The View from Seven Weeks In...

I am absolutely happy with my new job.

But as it turns out, new jobs are tough. It's frustrating to realize that a simple task that should only take a couple of minutes at most takes three times longer than necessary because you have to learn and relearn all of the micro-steps to the task that will, with time, come without thought. For example, something as simple as checking my voicemail last week required first digging through a desk drawer to find the file containing the paper with the voicemail instructions, reading the instructions to figure out what to dial in order to access the voicemail system, and recalling where I had written down my password for the voicemail system. Or answering a relatively straightforward email requires first reading through several sets of minutes from several different committees in order to figure out the background of the request and what next steps need to be taken, and by whom.

All of these things will get easier with time, and every new job comes with its own learning curve. It's normal.

But as it also turns out, starting a new job doesn't make the hard stuff instantly disappear.

As much as I love doing this work that I believe God has called me to do and has given me the necessary gifts for, as time goes on I am realizing that the voice of the man who told me that I shouldn't pursue pastoral ministry is still echoing around in my head, and wasn't instantly vanquished by the call to serve here. The voices in my head that tell me that any minute now the fact that I'm the wrong gender is bound to pop up haven't gone silent, even though I now serve in a congregation where women have long been affirmed in leadership and pastoral roles. And the hard experiences of the last year, and the irrational fear that another 'congregation' that I love will be taken from me in an untimely manner is persistent in its unwelcome presence.

Add to that the normal introvert fatigue of trying to get to know hundreds of new people all at once, and it's exhausting. Actually, physically, exhausting.

I'm used to pushing my limits hard...to hitting the wall and then pushing just a little harder to see how long I can keep going and how much I can do.

But it's been a tough year, and my capacity to push past my limits just isn't cutting it right now. It seems I've reached the end of my resources.

Which is a gift, in a crazy sort of way.

Because a long while back I read an analogy about ministry that really stuck with me. It compared ministry to learning to swim: When we try to master ministry of our own resources, we can become frightened and defensive, clutch up, and it is then that we sink. When we instead learn to rely on the gifts of God, when we learn to trust in the buoyancy of the water that holds us and just relax into it, it's then that we learn to float. "The buoyancy of water and the possibility it creates for us to be able to float and to swim with confidence provided an apt and lovely metaphor for the buoyancy of God, whose everlasting and omnipresent grace enable us to live and to have life abundantly."

Perhaps the gift in the exhaustion is the invitation to learn to breathe deeply, to relax into the buoyancy of God, to know that not everything depends on me, to practice receiving the grace of God that I invite others to experience. To learn to serve in true partnership with the Spirit of God, instead of simply paying lip service to the idea. To lean into the goodness of God and the trustworthiness of the Spirit.

Hard lessons, friends, especially for those of us who are used to being strong, to achieving what we set out to accomplish, to challenging the limits.

But lessons that I hope I can learn now, in these early weeks of pastoral ministry, and carry forward with me for many years to come, so that I can serve as well as I possibly can these people whom I am rapidly coming to love, in the way that God intended all along.

Glass Ceilings

Here's the thing about glass: it's hard to see, because its whole purpose is to be seen through. You're not meant to notice the glass, but what's on the other side.  You look out the window to see what's beyond, not to notice the window itself. You look past the glass at the aquarium to see the fish swimming within. You choose a glass lid for a pot so that you can keep an eye on the contents simmering away inside.

The whole thing about glass is that it's hard to see, especially up close.

It's easier to observe glass from a distance. I can more easily see the windows of the neighbouring buildings than I can see the window out of which I observe them. 

At times, in the past, I have been asked my opinion regarding the so-called 'glass ceiling' that seems to prevent more women from assuming pastoral roles in my previous church denomination. On paper, it has been more than a decade since a resolution passed at a national gathering freed women to serve in pastoral roles at all levels, including lead pastor roles, within the denomination's churches. Based strictly on casual observation and informal conversation with other observers, it seems that little has changed in that decade. Why is that, some have wondered aloud.

I think I was too close to the proverbial glass ceiling to see it well. It was much easier to see what lay on the other side--the opportunities that I longed for--than to see what was up close.

I'm probably still too close to the situation to really give you a good analysis of the glass.

But here is one thing that I've noticed in recent weeks, which I offer as a personal observation, for whatever it's worth.

I have noticed something that I've come to think of as 'the assumption of competence.'

Let me try to explain. 

