“Reckless Love“
Preached by John DeBevoise
At Palma Ceia Presbyterian Church
On April 2, 2006
Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, 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. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.
Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd standing there heard it and some said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die. The crowd answered him, “We have heard from the law that the Messiah remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?” Jesus said to them, “The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. If you walk in the darkness, you do not know where you are going. While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light.”
After Jesus had said this, he departed and hid from them.
John 12:20-36
Watching the LSU/University of Florida basketball game, in the first part of the evening last night, as the University of Florida started to pull ahead… Wait a minute. It was Florida versus George Mason, wasn’t it. I watched a little bit of both games. As Florida started to pull ahead of George Mason in the second half, one of the commentators, remarking on a Gator player who leapt out and tried to steal the ball from a George Mason player, said, “Did you see that? That was kind of a reckless move. That’s what you’ve got to have to be able to make it this far in the NCAA Tournament. You’ve got to have players who are willing to be reckless once in a while.
He was admiring recklessness. Do you admire that? Do you think that’s a virtue? Do you have to be reckless once in a while in order to be great?
Eugene Peterson, in his wonderful paraphrase of the New Testament, The Message, translates this verse here (which the NRSV translates as “Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”) Peterson translates this by saying, “If you let it go, reckless in your love, then you will have it forever, real and eternal.”
In your own life, what are you doing that is reckless for God, that to some people might be fool-hearted? That’s my translation. But to some people, it might look that you are taking the thing that is valuable and just letting go of it.
This passage, this text, is one that millions of Christians are looking at today. This part of the twelfth chapter of John. It’s the Gospel Lectionary text. There is really out there in the Christian world, across the tradition of the Catholic church and the Orthodox church and the Protestant churches, there are actually several lectionaries. They move together in most places, and once in a while they diverge. But on this Sunday, ALL the lectionaries come together and say, On this Sunday, the Sunday before Palm Sunday, this text from John is the one that should be read. Three years in a row. Each year, they say it. This is one of those texts in the Bible that the scholars say to be sure to read at least once a year, and best read the Sunday before Palm Sunday. Why is that? I don’t know for sure. But I think it has something to do with their sense that we turn now to look at the willingness of Jesus to suffer, if it means he is able to be obedient to God.
On this Sunday before Palm Sunday, we will start to look at the passion of Jesus: his arrest, his trial, his crucifixion. This is the Sunday to remember, in the Gospel of John, where Jesus turned his face towards Jerusalem and said, “Sometimes a seed has to be buried in order to bear great fruit.” I think maybe that’s why. Jesus insists on being obedient to God, even when he is going to suffer for it. He is reckless about it. Jesus, with laser-like intensity, not just in this passage but throughout the Gospels, focuses on God’s intentions for his life. Jesus lets nothing, nothing deter him from living out what he understands to be God’s call in his life. He lets nothing be a higher priority than what he believes God desires for him to do.
You can’t focus on God’s intentions for your lives this way. You can't keep focus like Jesus is keeping focus here. You’re not Jesus. And if you think you can, you’re in danger of being idolatrous. You may be very faithful, but you’re not Jesus. You cannot hold onto faithfulness in the way he did. No one before him had ever been faithful quite this way, and no one since him has ever done it with the same kind of intensity and commitment as he did.
Jesus was the Son of God. He’s different than you are, and that’s why they hear this voice that some said was thunder and others said it sounded like the voice of an angel. Jesus said that voice was for you, so that you would know that I am following my Father’s will. It is, in part, a divine confirmation of what Jesus does and who Jesus is. The voice was for you, because some folks are going to say this was reckless, this going to Jerusalem. So the voice speaks that the community might remember, No, it was faithful. It was obedience.
Jesus said, “It is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” And the crowd standing there heard it and some said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus said, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine.”
I think the best commentators on the Gospel of John today…Raymond Brown, D. Moody Smith of Duke, Lamar Williamson… they all agree that this twelfth chapter, particularly here, is the watershed moment for John. It’s where the action turns in John’s memory of the life of Jesus. And the turn is that now Jesus turns towards Jerusalem and is going to be willing to suffer because he thinks it is being faithful to what God intends to do with his life.
Now, he says, the hour has come. That’s especially significant if you remember that three times earlier in John, he says, My hour has not yet come. He says it to his mother once, early in the Gospel of John. He says it to one brother and then he says it to a second brother. My hour has not yet come. But now, he says, The hour is at hand.
Jesus came to live out his obedience to the will of God in a manner which no one had ever done before, and in a manner in which no one has ever done since. It was so clear and it was so faithful. It was like blight for us. In the awareness of it, everything is more clearly revealed. In his life and his obedience, Jesus revealed God for us, so much so that we say he was the Son of God. Jesus came to live out obedience to the will of God in a manner no one had ever done before and no one has ever done since.
And while we are not Jesus, Jesus seems to teach us here that it is possible for us to follow in this pattern. Jesus seems to be saying here that while we are not Jesus, it is possible for us to come toward the light, to walk in the light, he says. To follow in his example. We can serve God’s purposes with our lives, never fully, never completely, because you’re human. But we can walk in the light. We can follow that pattern. We can move in his direction.
We may not be Jesus, but, forgive the metaphor on this weekend, but we can be on his team. We can seek God’s will. We can, again and again, walk toward his light.
