Sunday,
April 6, 2003
Fifth
Sunday of Lent
Readings:
Jeremiah
31: 31-34 “I will write my Law upon their
hearts.”
Ps
50:3-4,12-15,18-19
Hebrews
5:7-9 He became the source of eternal salvation.
John
12: 20-33 “We would like to see Jesus.”
Amidst
the heartbreak easily felt at the sight of Jerusalem destroyed
and the wrenching apart of the Jews who were deported and those
who stayed behind, we can hear the words of the prophet Jeremiah
as a hymn of hope and forgiveness. No wonder scholars call these
chapters of Jeremiah “the Book of Consolation.” God wants to begin
again with his people, proposing to enter “a new covenant” which
would be the source of a new relationship between God and his
people. What kind of covenant? One no longer written down on stone
tablets but written rather in the very heart of human beings.
God makes it clear that it is not the law by any power of its
own, but rather the spirit that brings us close to God. When we
can say that God is “in our heart” then the law becomes more humane,
less absolutist. We fulfill the law from our heart, sincerely
and not legalistically, and a human being thus becomes a member
of the People of God. Along with this, God lavishes another gift
upon us – gratuitous and gracious access to his love. No one has
to pay an entrance fee or monthly charges. You don’t have to be
older or younger, from this race or that one. God reveals himself
in every aspect of human history, without discrimination, without
neglecting anyone.
The
Letter to the Hebrews highlights the attitude of Jesus
as he fulfills his Father’s will. The section here recalls the
scene in the Garden of Olives when Jesus is praying to his Father
about the possibility of being delivered from death. This prayer
had the effect of strengthening Jesus to accomplish his mission
rather than sparing him from its fulfillment it. We as Christians
have a great deal to learn along these lines, since most of the
time our words seem to be not so much prayers or petitions but
more like orders we give to God so that his will not be done.
The scripture text also reminds us of the sufferings Jesus embraced
as proof of his obedience to his Father’s plan. Jesus’ prayer
and suffering stand as concrete signs of the solidarity he shares
with the whole human race. In the way that Jesus makes the Father’s
will perfectly his own he has become the visible presence of God
among us, the way and the model of salvation open to every man
and woman in the world.
In
the Gospel of John we find some Jews, or converts to Judaism,
who have come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. Apparently
there are some Greeks in the caravan who use the occasion to ask
Philip, “We would like to see Jesus.” The question does not mean
the same as “Where is he?”, to which Philip would probably have
given the necessary information. It is rather a request for the
disciples’ help to get to know Jesus personally. They are recognized
as being close to Jesus; and so they have become mediators, witnesses,
and companions on the journey for those who would like to see
Jesus. The detail here that those who seek Jesus are Greek may
be symbolic, a sign that the Gospel is universal since “even pagans
look for Jesus.” Jesus takes the opportunity to announce that
the time for words and signs has come to an end, since now “the
hour has come,” the hour of the greatest “sign”: his passion and
death on the cross to redeem the world.
Jesus
turns to a short parable. Only the grain of wheat which dies will
produce much fruit. This very brief parable presents once again,
in yet a different way, the fundamental lesson of the whole Gospel,
the summit of the message Jesus preached: namely, that sacrificial
love, the love that gives of itself, that prompts one to lose
oneself and even to die to oneself – this love gives life.
Here
we are before a typical Gospel “paradox.” “To lose” one’s life
out of love is the way “to find” it for the sake of life eternal
(or, to put it another way, for the sake of lasting values). To
die to oneself is the true way to live. To hand over one’s life
is the best way of holding on to it. To give one’s life is the
best means to get it. And so on. “Paradox” is a literary term
that points to an “apparent contradiction”: lose–find, die–live,
bestow–retain, give–get, etc. These seem to be contradictory aspects
or realities, but they are not really so. To come to the realization
that here there is no such contradiction is to grasp the truth
of a paradox. It is to discover the Gospel.
We
are also here before a profound point of Christian revelation.
In Jesus Christ, for example, we see it clearly manifest once
again that human beings are able to grasp this paradox. In “nature,”
especially in the animal world, self-preservation is the primary
instinct. Although there are certainly some forces we might call
“altruistic” that are triggered by hormones for the sake of reproduction
and the raising of offspring or for defending the herd, yet we
cannot truly speak of “love.” What we have here, instead, is instinct,
even if an extraordinary instinct for one particular moment that
overcomes the great drive of self-preservation which is the basic
instinct that focuses every individual upon itself. Animals by
nature are centered on themselves, and any time we find something
different it is simply an exception that proves the rule.
What
characterizes a human being, on the other hand, is the ability
to love, the ability to go out of oneself, to give one’s life
and oneself out of love. Humanization, or a becoming more human,
would then be that “de-centering” of oneself that implies a corresponding
centering on others and on love. We are reflecting here on a Gospel
passage that embodies a summit of such humanization – or the process
of humanity maturing, to put it another way – to such an extent
that we could consider this parable as a synthesis of the heights
of love. This parable is tantamount, basically, to the new commandment:
“This is my commandment: love one another as I have loved
you. There is no greater love than this: to lay down one’s
life for one’s friends.” (Jn 15:12-13) Here again, Jesus’
words serve as a synthesis. The whole Gospel message is contained
in them. Indeed, the entire meaning of religion is contained in
them, since other religions have also succeeded in discovering
love, solidarity, the “de-centering” of oneself as the essence
of religion. Jesus is, after all, one of the greatest expressions
of how men and women search for and move toward God dwelling in
the human heart.
If
“the grain of wheat” means us, then what are we supposed to die
for? In these neo-liberal times in which we are living, even though
they have brought about remarkable progress in areas such as technology,
global communication, and even a striking economic development
(tremendously disproportionate, however), nonetheless there never
ceases to be a certain backward movement in the process of humanization.
Notwithstanding thoughts and visions of a utopian world and ideologies
(in a good sense of the term) that seek human “socialization,”
what has been the greatest possible achievement so far of solidarity
among people, what we might call centering on the community
and group rather than centering on the self, so as to create a
fraternal and reconciling society in the face of economic, military
or technological setbacks in various areas of conflict? What has
finally happened is that there has been imposed the return to
a so-called “natural” or free economy, unbridled, free of controls,
left to chance and certain group interests, and this has led to
proclaiming that pursuing one’s own interests is the best way
to contribute to the common good.
Fortunately,
we are seeing signs more and more that the eclipse of solidarity
and the backwards movement of humanization actually throw more
light on their true nature, and nonconformity is showing up everywhere.
“Another world is possible” in spite of the efforts of neo-liberal
propaganda to convince us that “there is no other way” and that
we are “at the end of history” (and that it is out of our hands).
If we believe, following the Gospel, that there is no greater
love than to lay down one’s life and that the highest law is to
die like the grain of wheat in order to produce much fruit [life],
then we should commit ourselves to raising awareness in our society
of how much we need to create a world order radically different
from the one we have now.