A few times in the past few weeks I've been caught off guard by people who assume that I'm a competent pastor.

I know that might sound strange. I get that. In another field of work, it would be wholly ridiculous to hire an occupational therapist and then to assume that she is incapable of doing the job for which she was hired.

And yet, my surprise on a couple of occasions when this 'assumption of competence' has happened to me has made me examine why that is. And I've realized that there have been subtle boundaries that I've regularly encountered in ministry. Things that it is assumed that I will not do, or that I should not do, or that should only be done by a more senior (male) leader. Or things that, should I have the opportunity to do them, it is made clear that it is 'very special.' Is it because they are 'too pastoral'? Or because the roles that I've functioned within in the past (and the roles that are often held by women in the denomination, I'd suggest) are niche roles within the church, with fairly well-defined boundaries? I'm not sure.

In the new setting that I'm in now, I find myself at times offered opportunities for ministry that I'd always assumed in the past were off limits to me. The opportunities come without any fanfare, as if they are no big deal. Except to me, they are a big deal. 

Some of these things are things that I've come to be nervous about, because they've felt off-limits for so long. I've wondered if I'm up to the challenge. I've questioned my own competence.

Let me tell you, though, that there's a tremendous gift in having someone assume that I am fully capable. In having something that might seem like a 'big deal' in my mind ever so casually handed to me, of feeling someone else's confidence in me even if I have my own doubts.

Because do you know what? It turns out--I am pretty competent. Still learning, to be sure. Going to make mistakes? Definitely! Perfect? Far from it. But competent? Yes!

Without opportunities to be competent, to rise to the challenge, to try new things, to live into all of the corners of the calling to pastoral ministry--without the support of people who assume competence, who back off and allow success and learning to flourish--we'll still have glass ceilings for sure.

So, for the chance to glimpse and explore my own competence, I am truly thankful. And for more people to be given this gift, I continue to pray.

 

Like My Skin Fits

Many times over the past several weeks, people have asked me how it feels to be switching careers--to be leaving behind the career that has sustained me for the past seventeen years for employment as a full-time pastor.

There are a few different answers that I can, and have, given to that question.

Sometimes it feels terrifying. I am leaving the career that has given me job security, that paid the bills through my graduate studies and once again when my ministry role came to a sudden and unexpected end this fall. I'm leaving the job that has helped to give me some sense of value and worth when my experiences in the Church at times left me questioning who I was and whether I had anything to offer.   And because of the regulations that govern my previous field of work, at some point it will become increasingly difficult to go back and do this again in the future. So, it feels scary.

It feels exciting. I remember vividly how it felt to wait, in the in-between time after the interviews were all completed and when the congregation's response was yet to come. I remember how very much I wanted their answer to be 'yes'--how I felt nothing but certainty that my own answer was a resounding 'yes,' if only they would ask the question.

But most of all, to my surprise, as I have prepared to make this move, I've noticed something in me that goes beyond emotion. The only way I can describe what I've been feeling as I have anticipated the beginning of the month and the invitation to take on this new role, after their 'yes' and my 'yes,' even amid all of the fear and excitement, is this.

It feels like my skin fits.

It feels like something has fallen into place that has long been dislocated, so long that I had ceased to notice that it was rubbing me in the wrong way all of these years.

You see, I have known that this is what I was called to do and to be for almost twenty years. I have been ready to make this move since before I had even graduated from university.

And while I was grateful for the chance to study theology and ministry, and to work in pastoral roles in a part-time capacity, and while I was told by many men who were employed full-time as pastors how fortunate I was to have another career as a fall-back and how bivocational ministry is the way of the future, there was never an opportunity to fully embrace the call to full-time pastoral ministry.

I was never offered the choice.

And I know that this will not be easy--that I have so very much to learn, that there will be many challenges along the way, that there will be hard days, and all the rest.

But right now, it feels like my skin fits for the first time in as long as I can remember.

And for that, I'm beyond grateful.

A Plea for Honesty

I sat across the desk from a male leader in my church denomination several years ago as I was about to embark on the adventure of seminary studies. At that meeting, I voiced one of my concerns at the outset of the journey--that I would ultimately not find space to use my gifts for ministry within the denomination that I called home.

And I still remember, as clearly as if it were just yesterday, him looking across the desk at me and telling me that there would be no problem with me finding a place to use my gifts within the church as long as my theology was solid. Gender and singleness, he assured me, were not determining factors in how churches in the denomination chose their leaders anymore.

