“Buried Miracles”

A Lenten Sermon Preached by

The Rev. Jean Niven Lenk

at the

First Congregational Church of Stoughton

United Church of Christ

“Listen, can you hear it?  Spring's sweet cantata… The song of buds swelling on the vine.  The tender timpani of a baby robin's heart.  Spring.”[1]  I imagine that the beautiful weather the last couple of days has brought out not just the poet, but also the gardener, within many of us. 

If you have ever worked in a garden and planted a seed, and then a few weeks later unearthed the root system, you may have noticed that the seed has become a rotted shell.  It has died in the process of giving life.

That’s the point of the Gospel lesson for this, the fifth Sunday in Lent.  Jesus is in Jerusalem during Passover, and he is deeply aware that his earthly life is near its end.  Five different times in the Gospel of John, Jesus has proclaimed that his time has “not yet come.”[2]  But today’s passage marks a turning point, for now he says, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”  And then he eloquently expresses the eternal truth and paradox of the gospel with these words: “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit.  Those who love their life loses it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

The members of Jesus’ largely agrarian audience would have readily understood his metaphor.  A grain of wheat has a hard shell protecting the wheat germ.  The germ cannot grow until the grain is put into the earth.  There, the moisture and warmth of the earth soften the shell, enabling it to crack open, and the germ begins to grow, hatching new life.  If you dig around in the soil looking for the seed, you won’t find it.  It has died – and, in dying, has given birth to a tender green shoot that will grown into a golden stalk of wheat, bearing much fruit. 

We know what Jesus meant for himself with these words.  But he is also talking to us.  Deep down, each one of us, I believe, has a hunger to live a life that is full and rich and complete.  AND many of us also want lives that are free from hurt and fear and sorrow and failure; we want to stay within the protective covering of a hard shell.  But we can’t have it both ways.  Jesus says whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve it [Luke 17:33]. 

In other words, if we want to know the thrill of love, the satisfaction of success, the joy of life in its fullest, then we must take chances and risks, we must allow ourselves to be vulnerable to hurt and failure and sorrow.  If we do everything in our power to protect ourselves – if we try to prevent change, avoid conflict, avert pain – then in the end we will find that we have had no life at all; it will have slipped through our fingers, and we will wind up hollow and empty. 

Several years ago, I had an unforgettable conversation with a woman named Frances.  She had grown up the pampered only child of wealthy parents.  She never worked, never married, and rarely left her home in Cincinnati.  Her closest friends were her servants.  Shortly before her death, she said to me, “Jean, I so envy you and your life.”  I couldn’t believe what she had said.  There I was, newly widowed with two small children, holding down three different jobs so I could make ends meet while attending seminary, and receiving food assistance through WIC.  I had had my good times in life, sure, but also my lean and down times, too.  And here this multi-millionaire was envying me?  And then she explained, “Jean, you’ve really lived life.  All I’ve ever done was watch from the sidelines.” 

Every one of us wears a seed coat.  Everyone of us is so tightly wrapped up in something that it prevents us from giving of ourselves, from sharing our lives, from taking chances and leaps of faith, and from being and becoming what God has called us to be.  Maybe it’s our desire for success and material wealth, believing that the more we are worth materially, the more we are worth in other ways -- the more we matter.  Maybe it’s our need to control our lives, or to control others.  Or maybe it is anger or shame or fear or an addiction.  What in your life needs to fall to the ground and die?  What is the seed coat in you that needs to soften so that you can live the abundant and joy-filled life God intends?

Consider for a moment how the world would be different if Jesus had not allowed the seed of his life to fall to the ground and die.  He could have stopped walking around in the open and gone underground instead, sleeping in a different hideout each night.  He could have stopped eating with outcasts and started showing more respect for organized religion.  Imagine if Jesus had chosen the “safe” route. 

If Jesus had “saved” his life -- gone on speaking tour, written some books -- how long would his movement have lasted?  Maybe a hundred years.  But because his message mattered so much to him, because he was willing to show people what it meant instead of just telling them about it – his seed was able to bear much fruit.  Because Jesus was willing to die, a new community could form in his name, one that redefined its life on the basis of his death.  Because Jesus was willing to fall to the ground, we are here today as a community of faith and a family of God.

Every seed has a miracle locked up inside it waiting to spring forth.  But that miracle will never come to fruition as long the seed stays in its dry little packet on the shelf.  It has to get down into the dirt where it’s dark and damp; it has to let go of being a seed in order for the miracle to happen.

A grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies.  And in dying, the grain comes to life in new and miraculous ways, offering the possibility of abundant and joy-filled living.  In giving his life, that is what Christ offers to all of us.  That is the meaning of the Cross.  And that is the promise of Easter.  Amen.