Homily for Lent 5, Year B

St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, Richmond VA

Gospel reference: John 12:20-33

First, I want to thank the Rev. Marlene Forrest and St. Philips for the opportunity to be present with you today.  I have had the honor of knowing Marlene since the early days in our respective journeys into ordination.  My first recollections are some shared space and time at a retreat together at Richmond Hill.  We each took a different seminary path…literally, two different coasts…but it seems like our paths continued to weave together during those years in the kind of way that the Holy Spirit is prone to do.  And now, here we both are in Richmond.  We serve together in diocesan ministry and regional ministry, in Commission on Ministry work and in the hosting of ordinations.  And always, in all of those occasions,whenever I have had a chance to be in conversation with Marlene one thing is true: I always come away having seen Jesus.

Maybe that’s why this week, it is those simple, specific words at the opening of a profound Gospel text that have grabbed my attention: a few travelers from Greece come up to Philip the disciple and say, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”

We wish to see Jesus.

Imagine this moment with me. This isn’t a planned business meeting or an arranged conversation; their approach to Philip wasn’t a check in with a receptionist.  These aren’t friends of Philip’s or even people who know him by name.  They are, in many ways, “the other”, the outsiders.  This scene unfolds in the midst of the Passover preparation time, where people were pouring into the city ofJerusalem and making preparations for a holy series of days.  You know what that’s like…we’ve got a big week coming up…and there’s lot to get done! Philip may have expected a random question about where to buy necessary provisions, or find lodging, or common meet up locations.  But in this moment conveyed in our Gospel text, a group of people from outside the Jewish cultural mainstream are among those who have come to the city of Jerusalem to worship. When they encounter Philip, their question is evidence of their trust: he is someone who knows the One who they wish to see.  The way this story is conveyed in Greek suggests that this wasn’t just a curious interest.  Their request comes from desire, from determination…perhaps better translated from the Greek, “we are longing to see Jesus.”

This moment is deeply profound, both in what is said and what is left unsaid.  After all, Philip could have just kept on walking, or made an excuse, or brushed them away.  But, he did not do any of those things.  He saw and heard their desire, and he responded.

Philip seems aware that their desire to see Jesus reflects something larger and more significant that is happening.  Philip goes to Andrew, then Philip and Andrew go to Jesus.  And Jesus, rather than going out to offer a social or even pastoral greeting uses this moment of their faithful inquiry to reveal with prophetic clarity the depths through which everyone will come to see him. Those to whom he speaks are unaware that they are about to see him not in the kind of glory they were perhaps imagining, but in the glory of God’s vision for humanity coming to its fullness through his death in this world and his glorification in God’s realm.

To truly see Jesus is to see him in the fullness of this paradox where those who love their lives will lose them, and those who serve will be honored; where death is necessary to bear fruit and where eternal life is found only when we let go of our love of this world.

We wish to see Jesus.

I was invited here to St. Philip’s today to talk about discernment and vocation, which are the areas in which I focus my diocesan work.  As I’ve been preparing to preach and offer a time of further conversation after the service, it occurs to me that this question, this invitation to see Jesus is really at the core of everything that we engage in discernment and formation.  That’s because we live in a world that needs to see Jesus…and by that, I mean JESUS.  I don’t mean a token Christianity that uses the name of Jesus to justify their privilege.  I don’t mean a co-opted Christianity that uses the name of Jesus to oppress other people.  I don’t mean the use of the name of Jesus to hide from historic wrongs and present day patterns of ongoing prejudice and injustice.  I mean that this world needs to see Jesus.

The world needs to see Jesus who loves without regard to status or affiliation; the world needs to see Jesus who sources his whole ministry in prayer and conversation with his heavenly Father; the world needs to see Jesus whose gifts of humility and reconciliation meant that he would give up everything so that the world might see clearly the intention of God’s love to transform the world.  

The world needs to see Jesus.

So what does this have to do with us, both in our individual lives of faith and for the Church?

If we believe that people need and desire to see Jesus, then we, like Philip, need to point the way with our lives to the One whom they are seeking. And that truly is about discernment.  We have some fundamental questions on which to discern: who are we in this world, and how do we carry our relationship with Jesus with us?  

