Homily for 5th Sunday of Lent 3/25/2012

Lent 5B  Unless a grain of wheat dies, it cannot produce fruit.

          How is Lent going for you? Seems like it wasn’t that long ago I stood here, amazed that Lent had started so soon because to me, it seemed like Christmas had just passed. Now I stand here today still amazed that Easter is only 2 weeks away.

          Everyone still is talking about what they have given up for Lent, which reminds me of a story. Seems there was this fellow who was in the habit of going into his favorite bar, by himself, & always ordering 3 beers. One of the regular patrons took notice of this, and got up enough gumption to ask him why he would always order 3 beers for himself. The man was only too kind to explain that the reason for this was that long ago he and his 2 brothers had made a pact to always order a beer for each of them when they visited a bar. So, this seemed to be a satisfactory answer. And the routine went on for quite a while, with the man always ordering 3 beers for himself at this bar. Then one day the man came in & to everyone’s surprise, he ordered only 2 beers. His buddy saw this, & immediately sensed that something serious must have happened to one of the brothers. So he approached the man, & asked if one of his brothers had died. No, he replied, my brothers are fine. It’s me… I gave up beer for Lent.

          But on a serious note, I sincerely hope you all have made some effort to do something special and meaningful this Lent. I was at lunch one recent Friday with a group of Catholics, and one observed that everyone was eating fish. And he asked me, “Look at this, because it’s Lent, everyone eating fish whereas usually only 1 or 2 people eat fish. What does it all mean? What do people get out of it?”

          He posed a very intelligent and interesting question. Do we do these Lenten sacrifices only because the church asks us to do so? Do we do them out of obligation and then that’s the end? The intent of Lenten sacrifices and devotions should be to get closer to God, to deepen our relationship with the Lord. By forgoing things that we are accustomed to, our physical hunger for food or certain kinds of food should instill within us a spiritual hunger, a hunger that only God can fulfill.

          I asked my Mom what she was doing for Lent. She simply replied, “Just to pray more.” What a wonderful, pragmatic response! It captures the essence of Lent- changing ourselves in such a way that we get closer to God.

          Some people, I think, view Lent as a season for meditating on Jesus’ dying, and we look forward to Easter to celebrate his rising. But it’s sad to look at the season with that distorted view. Lent is no more a preparation for the resurrection of Jesus than Advent is a preparation for Jesus’ birth. To do so would emphasize history more than the mystery. It is the mystery of the cross and resurrection that is of utmost importance, The paschal mystery is what Jesus’ followers failed to understand until quite a few weeks after it all happened. There is indeed a history, a fact of His dying and subsequent rising. But all of Lent, and really, all Sundays, derive their meaning from Easter. And what is Easter? It is the paschal mystery. The mystery of the dying and rising Jesus.  Lent is not Jesus’ dying and then Easter his rising. It is the mystery of this duality..of his dying and rising. The whole of Lent is an intense initiation into the paschal mystery, into the twin reality of Jesus dead and Jesus risen.

          Just think of the Gospels we have heard and reflected on this Lenten season. Each one took us deeper into this central mystery of our Catholic faith. The 1^st Sunday was Jesus in the desert. The desert is not only the place of temptation, wandering, searching and confusion, but also a place of discovery. A place where Abraham and others received the covenant for God’s chosen people. It was the Holy Spirit who led Jesus into the desert.

          And the 2^nd Sunday..the Transfiguration. Jesus reveals to the disciples who he really is…a person of life. But they fail to grasp the entire death-life duality, this seeming contradiction of how Jesus had to die to save us. One of the disciples says “It is good for us to be here”, but the reality is that the entire story is about to unfold before them.

          The 3^rd Sunday told us of Jesus upsetting the moneychangers in the Temple. In the midst of destruction would come resurrection. Jesus proclaims, “Destroy this temple and in 3 days I will raise it up!” The followers still haven’t realized that the Temple that Jesus was speaking of was his own body.

          And last Sunday we had the contrast between darkness and light. In the midst of darkness, Jesus is presented as a person of light. Not at the end of darkness, but rather, in its very midst.

          And today’s gospel, we hear of the grain of wheat. In dying, the grain of wheat yields a rich harvest.  In dying, Jesus lives. In dying, he gives life, life to all of us.

If we take a closer look at today’s Gospel, we see Jesus speaking to the people who pulled out all the stops and got to see Jesus. He tells them that the hour has come for the son of man to be glorified, but then he goes on to describe that glorification with a very striking image: "Unless the grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat. But if it dies, it produces much fruit." He is talking about himself. He will die and then produce much fruit, and that fruit is the salvation for many.

But he is talking about us as well. Indeed he says we have to die in order to live. Now he doesn't mean the end of our earthly life. He is talking about our everyday lives. What does our baptism mean to us? It means dying to our old way of life & beginning a new life in Christ Jesus.

If we would serve Jesus and preserve our lives then we must follow him to the cross, to the service of one another. For He has told us that where his servant is, Jesus himself is found. We are journeying in the company of Jesus and there are others trying to get to Jesus through us, just as those Greeks in today’s Gospel came to Philip and then to Andrew and finally to Jesus. We must ask ourselves, “Whom are we bringing to Jesus? And how in our life of service are we dying to our old way of life in order to live? How is the grain of our lives falling into the ground? Who needs our service now?

          Which brings us back to our Lenten resolutions. What are we doing to get closer to God? Are we getting rid of those disordered affections, as St Ignatius called them, those unimportant, frivolous things that get in the way of us and our relationship with Jesus?

          I am convinced that 99% of us are addicted to something, whether it is eating, shopping, internet, facebook, TV, video games, or blaming, or gossiping. The simplest definition of an addiction is anything we use to fill the empty place inside us that belongs to God alone.

Every Sunday, and especially during Lent the church asks us to delve deeper into prayer and to meditate upon the paschal mystery--Jesus’ death and rising.  Jesus spoke eloquently about his final hour. Well, this is our hour, the hour we come together in communion with others to celebrate the Eucharist, to pray and to receive our spiritual nourishment. We need to share with those we love and with those with whom we worship how we have learned to be servants in the sense that Jesus was a servant, to give ourselves for one another.

This is our faith. This is our hope. And this is our comfort: that Jesus suffered, prayed, obeyed and died that we might be like that grain of wheat, and live and die with Him.