Homily for the Week of March 25, 2012

FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT B 2012
First Reading: Jeremiah 31:31–34
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 51:3–4, 12–13, 14–15
Second Reading: Hebrews 5:7–9
Gospel: John 12:20–33


If you knew nothing about Jesus, and listened carefully to what I just read, you would most likely think to yourself that something bad is going to happen to this man. And it did. He was nailed to a cross and died on a Friday.


The meaning of this weekend's Bible reading might seem obvious, even to most persons who are not farmers and care little about gardening. Most of us know that you have to plant a seed to get a plant. Today Jesus talks about wheat. The head of the stalk of wheat is made up of many tiny grains of wheat. Each little grain of wheat has a hard outer shell which protects it. Deep inside the grain of wheat, there is the embryo or a plant that is waiting to grow.


Farmers will tell you that seed really has to be dead before it'll grow. If you plant green seed, it'll just rot. The mystery which surrounds the grain of wheat is that unless it is put into the earth, covered with soil, it remains just a grain of wheat. But, if it is placed into the earth, its hard outer shell splits open, and the tiny plant within begins to grow. Given the right conditions, the one grain of wheat can produce another stalk and a head on the stalk with many more grains of wheat. From the death of one grain of wheat comes the life of many grains of wheat.


Each of us are like grains of wheat. Every one of us has a hard outer shell that protects us. Each of us have developed ideas and opinions which we just are afraid to let go. Some of these might be the way we practice our faith--unwilling to change even when we are clearly convinced that we should; the fear of death. All of these and many more are ways we have of viewing and controlling our world. They are outer shells that lock us in, protect us and make us comfortable. But sadly, we will never grow spiritually this way.


In the Gospel today Jesus calls this dying in order to live the mystery that is always with us. It is a mystery that through death we grow. This mystery is only understood by those who have tried it and experienced it as true. We unlock our lives and truly grow. We come to realize that we are never alive until we learn how to die.


We need to allow our faith to be with us each day of the week, not just for the time we are church. We need to reexamine what love means to us. To love means to risk being hurt. If there is no risk, there can be no love. And if there is no love, then there is no life. If we open ourselves up to the possibility of love, we may discover the riches of other people and rise to new life.


We must die to our old ideas in order to come alive. Our first Bible reading for today by Jeremiah calls us to make a life long agreement with God that comes to an end when we will die for the last time. It is an agreement that God has given us, written not on stone tablets like the 10 commandments, but on our hearts where it makes a difference in the way that we live.


At times adults think like children. Think for a moment what might happen if you gave a very young child a few wheat seeds or sunflower seeds. Young children are often eager to cling to things and claim them as their own. They would want to keep their wheat seed safe and in their hands, not put it in the ground. They would want to keep seeing the seed. But you might be able to convince the child to place the seed in the ground by telling them that they will get many more seeds.


As Catholics and followers of Jesus we are invited -- persuaded -- to surrender our way of life according to Jesus' teachings. And if we do we too will have a new life. We must find ways of dying so that we might live. It may mean to rearrange our lives so that God comes first. God must not get the left overs.


This commitment of dying must also include some form of discipline in our life. Discipline means that we do not always give ourselves what we want when we want it. Discipline means that we ask ourselves if we really need something.


Jesus showed us how to die. He is the grain of wheat, which died and grew up out of the earth to become new life. In our first reading we find the prophet Jeremiah telling us that God would plant his law within us so that we would learn how to die and to grow. We are given the most consoling of promises by God: I WILL PLACE MY LAW WITHIN YOU, AND WRITE IT UPON YOU HEART; I WILL BE YOU GOD AND YOU SHALL BE MY PEOPLE, FOR I WILL FORGIVE YOUR EVIL DOING AND REMEMBER YOUR SIN NO MORE.


The message from Jesus today is that we simply must not pretend to die; Jesus calls on us to actually die -- to imitate his own death. Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile. For Jesus and us it's the only way to live. It is a blessing to die for a cause, because we can so easily die for nothing. Unless the grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies it remains just a grain of wheat. But if it dies, it comes alive.