I wasn't sure that he was right, but I badly wanted to trust him.

__________________________________________


I have had a sense of being called by God to serve in pastoral leadership in the Church for more than fifteen years now.

And for many of those years, churches within the denomination have been officially free to call men or women to leadership positions including that of lead pastor. For all of those years, churches have been free to call women to other leadership positions with the exception of the role of lead pastor. That is to say--on paper, there was no barrier to me serving in the way that I felt called.

Many people within the denomination over the years have chosen to quietly affirm my gifts, or their support of women in ministry leadership roles.

And yet, for fifteen years I struggled to find a place to serve, a place in which I felt like I and my gifts were truly welcomed.

And in those fifteen years I gradually came to the conclusion that it must be because my theology was lacking, or because I was misunderstanding the gifts that God had given me, that I was unable to find a place for myself, no matter how hard I worked, or how much I excelled in my coursework, or how diligently I worked to prove my loyalty to the denomination, or how patiently I waited for someone to offer me an opportunity to do what I loved to do.

I could never pinpoint exactly what it was that was wrong with me. I just knew there had to be something--or some things.


____________________________________________



And so, it came as a shock to me when I made the difficult but necessary decision to seek opportunities for ministry within a different denominational setting that virtually immediately my gifts were recognized, welcomed, affirmed, and sought out. That it was not a matter of fifteen years, but less than fifteen weeks before I found a place to belong.

It's a shock to the system, to say the least. Suddenly, I was receiving the external affirmation of my call to ministry from the church that I had been longing for for so long.

It's a shock to the system, to begin to wonder if there isn't actually something wrong with me after all.


______________________________________________


What I really, really want to say is this:

Friends, we are not doing anyone any favours by pretending that there are not systemic barriers facing women in our churches when, unfortunately, at least at some levels of leadership, those barriers are alive and well.

We are actually hurting people when we quietly pretend that these forces are not present, when we fail to name the actual forces at play in our churches.

How I wish that someone had the courage to say to me that I was unlikely to find the place to serve that I was looking for because I was a single woman. It would have been a gift. It would have saved me so much agonizing about what I was doing wrong, or why I couldn't shake the sense of God's call even when I clearly didn't have the affirmation of my gifts by the church.

How I wish that someone had arranged to have a conversation over coffee and actually asked me the question--whether I might consider seeking more welcoming spaces to test my gifts, where I wouldn't have to wonder if it was my giftedness that needed examination, or simply my gender or marital status leading people to certain conclusions before I ever opened my mouth to speak.

It might make us feel better, to ignore the uncomfortable truth that in many (not all!) cases, there is much work to do before women can be truly free to serve as they are gifted in our churches.

But this silence, it's actually hurting people.

So, this is my passionate plea for a new attempt at honesty. If this doesn't mean speaking out at a larger level, could it at least mean having the courage to have a hard conversation with someone one-on-one, to find out what their lived experience is like and to speak truthfully?

Because if we can save one person from thinking she is not good enough, not worthy of full acceptance in the Kingdom of God, not truly beloved by God, it will be worth it a thousand times over.

Gratitude

I've been feeling reflective lately, thinking back in particular over the year that has been. There have been lots of quiet anniversary markers over the past several months as a number of "one year today since..." milestones have come and gone, and as I've remembered some of the harder transitions of the past year, I've found myself becoming increasingly grateful for the moments of beauty that have come along the way.

This picture resonates with me as I reflect on some of the moments that leave me with a profound sense of gratitude--in the midst of the sharp and painful edges of the year, there has also been abundant beauty, for which I am so very grateful.

The blog is too public a forum for me to link names and stories with these spots of beauty, but in my mind with each one of these anonymous snapshots is a face and a name, a person for whose presence in my life this past year I'm profoundly grateful.

I'm grateful for each and every moment in which someone has understood without question my need to grieve the closing of House Blend and the loss of the community I loved--for the permission and encouragement to find safe spaces to process the hurt that I was feeling, for the acknowledgment that grieving is normal and healthy. For everyone who has, however briefly, stood with me without exerting pressure to 'be okay' when I simply wasn't. Thank you for teaching me the value and importance of the practice of lament.

For the people who held space for me to question my own vocation in ministry--who allowed me to ask the very hard questions that I needed to ask. Who didn't rush in to offer easy answers, as much as they might have wanted to. Who believed in me enough to trust that the answers would come, in time.