Discerning who we are in this world and the role of Jesus in our way of being is what being called to the life of a Christ-follower is all about.  We don’t all need to do the same things; the whole world needs to see Jesus.  That means seeing Jesus in all manner and forms of our daily work: in schools, in health care, in business and industry, in science, in social services, in our neighborhoods and communities as well as our work in the church.  Just as Philip turns to Andrew, discernment relies on the wisdom of God found in community to help us better understand how the gifts that we bring can be best used to further the transforming love and grace of Jesus both in the world and in the church.  God’s love is everywhere.  When we are living into that love, surrounded by our community, living our lives in relationship with Jesus there is nothing to fear.  

In my own life and in companionship with others, I’ve engaged discernment in community.  Through the gift of community discernment we learn to pay attention, hear, notice and respond to the specific ways that the gifts we bring have value to God’s realm, on earth as it is in heaven.  It can catch us off guard and make us feel confused or uncertain at first when we feel God’s presence tugging at our hearts, inviting us to something more.  I imagine that those in our Gospel lesson who set off to Jerusalem in search of Jesus may have felt that way, too.  But they began the journey and continued the journey in faith, one step at a time.  And that journeying step by step is actually the kind of response that is modeled for us by the disciples.  Those who were journeying were a group: they were jointly making their way in the hopes of having that encounter with Jesus.  At the same time, Philip and Andrew along with the other disciples were traveling together, with Jesus and each other.  When this Gospel lesson opens, no one is on their own.  They all have community accompanying their journeys, discerning each step of their shared ministry in relationship with God and each other.  And that, my friends, is the truly good news. When we have stirrings in our soul that might make us both excited and perhaps a little worried about what God is doing, there is always someone…or someones… in community through whom God is working to companion us.  And sometimes, God is working on us to companion another person on their journey, too  

We wish to see Jesus.

Each and every day, I am blessed to be working with people in discernment and formation who not only wish to see Jesus, but desire to make Christ’s redemptive presence known to all with whom they live and work and worship.  Just so you know, not everyone’s path looks the same.  

Sometimes on the path of discernment, lay people find ways that their skills and gifts serve the church in particular and beautiful ways, and they commit deeply to showing Jesus’ love in their everyday lives in the world and in the roles that they serve in the parish as well as the diocese.  I know a number of St. Philip’s people doing that on diocesan committees and task groups as well as here within your parish. 

Sometimes on the path of discernment, there is a particular call to service which responds to the needs of the world and draws the Church to see those needs in ways that mobilize us to deeper and fuller service to God’s people.  Those called to serve as Deacons have this beautiful gift of service wrapped in prophetic voice and Gospel proclamation that means that the Good News that is in their hearts spills over into ministry with those in this world.  Through their actions of service, they are helping all of us see that in serving those on the margins of this world, they are serving Christ himself.

And sometimes on the path of discernment, there is a particular call to build up the Body of Christ and people of God through the nourishing sustenance of Word and Sacrament, lived out in our life as Church.  These priests whom God calls are formed with a core of awareness that the many, many things that they are called upon to do all have their source in Jesus’ own example of priestly humility: to nurture a life of grace in God’s people that equips them to do all that they are called to do.

This week we honored Bishop James Theodore Holly on our Episcopal Calendar of Saints, the first African-American Bishop in the Protestant Episcopal Church and one among our Great Cloud of Witnesses who in spite of great personal loss made deep and lasting impacts on the Church and especially his ministry to the people and churches of Haiti. In his life and in the ministry of Bishops we see the gifts of pastoring God’s Church and helping us move forward courageously in the directions that further God’s love, grace and justice in this world.  Bishop Holly’s story was no doubt filled with moments of great uncertainty as well as a depth of clarity in God’s community.  The lives of our saints and spiritual ancestors are guiding lights in the journeys that each of us undertake.

Every one of these paths of serving the church is one on which we see Jesus, and through which others see Jesus in us. And it is communities just like this one which help those in whom the Spirit is stirring to walk openly into the question of how they are being called, and what will equip them to serve and respond to that call.  And I can promise you one thing: if you are engaged in this process of listening to God’s call in any way…through your own discernment or supporting the discernment of another…you will have a transforming encounter with Jesus that aligns your vision and sets the order of your world into God’s order.  And that, my friends, is exactly the Good News that this world needs: We want to see Jesus.

I invite us to keep this conversation going today at our forums, and at any time and in any ways I can be of support to this community of God’s beloved people.  And I close with a prayer that is for all of us, as we continue to discern God’s presence in our lives, our church, and our communities:

Almighty and eternal God, so draw our hearts to you, so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills, that we may be wholly yours, utterly dedicated unto you; and then use us, we pray you, as you will, and always to your glory and the welfare of your people; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.