By Stefanie Grossano MDiv III
Seminarian in the Memorial Church of Harvard University
(The following is a transcript of the service audio, March 17, 2024)
There are many ways to tell time. Grace Lee Boggs, the Chinese American philosopher and activist often posed the question, "What time is it on the clock of the world?" In this question, she implies a sort of universal clock that measures the tides of social change. She used this question to encourage people to think about what is ours to do in this particular moment?
On the Christian liturgical clock, it's the fifth Sunday of Lent, which is the penultimate Sunday before Holy Week. We are right before Palm Sunday, where Jesus will make His triumphant entry into Jerusalem. The reading today is slightly ahead of us. In John's account of Jesus' life, our story comes after Jesus enters Jerusalem. It's a turning point. The narrative is picking up speed, which is why there is so much going on in this lesson.
In the story, a group of Greeks clamors to see Jesus. Jesus says that the hour of His glorification has come. He becomes troubled, faltering before recommitting to His mission. The heavens open. God says that He will in fact glorify Jesus. The bystanders are confused. Jesus ends with an ominous and hopeful warning. When He's glorified, the ruler of this world will be driven out and all people will be drawn to Him.
It feels like the scene before the intermission of a play. We know that something is about to happen, but we're not entirely sure what. We hear repeatedly, the words, our, time, now, glory. Jesus too is concerned with telling the time. On the clock of Jesus' world, the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. But what does it mean for Jesus to be glorified and what does it mean for us as His followers, reading the clock of the world today?
The image that Jesus gives us of His glory is not the singular exaltation of a king that He just received entering Jerusalem. The image that He gives of His glory is collective and it begins with a grain of wheat. After proclaiming that the hour of glory is here, Jesus tells a short parable. He begins, "Very truly, I tell you," or, "Listen closely." He continues, "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." Dying the grain bears much fruit. Living the grain remains a single grain. A more literal translation would be that the living grain remains alone.
The verb remain is used over 40 times throughout the Gospel of John. In those contexts, it means something else,, perhaps the opposite of remaining alone. In those contexts, it means to abide with, to dwell with, to become intimately united with someone. It describes the indwelling, not only between God and Jesus, but between God, Jesus, and all of creation.
So what is being contrasted here in this parable is a solitary life versus a collective life. The grain cannot be glorified unless it becomes intimately united with soil, water, and sun. Then it becomes more of itself. Then it bears much fruit. We cannot be glorified, we cannot become more of ourselves, unless we are intimately united with God and with our neighbor. Glory, it turns out, is a collective endeavor. Will we be the grain of wheat who remains alone? Or will we be the grain of wheat who abides with, dwells with, God and our neighbor?
Jesus tells us and shows us what it means to live intimately united with God and one another. Following the parable, He goes on, Whoever serves me must follow me." This is a foreshadowing of what Jesus will say to His disciples in just a few days when he washes their feet, "Love one another as I have loved you." Love one another by including the outcast, healing the sick, turning over the tables, speaking truth to power, even by giving up your life.
––
Then He goes on, "Where I am there my servant will be also." To love and serve God and neighbor is evidence of our intimate uniting, evidence that our interests have become their interests. This is how Jesus loved us, and this is the life that we are called to. This is not about self-denial or self-abasement. This is about indwelling. I in you and you in me.
Let's be clear though. This kind of collective life requires something of us. It is costly. We see this cost when Jesus faces His death. The text says that Jesus' soul, the very core of His being, is shaken with fear. He's only able to recommit to His mission, He's only able to turn towards the cross, when He realizes that He is not acting alone own. He says, "Father, glorify Your name." And God the Father responds, "I have glorified it and I will glorify it again."
Here again, we see the indwelling of God, Jesus, and creation. God has already glorified Jesus because it is not only in choosing to die that Jesus will experience glory. It is the whole of His earthly ministry, where His life becomes intimately bound with the lives of others, that glorifies God. And it is this intimately united life that gives Him the courage, the will, the interest, to sacrifice His life.
We too are at a turning point. The narrative that we are living in has picked up speed. We too are not sure what is coming next. But we can see that the forces of oppression are rising. And yet the moments when I have felt the most hope over the last few months have been when I see the presence of indwelling, when I see evidence that I live in you and you live in me.
I saw this most vividly on a cold October afternoon in the lobby of the federal building in downtown Boston. The facade of the 300 foot building towered over us as we approached. Some wore knit caps on their heads, others tan shawls around their shoulders. Others wore stoles around their necks, and still others were in plain clothes. Eyes darted to each other in anticipation as we entered the building, and circling the cold tile floors of the lobby. We were an interfaith coalition, intimately united in our grief over the unfolding violence in Israel and Palestine and intimately united in our understanding that I dwell in you and you dwell in me. And so all life must be held as precious.
And so we remained in, dwelled in the building, demanding that the rulers of this world work for peace. We spoke and we prayed and we sang out, proclaiming our indwelling. One of the songs we sang went, "I did not come here alone. I carry my people in my bones. If you listen, you can hear them in my soul." We were in our glory.
When I see people move collectively, I know that something of their individual life has been surrendered to a much larger collective, a collective that is capable of holding so much more pain and so much more hope than any one individual of us can. For Christ followers, Jesus modeled living collectively. His sacrifice that this type of life compelled gives us the courage that we too can grow in our capacity, not only to dwell on Him, but to dwell in one another. When we share in a collective life like that, we move differently, we love differently.
So what time is it on the clock of the world? Is it still the hour of glory? The hour when we will choose to live collectively? If we choose to be intimately united with God and neighbor, it can be.