For the people who believed in me when I needed it most. I can't express how important it was to know that there were people who could still envision a future for me in which I was free to use my gifts to serve within the church--who still believed that I had something to offer, even when the way forward wasn't at all clear to me. Who reached out to tap me on the shoulder, to remind me that they were still in my corner. Who, in the end, spoke more loudly than the critics. Who reminded me of the power of being enfolded by the love of a community.

In a year that hasn't been easy, one of the things that stands out the most as I look back is the beauty offered by so many loving words, warm hugs, and honest affirmations. By people who made space for all of me, not just the bright and shiny parts. By people who never stopped believing that God has good work for me to do yet.

In a year that hasn't always been the greatest year, I'm grateful because these cumulative experiences of being loved have given me a picture for the kind of church that I want to be part of going forward--a church that persistently sees the good in others; that is quick to offer love, especially to those who are lonely or hurting; that believes that God has good work for us to participate in; that make space for vulnerability and honesty, even when it's uncomfortable; and that manages to be beauty incarnate even in the hard spaces in life.

Much has been given to me this year. I hope that I can find some way to pay it forward in the future.

Seeing Jesus: A Sermon

Text: John 12: 20-33

I want to begin with two scenes, both taken from the twelfth chapter of John’s gospel. I invite you to imagine them with me, to try to feel what it would have been like to be there, to picture yourself within each of these scenes. Where do you find yourself in it? How does it feel to be there? Do any sights, smells, sounds, or emotions stand out to you as you experience each of these scenes with your imagination? 

Scene One:

It is just six days before the Passover festival, and Jesus is sitting down at a table in Bethany for a dinner in his honour. Surrounded by friends, Jesus and his disciples are enjoying a sumptuous feast—the aromas of favourite foods fill the warm night air, peals of laughter ring out, and the warm glow of lamplight gives everything a golden air. It’s the kind of night that all of us treasure—a night shared with our closest friends, enjoying the kinds of memories that don’t quickly fade. Sitting with them at the table is Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead—literally, Jesus had called him out of the tomb after he had been lying there in his grave clothes for four days. His presence there on this night, eating and laughing alongside the others, is a reminder that this is no ordinary celebration. Later, Mary will pour a pound of costly perfume over Jesus’ feet, washing them with her hair, the only way she can think of that even begins to express the magnitude of the gratitude she feels toward this man who has brought life where only days before there had been death and grief. It is a night that none of them will forget for a very long time.

………

Scene Two:

Six days later, and as today’s Gospel text begins we find ourselves with Jesus in Jerusalem at the beginning of the Passover festival. We can sense the crowds of people pressing in all around us. The population of Jerusalem has multiplied exponentially as visitors pour in to the holy city for the festival, as they do every year. But this year is different. This year, everyone is on high alert, and if you listen carefully you can almost sense the tension crackling in the air. What was cause for celebration only a few days ago—the raising of Lazarus from the dead—has now come to the attention of the religious authorities, who are alarmed at the crowds who now want to acclaim Jesus as King of the Jews. Now, rumour has it, they are seeking both Jesus and Lazarus, some even calling for their deaths—and the disciples and others close to Jesus worry about where all of this is leading. Danger seems to lurk in every shadow, every loud noise causes them to jump, and yet none of this will dissuade Jesus from showing up at the festival as planned. Everyone is on high alert.

……...

There is such a stark contrast between the two scenes that I’ve just described, isn’t there? One of the things that most strikes me about John 12 is how completely the tables have turned for Jesus and his followers in the space of one week! One moment, we are feasting, completely in awe of Jesus’ power to bring life where there was death and grief; the next, we are standing amidst the pressing crowds wondering with the disciples at what kinds of danger their presence at this Passover festival may bring, afraid for the life of this man who has the ability to do miracles that go beyond even their wildest expectations.

The first scene is compelling—many of us probably find ourselves instinctively wanting to linger there, to imagine ourselves as part of the celebration, breathing in the scents of fine foods and rich perfumes, hearing the echoes of laughter as friends linger around the table, reveling in amazement at being in the very presence in the miraculous.

The second scene might leave us wondering how things have gone so quickly from this mountaintop high to this anxious tension with danger seeming to lurk at every narrow alleyway, astonished at how suddenly celebration and pure goodness can turn into fear and distress. We may find ourselves wondering why Jesus insists on being at the festival, and doesn’t simply withdraw to a quiet place away from the current uproar, as he has done so many times before. We may find ourselves wishing that we could go back to the simpler pleasures of that first scene, and skip this second entirely.

