Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the festival. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. “Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.” Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus.
Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.
“Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!”
Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him.
Jesus said, “This voice was for your benefit, not mine. Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up[a] from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.
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In the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Toula’s father comments: “Nice Greek girls are supposed to do three things in life. Marry a nice Greek boy, make babies, and feed everyone till the day we die.” Day after day, Toula, who is already thirty-something, toils in the family Greek diner, lank hair and a baggy dress. Then one day a handsome, sensitive, artsy guy named Ian walks in. Ian is definitely not a Greek name. Toula’s Mr. Right becomes her parents’ Mr. Wrong. Her father wonders aloud of Toula’s fiancé. “Is he a good boy? I donnn’t know. Is he from good family? Is he respectful? I donnn’t know.” The “Us” and “Them” screech and collide throughout the story. Ian’s uppity parents writhe in embarrassment as they arrive at the get-acquainted party. The limo pulls up to the curb and there, amidst modest suburbs homes, is Toula’s house, a miniature version of the Parthenon replete with Corinthian columns and statues and - horror of horrors - a lamb roasting on the front lawn.
In the end, this uptight WASP family finds in the Greeks a robust and exotic community, and both cultures are able to move beyond their initial reactions to form a new family. But you just never know what will happen when the Greeks arrive.
...and here’s where John’s Gospel takes us. The Greeks arrived. They heard about Jesus, they went to Philip and asked to see him. Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus that “some Greeks” wanted to see him. Jesus answered them, "The hour has come for the Son of Humanity to find glory. I am telling you the truth, unless a seed falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single seed; but if it dies, it becomes much more. Whoever serves me must follow me.”
Now I’ve left out some parts, of course, because John was working hard to establish his very particular view of who Jesus was and why Jesus had come. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke work hard to place Jesus in the line of Adam and David, with God as his Father, thus giving him more honour than anyone else in that society - elevating Jesus and leaving him there at the top. John also works equally hard to show us Jesus at the top of the ‘honour’ pyramid, but that Jesus then turns the whole notion of honour and fame on its ear.
Too often we go through these readings, and either think we understand what’s being said, or don’t understand at all, but are afraid to say so. Clergy haven’t been really good about helping congregations get hold of the readings. Biblical literalists will tell you “it says what it says.” thereby placing something from another culture into our own cultural and linguistic context, instead of putting it where it should be - its own historical and cultural context.
Jewish culture, then and now, is called an “honour-shame” culture. Richard Rohrbaugh is Paul S. Wright Professor Emeritus of Christian Studies at Lewis and Clark College. He has spent a lifetime studying the social dynamics of the Middle East, both currently and in Biblical times.
As he describes it, honour was and is the central value in relationships in the Middle East, and was and is incredibly intricate in its workings. Honour is earned by your family and you add to it or diminish it by your behaviour, which is assessed and assigned in highly complex ways. Honour is given according to your age, and your position in society. Perhaps a good modern example of such a society would be Japan....for even as Japan *looks* very Western, the culture of honour and shame runs far deeper than we in the west understand.
Jesus was referred to by Paul as a “priest of Melchizedek.” Melchizedek is the oldest high priest and/or king in the Torah, therefore his order is most honoured of all. The fact that little is known about him is irrelevant in this system -- his honour is established. Period. Melchizedek was the high priest/king of Salem = Shalom = Peace. In other words, he was the King of Peace. Some interpretations have Melchizedek, the King of Peace, being God, and hence Jesus was called the Prince of Peace.
Now, in this cultural context Jesus - as a high priest in the order of Melchizedek - should have been associating *only* with particular people, on the same honour level as himself. So the fact that he associated with all kinds of people at every level of life meant that he acted absolutely shamefully. There is a point where even his family rejects him - remember they are of the line of David, and although not wealthy, connected to royalty. Jesus scandalized the religious leaders with his teachings that the true Realm of God was a place designated first for those designated as dishonourable. He associated with the worst of the riff raff, the prostitutes, sinners, tax collectors, lepers. Being seen in their company, drinking and laughing, would have started rumours about every single aspect of his life, even his sexual life - thereby dishonouring his father and mother and breaking the law of Torah. When Jesus preached “the Beatitudes” in this context, he preached a manifesto that set the honour system upside down.
Jesus says “follow me and you will be honoured by God.” In other words, he says “Turn the social system upside down, because it’s not what God ever had in mind. All this structure of ‘place’ and ‘honour’ in society is nothing - do what I do, do what I teach, and you will be honoured by the one who counts most - God.”
