Eternal life is right in front of us

Sermon by Andy Wurm, Palm Sunday Evensong14th April 2019

Some Greeks went to see Jesus. They approached the first disciple they could find with a Greek name, who told the other disciple with a Greek name, and then they went and told Jesus, who said ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified’, which in Australian lingo would be ‘I reckon I’d better tell people what I’m on about now’. And so he told people that he came to invite people into a better way of living – a more human way of living. And to describe that he used metaphors of living through dying and holding on through letting go. He used metaphors because he was talking about a practice, a way of life, and rather than be prescriptive about how people should do that, he just wanted to give them pointers to get them on their way. Actually, he wasn’t at all keen about telling people what they should do. Once when someone asked Jesus to tell his brother what to do, Jesus replied ‘who made me a judge over you?’

Jesus says that we must hate our life in this world in order to keep it for eternal life. To understand that, we must remember that Jesus lived in a time and place where people strongly exaggerated to make a point. So, someone might have said of their neighbour ‘I hope he roasts in hell forever’ to mean that he finds his neighbour irritating. When Jesus speaks of hating your life in this world, in order to keep it for eternal life, he means to not prefer it over the alternative. We also must remember that when he contrasts THIS WORLD with eternal life, he’s not contrasting the life you have now, with a future existence in heaven.

Eternal life is not heaven.
Eternal life is the world made just and fair by God.

It is in the future, but can be here and now for us, by us choosing to live it, choosing to make it present. Also, the ‘life you have now’ is life shaped by division and rivalry, so he’s really saying that we have a choice to live with division and rivalry, afraid of each other, so competing with one another, or a life being open to one another, being interdependent, cooperating, finding life with one another.

Later Jesus gets more dramatic with the line ‘Now is the judgement of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out’. Note that he didn’t say now is the judgement of THE world, but the judgement of THIS world – in other words, THIS world of competition and rivalry, THIS world of judgement.

Why is THIS world of judgement being judged and its spirit being driven out? Because the mechanism of judgement will be exposed through Jesus’ crucifixion. When Jesus is killed, it will show how the competition, division and rivalry that he speaks about works, in fact, it will be an actual demonstration of it. It masks itself as the way things are and the way things should be, but really it is just the violence of human beings, driven by fear, jealousy and selfishness. By allowing himself to be killed, Jesus is letting this evil expose itself and prove he is right. That which produces judgement of people will itself be judged. Or using mythological language, Satan, who is the spirit of domination, and whose name means accuser, or judge, will be judged – he will be shown to be nothing more than a divider, condemner, promoter of rivalry. Once division, competition, rivalry and judgement are shown to be what they really are, and how they destroy lives, they will no longer have credibility, no longer have power over people, hence Jesus describes it as the ‘ruler of THIS world being driven out’.

This is what happens in our individual lives when we realise that the person we judged and avoided, is in fact not evil, and it was our prejudice that drove us to label them such. That is the ruler of our personal world being driven out, and that is our entering into eternal life, which is love and openness to others.

Coming down to earth, where eternal life is to be lived, I heard an interview with Graham Long, CEO and Pastor of the Wayside Chapel in Kings Cross, Sydney. Wayside Chapel deals with over 300 down and out people every day of the year. In the interview, Graham spoke of the time his son died. He said that he was inundated with offers of help, such as friends’ holiday homes to go and stay in, to get away and grieve, but he preferred to stay at work, because he just needed things to be as normal as possible. Then one day at work, he was running late for a meeting, so he raced down the stairs to head out the door and there was a man blocking the doorway. In all his time there he had never seen a more dishevelled person, with the worst skin disease ever. Graham went to go around the bloke, but he moved in the way. Graham moved over to go around him, but again, he blocked him. So, Graham tried what solved 90% of people’s problems there, he reached for $2 from his pocket, but the bloke didn’t want any money. Instead he grabbed hold of him and came close, and kissed him on the cheek, and said ‘that’s from your son’.

That taught Graham that love is everywhere, and everywhere needs love from him too. That is the eternal life Jesus is talking about and inviting us into. It’s not something that can be earned. It is simply chosen.

We can choose to see Jesus – like the Greeks in the gospel story – to see love coming towards us, surrounding us, and to live that love, sharing it with others, or we can choose to see ourselves as separate from others, divided, in competition.

Yes, there is much in the world against us – in THIS world, but Jesus calls us to be in THIS world, but not OF THIS world. To live eternal life – life being loved and loving others.