And just as, for many of us, it is the first scene that we are drawn to, it is Jesus’ ability to do the miraculous, his ability to defeat even the powers of death themselves by restoring Lazarus to life, that has brought the great crowds wanting to experience a piece of this miracle for themselves that cause such a problem in the second scene. The crowds wanting to see Jesus are growing, as they come in droves hoping to see Lazarus with their own eyes, to get a firsthand sense of who this Jesus person actually is. They can’t help but wonder—if Jesus really did bring a man back from the dead, how does this change the world as they know it? What could that mean for a people living in Roman-occupied Palestine, struggling to eke out a living, living daily under the heavy burdens of foreign occupation, longing for someone powerful enough to bring real change to their daily reality? What could it mean for people who, like us, have known real grief, real loss, real fear for ourselves, our children, and those we love? If Jesus really did bring a man back from the dead once, surely he can do it again! Surely, he can do it for us too!

It’s almost perhaps as if you were to go home from church today and turn on the radio, or switch on the tv, or pull up Facebook on your phone, or check your messages to find that everyone everywhere was talking about the same story—a cure for cancer had been found, one that would quickly and effectively treat every single one of the forms of cancer that we all know too well. Can you imagine what a game-changer that would be—the ability to cheat death in this way? Can you imagine the crowds of people who would flock to receive this new treatment? Can you imagine the hoardes of media who would be lined up waiting their chance to interview the researchers responsible for this game-changing discovery? Can you think of the people you know for whom this would be life-changing?

Unfortunately, that’s not likely to happen today, as much as we all wish it would. But  I can’t help but wonder if it isn’t this very same sort of desire to avoid death that brought the Greek inquirers to seek an audience with Jesus on that day in Jerusalem. It’s not really all that farfetched to wonder if the rumours of a dead man brought back to life might have reached these visitors to Jerusalem, whose Greek accents set them apart from the largely Aramaic-speaking local crowd who have sought Jesus thus far. Perhaps they’ve heard about this man who has demonstrated the ultimate power—power over death itself—and have come to learn more, to find out if this might somehow allow them to also avoid death’s ultimate defeat, or perhaps to beg Jesus to perform a similar miracle for someone they have also loved.

We’ll never actually know, because puzzlingly, in this text that begins with these Greek visitors approaching Philip with their request—“Sir, we wish to see Jesus”—we never actually find out if their requested audience with Jesus ever takes place.

Because when Philip, along with his fellow disciple Andrew, approaches Jesus to tell him of this latest group of curious visitors, Jesus’ response is, frankly, completely puzzling. Puzzling to Philip and Andrew, certainly; puzzling also to the crowds of people standing around them; and, to be honest, puzzling to me, even as I read his words with the benefit of being able to read them with not only hindsight but also degrees in theology on my side.

It’s a simple request, really: “We wish to see Jesus.”

A request that, one might think, would be met with one of two responses: Either “Yes, I’ll see them,” or “Sorry, not today.”

Instead, Jesus responds in a way that anyone who has written any multiple-choice tests will be familiar with: option c, none of the above. Instead of either of the expected responses, he answers Philip and Andrew with words that seem completely out of context for someone who has just demonstrated his own power to bring life to the dead.

While the Greek visitors have come seeking to see a man who has the power to overcome death, Jesus’ response invites those of us who seek to follow him to experience a deeper tension: “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.” Jesus’ words that follow are filled with tension: tension between death and new life, between losing one’s life and keeping it, loving and hating, light and darkness.

As we draw closer to the end of this Lenten journey, it’s as if we can already feel Jesus slipping away, as he begins to speak about mysteries that we cannot yet fully understand. We want a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response; instead, we receive a series of puzzling paradoxes. We want to understand this man who is so compelling, whose teaching is so attractive, who has demonstrated the ability to perform miracles unlike any we have ever seen before.

Instead, he speaks in images and metaphors that we half understand. After all, here on the prairies, especially, the image of a grain of wheat falling to the earth in order to bear a new crop in its time makes sense to us—but wrapping our minds around the mysteries of how this relates to the Kingdom of God is another thing entirely.

And I wonder if our goal maybe isn’t, after all, to dissect these sayings of Jesus, to wrap our minds around them and keep tugging and unraveling until we can make them into neat, clean theological treatises that we can make logical sense out of and draw neat, clean applications from.

