Someone very wise once said to me, “When you say ‘I love you’ to another person, that indicates you care more about them than you do about yourself.” When Jesus said, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground…” he was referring to himself, meaning his own self giving out of love for us. He obviously cared more about you and me than he did about himself. That’s obvious. The kicker is that he is expecting that of his followers also.
Jesus said to his disciples, “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.”
This Gospel reading, we could say, is the Ultimate discipleship lesson. Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth… (which is what the purpose of the seed is – to get planted) …unless it falls into the earth and dies… (Once planted that is the end of the seed’s existence; the identity of the seed as seed is over. What comes next looks nothing like a seed.) …unless it falls and dies, it remains alone… but if it dies, it bears much fruit. (The purpose of the seed is to bear fruit.)
The death of the seed is a birth into a new and more abundant, fruitful, effective life. There is a parallel drawn here between the seed and the disciple. Our purpose as disciples, what it is that God wants from us, is that we bear much fruit, that our lives are fruitful in the qualities and characteristics of the Kingdom of Heaven, that our lives are lights to others, bringing them also into that peaceable realm where all sorrow is washed away, where there is no fear, no plague, nothing that need separate us. That is the fruit that we are made for and intended to produce – very pragmatic and utilitarian.
In the midst of the pandemic today we pray for those who are fulfilling these words, who are dying to self in service to others, and even those who are literally giving their physical lives in service.
“Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. ”These are hard words; they confront us, but we would do ourselves a great disfavor if we avoided looking at them, as we often would like to do. These words are too important spiritually to let them pass by unexamined. What is the life that is to be hated, that is, the life to be renounced? What is the life that we turn our backs on and walk away from?
We can always say that it is that which we have linked our self-identity with, that which we have claimed ownership with regarding who we say we are. It is how we answer the question, “Who am I?” Now we may not see this, or realize this, but our self-definition for the most part is an illusion, a fantasy, a falsehood, unreality.
But loss and grief and the swift and varied changes of the world can set things up for the stripping away illusion. And today in the midst of global pandemic that question, “Who am I?” is even more significant. Who am I now? We are caused to sit up and look again at who we are.
Sometimes it is pretty hard to see through our illusions. There is, it would seem, a veil covering our eyes. We are not able to remove that covering from our eyes by ourselves, however. That is the work of the Master, the Teacher, the One who was lifted up on the cross who draws all people to himself.
Jesus said, “I will draw all to myself.” And the word for draw in Greek is very significant. It means to draw a sword, to un-sheath it. The veil of illusion covering our eyes, the false self-identity we cling to, will be stripped away from us by the action of the cross. We will be unsheathed from that. What is left is our true identity in Christ. And there is all our hope and strength to face the day in front of us, even to the point of willingness to become “a grain of wheat that falls into the ground.”
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