Lent 5B 2006 John 12:20-33

Today’s gospel is in part about transforming events, from old lives to new lives, of wishing to become something more than we are, of seeing what we can become.

It was Passover time in ancient Israel and many people were coming to worship on Mount Zion, in Jerusalem’s glorious Temple. Among them were some Greeks, foreigners, pilgrims in the land. They approached Philip, one of Jesus’ disciples, and made a request of him: “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”

Philip went to Andrew, and then the two of them go to find Jesus, and they find him. It’s sort of like the childhood games of connect the dots, these connections hook people together into lifelines, pulling them together, weaving them in the circle of discipleship.

It is a pattern, a design, an embroidery, a tapestry of life, the way of life for those who call themselves Christians, those who belong to the company of Jesus. We need each other in order to see Jesus, to be saved. Jesus comes to us through others, through the lifelines, the threads of the embroidery, the pieces of the tapestry of the lives of everyone in our communities.

Take a small piece of embroidery, for example. When I was little, I had a widowed great aunt who used to sew a great deal. Aunt Eula was also my Sunday School teacher and often my babysitter as well. Perhaps because she thought I needed a great deal of extra instruction in these things – and she may well have been right – she used every opportunity to teach me about Jesus and God and all manner of holy and sacred things.

One day while she was sewing, I was sitting on the floor at her knees. I looked up from the floor and asked what she was doing. She informed me that she was embroidering.

From below the underside of the piece of embroidery on which she was working I watched her work within the boundaries of the little round hoop she held in her hand. Unable as usual to seize the golden moment to remain silent, I said that this embroidery stuff really looked messy from where I was sitting.

Ever a patient soul where I was concerned, she smiled at me, looked down and said in her quiet sweet way, “Child, if you will just go play for a little while longer, when I am finished with what you think is a mess, I’ll put you up in my lap and you can see it from my side, from above.”

And when I climbed up there, I was thrilled, delighted, and entranced to see a beautiful flower glowing on the white background. I couldn’t believe it, because it had looked so messy from underneath.

Then Aunt Eula said something I’ve never forgotten. She said, “From underneath it did look messy and jumbled. You couldn’t see the design, and that each thread had its place in the whole. And when you look at it from above you can see and understand.”

This wise and sweet woman was named Eula: the shortened version of the Greek for one who is devout, pious, full of reverence for God.

And, of course, we can’t always see the design, the plan, the threads that bind us into the circle of discipleship and Christian communities of worship, love, and service.

The Greeks came and said to Philip, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” We – all of us – wish to see Jesus. We wish to see Jesus in ourselves, we wish to see Jesus in each other, we wish to see Jesus in all others. There are others who are trying to see Jesus in us, trying to get to Jesus through us, just as the Greeks came to Philip and then through Andrew and on to Jesus. We are lifelines made strong by the threads of the tapestries of our lives and communities.

In her book entitled Operating Instructions, Anne Lamott, an African American, wrote something like this:

“Last night I decided that it is totally nuts to believe in Christ, that it is every bit as crazy as being a Scientologist or Jehovah’s Witness. But a wise priest friend observed, “Scientologists and Jehovah’s Witnesses are crazier than they have to be.”

“Then something truly amazing happened. A man from church showed up at our front door, smiling and waving to me and my baby, Sam. He is a white man named Gordon, fiftyish, wealthy, married to an equally successful professional.
”After exchanging pleasantries, he said, “Margaret and I wanted to do something for you and the baby. So what I want to ask is this: what if a fairy godmother appeared on your doorstep and said that she would do any favor for you at all, anything you wanted around the house that you felt too exhausted to do by yourself and too ashamed to ask anyone else to help you with.

“I can’t even say, “ I replied. “It’s too horrible.”
“But he finally convinced me to tell him, and I said it would be to clean the bath room.

“He ended up spending over an hour scrubbing the bathtub and toilet and sink with Ajax and hot water and washing the walls and mirror and door and mopping the floor with soap and hot water. And he didn’t leave a mess.

“I sat on the couch while he worked, watching television and feeling vaguely guilty and nursing Sam to sleep. But it made me feel sure of Christ again, of that kind of love. This, a man scrubbing a new mother’s bathtub, is what Jesus means to me. As my wise priest friend also said, “Spare me the earnest Christians, who talk the talk, but don’t walk the way of the Cross, the road of the pilgrim disciple.”

Being a disciple and servant is a full time job – and often messy. It is a vocation that is to be threaded, embroidered in daily stitches through the tapestries of our lives, through everything else that we plan on doing. The covenant with the Lord asks that we be known as, that we be with all the being we have, the people of God.

AMEN

Wicomico Parish Church
PO Box 70
Wicomico Church, Virginia 22579