I wonder if, instead, these words of Jesus can become for us an invitation to see Jesus more truly, to allow ourselves to be drawn into the mysterious love of God that exceeds our understanding, to find ourselves held by a story that is greater than we can ever possibly have constructed on our own.

I wonder if there isn’t a spiritual discipline to the letting go, to admitting that there are times when we don’t understand it all, to letting the words of Jesus resound in our heads as we wonder if the thunder that we thought we heard might not actually be the voice of God Almighty after all.

Because we’re called not to cling to our life, but to let it go as we seek to follow in the ways of Jesus. We’re not the ones called to lift Jesus up—he has already been lifted up. Instead, we are invited to allow him to draw us to himself.

As this Lenten season draws to a close, and as Holy Week approaches, I wonder if there might be some merit to allowing ourselves to be held by the wonderful mystery of the love of a man who, though he had proven his ability to conquer death, still stretched out his arms and submitted to death on a cross, in order that he might be lifted up for all people to be drawn to himself. I wonder if we might find that when we let go of the hope of a cure for death, we might find that in the letting go we actually receive the even greater gift of eternal life.

I wonder what would happen, in these last days of Lent, as we wait and watch, as we allow ourselves to feel the tensions of the events that are about to unfold, as we let ourselves wonder once again about the meaning of it all, I wonder what would happen if we entered into this season as those Greeks did so long ago, with one desire: “We wish to see Jesus.”

Maybe instead of trying to make sense of it all, some of us may want to consider making this our prayer for these final days of Lent: “Lord, we want to see Jesus.” What if we asked God to allow us to truly see Jesus with fresh eyes, as we head into Holy Week—less so that we might be able to wrap our minds around these things, and instead so that as we seek to experience these events anew, we might find ourselves being drawn into the greatest love that we have ever known.

Trusting that as we let go of what we think we know, as we let it fall to the ground, in doing so we are trusting ourselves to the One who is able to bring about much fruit—that in letting go of our grasp on the things of this life, we are in fact opening ourselves up to the mysteries of eternal life.

Lord, we want to see Jesus. We long for you to draw us to yourself, even as we find ourselves faced with the mysterious paradox that the path to eternal life must first pass through death; that to gain eternal life we must lose our life. For we remember and we trust that the same Jesus who spoke these words also proclaimed that it is out of Your great love for the world that you gave your Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life. Hold us in the vastness of your love, that we might know our identity as your beloved children more and more. Amen.

Reflection on John 12: 20-33 for the Fifth Sunday in Lent

“Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”

The words startled Philip, who had been lost in his own thoughts even in the midst of the pressing crowds who had come to Jerusalem to worship at the time of the Passover festival. They shouldn’t have startled him, really—“We wish to see Jesus” had become an increasingly familiar refrain that he heard many times a day these days. Word of Jesus’ teachings and miracles continued to spread like wildfire, and as the crowds of people continued to seek Jesus out, it was commonplace not just for Philip but for all of the disciples to be sought out like this. People wanting to see Jesus for themselves would approach one of the disciples, hoping that they might be persuaded to put in a good word, to be the advocate they needed to gain them a personal audience with Jesus.

These men weren’t like most of the crowds they’d all become accustomed to -- that was evident in their Greek accents. The accents set them apart from the mainly Aramaic speakers in the crowds. But other than the accents, nothing in particular stood out about them.

Philip wondered what it was that had brought these men to seek Jesus. Were they curious, hoping to see a miracle, like so many of those who had sought Jesus out? Were they among those who sought Jesus, desperate for one last shot at healing, either for them or for a loved one? Were they intellectuals or religious men, curious about Jesus’ teachings about the true nature of the faith? Or, because in recent days Philip and the other disciples had become increasingly aware of the gathering forces of people Jesus had angered with his radical positions, could they be seeking Jesus out in hopes of picking a fight or gathering evidence against him? So many people sought Jesus out for so many reasons. Philip took a closer look at these faces, trying to guess what their motives might be.

The variety of reasons that people sought Jesus fascinated Philip. He himself hadn’t come seeking Jesus at all—rather, it was Jesus who sought Philip, who found him in his hometown of Bethsaida and invited him to be his disciple with the simple invitation: “Follow me.”

