, Jesus’ obedience to God would bring a new relationship between the World and God.  It would break the chains that separate us from God and open our hearts to let God’s Holy Spirit dwell within us.  Jesus lived among us to teach and show us this new relationship with God the Father, and he followed God’s will for his life to bring all of us into that same relationship.

 

This would be a great and an upbeat place to end today’s sermon, and another example of the Cheap Grace we talked about the other week, the Cheap Grace that grows Veal Calf Christians, because in Jesus all the work is done and there’s nothing more that we need to do.  But let’s take another look at what Jesus had to say today.  Right after he told us he needed to follow God’s will for his life that others might live, he goes on to say:

 

Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.

 

Jesus goes on to tell us that to be his disciples requires a response.  Jesus talked about Response-able Grace, a Grace through which we too are called to listen and respond to God’s leadings in our lives.  And if you think about Jesus’ parable of the grain of wheat, this really does make sense.

 

If a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it bears much fruit.  But it doesn’t bear grains of corn, or grains of rice.  It doesn’t bear soybeans, or string beans, lima beans or any other kind of crop.  If a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it bears a bountiful harvest of more wheat! Through obedience to God’s will, Jesus gave his life not only to bring all of us back into full relationship with God, but also so that we too could now hear the God the same way he heard God, and respond to the call to be about God’s work within the world.  We too, like Jesus, are called to find and follow God’s will for our lives that others might live.  In this new relationship, you aren’t just declared to be children of God, joint heirs with Jesus, but you’re also declared to be God’s seed grain - the very grain that God wants to plant within the World to bring forth a bountiful harvest. 

 

And we have a choice.  We can remain right there in the sower’s bag and spend our whole lives living as a single grain of wheat, a grain bursting full of life and potential that never breaks forth because we never allow ourselves to be planted.  We never gave control over to God to use us as a part of God’s plan.  Or we can ask God to show us when and where he wants to plant us.  We, like Jesus, can learn to say, “Not my will, but Thine be done.”  Then and only then will we see an amazing harvest of new life growing forth as we follow where God leads us and live out our lives as part of God’s plan for redeeming the Earth.

 

How did Jesus know God’s will for his life?  How did he know where God wanted him to be planted?  He spent time in quiet and in prayer listening to his Father.  How can we too know God’s plan for our lives?  We can follow in Jesus footsteps.  Spend time in prayer and humble surrender to God and God’s Holy Spirit will speak within our hearts and within our lives to show us where we too are called to be planted.  Where we too are called to let go of our own lives, all of our own wants and desires, and instead live a life of love and service that brings forth new life in others.

 

We are God’s seed grain, God’s gift to the world, filled with new life and love.  May God plant each of us in the perfect time and perfect place to bring forth a bountiful harvest of love and redemption here on Earth.