When Jesus hears that some Greeks want to see him, he talks about “grains of wheat” not being able to produce anything until they are first planted in the earth. Philip isn’t sure what Jesus’ approach to ‘outsiders’ would have been, so he goes and gets a couple of others, and bingo they have a Session, who get to decide who is in and who is out. Well, instead of sending the new people away, they at least have the sense to go and ask. Can you imagine how differently the story would have turned out if Peter had been the usher the day the Greeks came to Jesus, (given Peter’s tendency to shoot op eds from the hip)? “Little far from the Acropolis, aren’t we, boys? What? You want to meet Jesus? Well, ours is an exclusive group, see? No cross-cultural sharing here.” This episode probably wouldn’t have made it in the gospel at all. Peter and Greeks would have mixed about as well as Ian’s and Toula’s parents! Just like oil and water.
It is totally astonishing to me that Philip and Andrew are unsure of Jesus’ policy toward Greeks. Maybe this is a boundary issue story. An Emerging Church boundary issue. We don’t dare go where angels fear to tread. After all, maybe Jesus only invites certain people into the group. So they wonder. Jewish? Yes. Hellenized Jews? Most probably. God-fearers? Maybe—with a little catechism. But out and out Greeks?
But Jesus turns the expected upside down once again. Doesn’t matter if they’re one of us racially or religiously. Doesn’t matter if they understand all the laws or purity or honour or shame or anything else. None of those things matter. Seeds cannot grow unless they first are planted in the ground and die, to become something new and different, in a different way than the origins.
I think Jesus is addressing a second thing here, which relates to the first. Seeds can only grow into flowering plants if they first die. So, the person who works to ensure the ‘death’ of the old self, and follows the *way* of Jesus, will produce much fruit which will then be taken out into the rest of the world.
Jesus was also talking about himself - that in order to bear fruit he had to die. But once again, we also need to recognise context. Bruce Chilton, author of the book “Rabbi Jesus”, points out that the concept of being raised from the dead was an intrinsic part of Jewish teaching. Jesus was only passing on what was included in Talmud, and taught with regularity (Daniel, Leviticus). However, in typical Jesus fashion, he put a twist on it. He taught that resurrected humanity was like angels, and by doing so was once again engaging in theological debate with the religious leaders. By stating this, he literally said to the Pharisees that resurrection was *not* a physical resuscitation of all those who had died. He refuted the teaching of the religious leaders. He clearly *denied* that anyone would be resurrected in the same body as they died in - it was, and is, a physical impossibility. But, he answered the question posed in Ecclesiastes “Who knows whether the spirit of people goes up above, and whether the spirit of beasts goes under the earth?” Jesus recognised that the direction of one’s spirit is within one’s power to influence before death. - hence recognising the Spirit of God within each person, even ourselves, was literally a matter of life and death. And he sets up a dialogue which we see in Paul’s writing to the Corinthians about death and resurrection - I think he also hopes his disciples will remember this particular conversation on the third day.
Once these things are put together, a picture of the kind of abrasive personality Jesus could be emerges more clearly for me. In what seems to be a relatively simple saying, he literally says first turn the social system upside down, and then turn the religious belief system upside down. At every level he is challenges the established law and teaching, and says that’s not what God intended. To me, these are the “seeds of life”, the “grains of wheat” Jesus talks about in his reference to resurrection. The seeds of life which will bear much fruit are within each of us. What fruit will we bear, what divine power will we tap into? Who are the Greeks in our world today? How do we meet the Greeks in the clash of cultures - the churched and the non-churched, those who want to explore, and have questions, but aren’t “us”? When they start asking questions about birth, life, death and resurrection - what will we say? Will we give them the pat answers that say nothing? Or will we recognise that seeds have already been planted, and need a place to be free to be nurtured, and grow? Will we recognise that what comes up out of the soil will never be the same as what went in.....and that God knows?
Sources:
1. “Seeds of Life” Hebrews 5:5, John 12:20-33 Fifth in Lent 2006 Year B by Rev. Fran Ota
2. “The Greek Mizzion” John 12: 20-33, Lent 5 Year B, by Rev. Thomas Hall
3. Chilton, Bruce. “Rabbi Jesus: An Intimate Biography”. Random House, New York. 2002.
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