In this era of reckoning with global climate chaos, this Sunday's readings invite us to think expansively in terms of our own lives about that grain of wheat falling and sprouting new grain in John 12. Jesus may well be speaking of his own death and the resulting good that will come from it. Death must precede resurrection, certainly. And the good that comes is expansive. From the death of one single stalk of wheat can sprout two to thirty kernels. The metaphor is apt; that dying grain is about the lives of all of us. Try on the idea that we are all grains of wheat called to die to the ways we live that harm other people and Earth. We are called to oppose all that is death-dealing in our world. For that, something in ourselves––in our vision, in our theologies, in our actions––must die.
That is, at least, how two astute theologians, Walter Wink and Charles Campbell, understand this passage. Campbell sees "the world" as "the fallen realm" estranged from God, driven to amass wealth and power at the expense of the creation without concern for the effect of our choices on other people or plants, soils, air, water, and all creatures. This fallen world has a ruler whose influence distorts our desires and the meaning of what is in our own best interests. Imprisoned by this fallen realm, we muddle on in our comforts. We fear change or find it annoying if not something more akin to impossible. We look for excuses not to address climate damage instead of working together toward a brighter, cleaner, livable future. We do not want to be that grain that falls and dies even though we hear Jesus' assurances that the fruit can only come after that grain falls. Death must precede life. We even know this from our vast experiences of being alive and surviving. The plants and animals that feed us and give us life must die before we can live. Something in our way of seeing must die in order for a new vision to come forth.
Into that cauldron of frustrating difficulty, Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection comes to plant in our midst a new vision. Jesus says No to the ruler of the fallen realm. Campbell writes that "Jesus' crucifixion judges 'the world' and drives out the 'ruler of the world.'"[1] Some Christians would say that Jesus does this by "taking away our sin", which means we are not condemned eternally for our inabilities and our rejection of what is for the common good. There is nothing amiss about that interpretation of the crucifixion and resurrection (that Jesus "atones" for our sins), but it can limit the scope of what there is to see in Jesus' meaning. That interpretation can leave us off the hook about responding to the on-going problem of how to live while we are here in this fallen world. That interpretation can seem to give us permission not to care about Earth or our neighbors.
A wider, deeper, more communal interpretation of Jesus' suffering and resurrection yields a different way to live. It defines our calling, asking us to ponder again and again: Who was Jesus opposing on that cross? Who is the ruler of this world that must be driven out? Who is calling the shots? Who will we find at the end of the road if we do as investigators say and "follow the money"? Who gains when others lose? Who perpetuates the idea that life is a "zero-sum" game in which if I get more, you get less––as if life is a finite pie? Who is subverting Jesus' insistence that God loves the world and gave Jesus so that those who believe will have life? Who is telling us to believe in a narrow understanding of Jesus' meaning? Who does Jesus become if he isn't the one sacrificed by God the Father to pay our debts? What does Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection mean if the result has more to do with how we live on Earth than whether we get to enter the pearly gates?
One way to answer that last question is to look at ourselves with clear vision. The definition of sin is "missing the mark," being separated from God. Being estranged from God makes us strangers even to ourselves because it means we are looking at creation with a twisted view. We are missing our relationship with Earth and all things. We are not in tune with the needs of others. Instead, we are seeing our human selves (I'm speaking generally here) as needing to grab the biggest piece of pie, leaving the rest of those to whom God gave the gift of life (coral reefs, polar bears, spotted owls, jaguars, wetlands, California condors, grasslands, beetles, bees, and many more) to be ignored as if they do not matter.
Campbell shows that when Jesus says, "My kingdom is not from this world," he is referring to the violent System that clings to the fixed-dimension, zero-sum pie. That System has hauled him before Pilate for the threat he poses to the System by teaching and healing. On the cross he exposes the System and "we begin to be set free from its captivating ways. We are free to die to a life shaped by the System, in order to live fully and freely in the way of Jesus." (145)
What is that way of Jesus? Jesus denounces the way of the fallen world, the System, that kills the neighbor in order to take her land, take his home, take their clean water, destroy the peace they once knew and the livelihood that honors differences among people and the different needs of each community.
The way of Jesus is in that dying grain of wheat. It is to die rather than to kill. It is to trust in change rather than continuing to live as if we humans deserve all good things at the expense of others. It is also to love ourselves as God loves us enough to make the necessary changes that will heal our alienation from God.
We might ask where we are to begin to live a resurrected life. Jeremiah is the one who tells us that a healed life starts with the fundamental way God answers our needs and prayers: "I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God." We are given what God desires for us: an end to our alienation from God, the gift of life abundant.
And notice: God will put God’s law on our hearts. Not in our hearts. Why the difference? To ask the question about where God's Word lodges in––or on––our hearts is to ask how God's word helps us. The answer is in an old Jewish story:
A student asks the rabbi, the teacher, how God’s word is supposed to help us keep faith and not be afraid. The student refers to God's law being planted on our hearts, as the prophet Jeremiah has it. The student asks why God doesn't plant the law in our hearts.
The rabbi answers, “It is because as we are, our hearts are closed, and we cannot place the holy words in our hearts. So we place them on top of our hearts. And there they stay until, one day, the heart breaks, and the words fall in.”[2]
God’s word is planted on our hearts and on our minds so that on the day when our hearts are broken, when we are opened to hope for the future, when we are struggling to find a way to hope, God’s word is already there on our broken hearts, ready to fill the holes created by fear and pain.
We don’t need to see as God sees. In each different moment of our lives God says: You are my beloved child. When your heart breaks, I will fill you with my promises. When change comes, have peace. Something new is arising. The fallen grain is bearing fruit for many because "the commandments will not be an external rule which invites hostility, but now will be an embraced, internal identity-giving mark, so that obeying will be as normal and as readily accepted as breathing and eating. Israel will practice obedience because it belongs to Israel's character to live in this way."[3] In other words, when our hearts break, when our hopes of never having to change die, it will be with us as Jeremiah pronounced for Israel: our very character will compel us to live in such a way that we will renounce violence and embrace sacrifice of ourselves.
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Hymns to consider:
In ELW:
#583 Take My Life, That I May Be
#607 Come, Ye Disconsolate
#735 Mothering God, You Gave Me Birth
In All Creation Sings:
#1016 Cast Out, O Christ
#1023 God Alone Be Praised
#1025 If We Live, We Live to the Lord
[1] Charles Campbell, Feasting on the Word: Year B, vol. 12 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2008), 141, citing Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 13–31 and 51–59.
[2] Parker Palmer, Hidden Wholeness (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008), 181.
[3] Walter Brueggemann, Jeremiah 25–52 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 71.
Melinda Quivik
Twin Cities, Minnesota
Melinda Quivik, an ELCA pastor (who served churches in Montana, Michigan, and Minnesota) and former professor of worship and preaching, is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the quarterly journal Liturgy, a writer, and a preaching mentor with Backstory Preaching at backstory-preaching.mn.com. Her most recent book, Worship at a Crossroads: Racism and Segregated Sundays, is a response to Lenny Duncan's Dear Church. She calls all churches to learn why worship ways differ in our various traditions as we seek to be more welcoming.