The decision to accept that invitation—to impulsively leave behind his daily routine to become this man’s disciple, along with his friends Simon, Andrew, and Nathanael, had turned Philip’s life upside down in the past three years. He had witnessed the miraculous—from the wedding feast when, at Jesus’ word, jars of water had become the finest of wine, to more recently when Philip had seen with his own eyes as Jesus visited the tomb where Lazarus had been lying dead for four days and, with a word, called the dead man out, unbound him from the linens in which his body had been wrapped, and brought him back to life. Philip had hardly been able to believe what he had seen, but earlier this very week, he himself had sat down at table for a feast with both Jesus and Lazarus, and had seen the man eat, had heard his laughter, had even shook his hand. There was no way around it—the man had been very much dead, and he was now every bit as alive as ever. Philip could never have predicted any of this three years ago, and increasingly found himself trying to make sense of it all.

Of course, the tensions had also been mounting ever since the miracle of Lazarus, and more and more the rumour was that the religious leaders were looking to bring Jesus in for questioning, to arrest him—and not only that, but there were also threats against Lazarus, for being the man at the heart of all of the rising controversy. Now that Jesus was in Jerusalem for the Passover, concerns among the worried disciples were more numerous than ever. And Jesus’ increasing references to his own burial, and the crowds insisting on proclaiming Jesus the King of Israel, and Philip’s own questions about what it all meant, and what would happen next—all of these were weighing heavily on his mind. Until the Greek speakers arrived, startling Philip out of his own thoughts.

Shaking off his own thoughts and questions, Philip nodded to the two men, and, after a brief word with Andrew, who was also standing nearby, the two of them went to tell Jesus of the men’s request. Having a concrete mission helped to take Philip’s mind off his worries.

At least, that was true until Jesus responded to their request.

Instead of offering a straightforward response to the men’s request to meet him, Jesus’ response puzzled Philip more than ever.

“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified,” Jesus began. Jesus had been talking about this “hour” ever since Philip could remember—but until very recently, it had been “my hour has not yet come.”

But just when Philip thought that the climax of the story was coming—that Jesus was going to liberate the people from the foreign powers controlling the land, teach them to walk in God’s ways once again, bring the healing and hope that the people so desperately needed—just as Philip’s pulse began to quicken at the thought of Jesus finally being glorified before all people, so that more people could see the miracles, receive healing, and be liberated from their sins—just then, Jesus continued to speak.

“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.”

Philip was confused. These didn’t sound like the words of a man who had not long ago healed a dead man and restored him to life! These didn’t sound like the words of a man who had allowed a blind man to see, made a lame man walk again after thirty-eight years, restored the health of a dying little boy.

How could dying bear fruit? What on earth did death and being glorified have to do with one another? And how was any of this related to the Greek men who simply wanted to see Jesus for themselves?

Then, Jesus turned from speaking to Philip and Andrew to praying to his Heavenly Father, talking about his soul being troubled as “this hour” approached. “Father, glorify your name,” Jesus prayed earnestly as Philip and Andrew stood by uncertainly and the curious crowds of onlookers continued to press in.

Then came another one of those moments that Philip would remember until his dying day: An otherworldly voice filled the air, a voice that seemed to come from heaven itself: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”

The crowds looked to the sky, searching for the storm clouds from which the thunderous sound must have come, trying to gauge how soon they might have to run for cover. Some within the crowd insisted that it was no ordinary thunder—that there had been words within the booming noise, that it must have been a heavenly messenger speaking to Jesus.

Jesus alone seemed reassured after the noise receded. His words stirred the hopes of those looking for a new King to drive out the foreign powers in Israel: “Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

It wouldn’t be until much later that Philip recalled Jesus’ words, and heard the truth that he hadn’t been able to grasp on that day. That he realized that Jesus wasn’t to be exalted in the way that the crowds, and even some of his disciples, had hoped he would be.

It wouldn’t be until later that Philip would recall Jesus’ words and understand that Jesus was to be lifted up in a way that nobody could have anticipated. Lifted high above the ground on a cross, to await his death. Several days later, lifted up out of the grave—restored to life. And still later, lifted up before their very eyes, ascending to heaven to return to the presence of the Father until his return.

It wouldn’t be until later that Philip would understand that the crowds who saw Jesus as a wonder-worker and interesting teacher weren’t really seeing Jesus at all. Not in full, at least.

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* I'm preaching on this text this coming Sunday, and while I've decided this isn't the direction I want to take for the sermon, I thought I would share my imaginings of this text anyways, from the 'discard pile.'