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Fifth Sunday of Lent B
March 25, 2012
Reading I: Jeremiah 32: 31-34
Reading II: Hebrews 5: 7-9
Gospel: John 12: 20-33
Realistically he has kept within the framework of his religion and culture. When some Greeks wanted an interview he had to explain that it was not yet the time for them. The seed grain had first to 'die' before a new plant could grow, a plant that would produce heads of new wheat, a fruitful harvest. One interpretation is that the seed grain is the Jewish Covenant which must first 'die' metaphorically before there could be a harvest among other peoples.
We might bridle at the opposition between Jew and Gentile, as we are galled by similar insistence on believer and non-believer, catholic and protestant, christian and other, but the 'seed' image helps. The very first parable was about the sower sowing seed grain. In this context, the People of the first Covenant were the seed whose time had come to give life to a new plant. "It was only after the wall of partition had been broken down—that is, the Jewish law as a barrier between Jew and Gentile—that the Gentile mission could begin." (R. W. Fuller: http://liturgy.slu.edu/5LentB032512/theword_indepth.html). In our day, the institution-church might be seen as the seed grain whose time has come to die away.
Whoever loves his life loses it ...
Undoubtedly this applies to the institution as much as to the individual - or more so, since the institution is at the service of its members and has no raison d'etre other than to bring the light of the gospel to all humankind. Unfortunately it is in the nature of institutions that self-aggrandisement and self-perpetuation inevitably take priority ahead of any purpose and goal. At this stage the institution must fall into the ground and die, or else it remains nothing but what it was. Hasten the day!
Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be.
The path is set before us. How extraordinary that Jesus would last only three years before they got him. A life so important, a person so valuable, a message of such invigorating power - gone as quick as a flash of lightning. Burnt out, so that new life could arise from the ashes. Institutions do not have it in themselves to arrange their own demise, so they need to be helped, deserted by once blindly-faithful members, starved of finances, exposed to the eyes of the world so that patches of corruption can be no longer hidden, confronted with the truth that condemns the systemic lie.
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"I am troubled now. Yet what should I say?
'Father, save me from this hour?'
But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour."
Here is a man going through that most common experience, a crisis of conscience, a moment of profound self doubt. Go forward? Go back? Find another track? If I go on, they are going to get me. Is that the right thing to do? Common sense says that one should avoid death as long as possible, escape the trap, find other ways to fulfill the mission, whatever it is. "To be, or not to be..."
That Jesus asks to be saved from this moment of destiny is sure sign that he was just like us in this. His prayer was not play-acting; it was for real. It is part of the human condition to know deep down what we must do even as we cast about for some other solution, some way out. Finally, the best among us know that "it was for this purpose" that we have come thus far, and there is to be no backing down.
He learned obedience from what he suffered. [Second reading]
Don't we all? But with Jesus we are inclined automatically to look at the intensity of suffering he experienced, as if that is what taught him to obey. The truth lies in the other direction. While learning does require discipline, it is a discipline of focus which is not achieved by inflicting severe pain. The obedience Jesus learned is the same obedience to the facts that we learn through the set-backs we encounter when things go wrong, when we are misunderstood by the one we love, when a business fails, when illness or age shakes our security. The letter to the Hebrews is saying that, even though, as 'Son' he might have claimed special access to knowing about life, like us he learned the ordinary way, through the sufferings that are part of it.
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Father, glorify your name."
Then a voice came from heaven,
"I have glorified it and will glorify it again."
"Hallowed be thy name": it is essentially the same idea, a surrender to the one who is 'in charge' of the whole enterprise of creation, evolution, our common goal and each one's destiny; the one whose purpose is good but beyond our easy grasp. Common sense, from the way I see it, says that life ends in death: yet when we observe the processes of nature we perceive that death evolves into new life. Such is the glory of the whole affair.
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This is the new covenant, says the Lord:
I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts;
I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
No longer will they have need to teach their friends and relatives
how to know the LORD.
All, from least to greatest, shall know me. [First Reading]
'This is the one passage in the Old Testament where the idea of a New Testament is expressly mentioned,' writes R. H. Fuller [loc.sit.]. If this is true it is a wonder that the people of the new covenant don't make much more of it, not only as to the fact, but as to the form and style of the new covenant. The words are clear and unequivocal. They are a new development of the injunction of Deuteronomy 6:6-9.
Take to heart these words which I command you today. Keep repeating them to your children. Recite them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them on your arm as a sign and let them be as a pendant on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates.
At the time of Jesus some Jewish people took these instructions quite literally; 'devout Jews tied on their arms and foreheads “phylacteries,” boxes containing strips of parchment on which these words were inscribed.' See Mt 23:4 where Jesus criticises this practice. His purpose was to lead people beyond external law and its practice.
In the New Covenant the 'law' is the lore of the heart. If it is no longer necessary to teach others, the correlative is that each one learns not from 'being taught', for 'from the least to the greatest, all shall know me', says the Lord.
Tony Lawless