And then, as if to help us, Jesus spoke a spiritual principle to them. A short one but a powerful one. The one that we played out for the children in the children’s sermon. He turns to them, “Very truly, I tell you, if a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains not just a single grain, but it bears much fruit. Those who love heir life must lose it.”
Sometimes people will tell me, “This is my favorite text.” And I always wonder, “Why?” This text is talking about letting go of something you love. Jesus said, “Very truly, I tell you, those who love their life must lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.”
I think Peterson gets it right again. “Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, then to the world it will never be anything more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way you, anyone who holds onto life just as it is, destroys the life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you will have it forever. Real and eternal.”
Where in your own life are you doing something reckless for God, letting go of something, in the spiritual promise that in that way you might have it for eternity?
It’s become kind of a game for me this week, trying to think of places where I see this. A mother sits up late, late, too late into the night in order to be available in case when the older children come home, they want to talk. Those who love their life lose it, and if you let it go reckless in your love, then you’ll have it forever.
A builder spends a lot of time, too much time, on the health clinic building committee. So much time that it actually begins to interfere with the success of his other projects. Those who love their life will lose it, but if you let it go reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever.
A family physician discusses with a friend what it is like to spend your whole adult life caring for people, many of whom turn out to be whining and unappreciative. For decades. And the friend says, Why would you do that? And the physician says, Well, I thought it was God’s call. Those who love their life lose it, but if you let it go reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever.
A banker runs for government office, following a call to try and bring their administrative gifts to bear on the community out of a sense of love for the community. In doing so, they recklessly put on hold their growing financial career. Those who love their life lose it, but if you let it go reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever.
A bass in the choir gives up every Sunday morning, for years in a row, when his real passion is working on antique cars. And he only has one morning off a week, and he spends that singing bass in the church choir. Those who love their life lose it, but if you let it go reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever.
A principal spends her whole adult life trying to build a community of scholarship and character out of two thousand 15-18 year-olds, some of whom are pretty nice folks, but some of whom are arrogant and belligerent. Those who love their life lose it, but those who let it go reckless in love, have it forever.
Here’s a different spin: A professor who loves teaching marketing students resigns their professorship, moves into the business world, because they are convinced that they need to begin to live out some of the practices of character that they think business calls for today in this world. A reckless thing to do, but an act of love.
Here’s another spin, and a true story. A pastor resigns his pulpit for the Myers Park Presbyterian Church, a bright and shining star in this denomination, and goes to work for a bank, because he feels, as he says, “That’s where God keeps asking for me to lift up my testimony, my life, in the world.”
A librarian mortgages his house once again, after paying it off once, to make a substantial gift toward the building of a primary school in a Ugandan village. What a reckless thing to do, but done in love.
A retired person, pours their long-waited-for retirement into leading a Bible study once a week until it becomes the great passion of their life, taking up most of their free time. A reckless thing from one who lets go of the time they love.
Those who love their life lose it, but if you let it go reckless in your love, said Jesus, you’ll have it forever. Real and eternal.
What example would you use? What would be your story? Jesus, turning toward Jerusalem now and speaking to the crowd, said, “When I am lifted up, then I will draw all people to myself.” I have always thought that this was a reference to his crucifixion. Then I arrive at this Sunday, seeing now some scholars on the Scriptures saying not just his crucifixion, but a reference also to his resurrection. To his being lifted up from the grave and drawing the world’s attention to what he had done with his life.
Those who love their life lose it, but those who let it go reckless in their love, have it forever. We are all going to die for something. What will you spend your life on? Anyone who holds onto life just as it is, destroys that life. But if you let it go reckless in your love, then you end up with it forever. Who do you know who illustrates with their own life this spiritual principle for you?
Emmy Jones, a Florida poet, has written a poem entitled, “Blessing.” It’s about this text from the Gospel of John, and her memory of her own father.
Like the solid trunk of a great oak,
his roots dominated the front yard of our family system,
influencing everything.
To my seeing, it dominated our neighborhood,
indeed the universe.
The stability of his good character was shade for many
from the heat of an oppressive world of wrongs.
His strength withstood the seasonal hurricanes and troubles
mostly by enduring.
Still standing after the storm had passed,
his many projects, tasks and deeds, connected like branches
spread across the sky and stars a kind of prayer.
He was always giving himself away…
“No, now you take it.”
“I can’t really use this any more. I want you to have it.”
“Let me show you how.”
“There’s plenty more where that came from.”
“I’ve got that covered.”
“I’ll do it. I’m handling that.”
And he placed that brown, chipped coffee mug
down on the tile kitchen counter one more time.
My body, broken for you, pouring himself out,
until at the end when he was lifted up.
We wondered if there was anything really there at all.
And all there was, was everything.
“No, like this.”
He knelt and corrected the placement of a chain on a sprocket.
And when he looked and said simply, “That’s good,”
it was as if we heard thunder on the seventh day.
But he never presumed the thunder himself. Never.
Like the tree, it was clear he was growing,
unfolding toward the light,
stretching to become that to which he was being called.
It reminds me of another poem, much older. Over a thousand years older. Written by a wealthy man, who some say recklessly gave his funds away to those in need around him, and took up gardening. And writing. He wrote this:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sew love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.
It is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.
And Jesus said, “Listen carefully. Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, then it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to this life just as it is, destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you will have it forever. Real and eternal.”
©John T. DeBevoise 2006
