Seeds of Love

Lent 5 Year B
John 12:20-33
The Seeds of Love
By Rich Gamble

Tom Fox, peace activist, was born on July 7, 1951. He was turned into a peace activist by the events of September 11, 2001. Fox, who was born in Dayton, Tennessee, was running a wholesale grocer in Washington when the suicide bombers struck, had been a Quaker since his youth and spent the next 20 months deeply contemplating how he should react to the attacks. In August 2004 he gave up his job to become a full-time worker for the Toronto-based Christian Peacemaker Teams.

Fox specifically asked to be sent to Iraq and, after undergoing training, arrived in Baghdad in late September 2004. He lived and worked with other CPT activists, taking statements about the abuse of Iraqi detainees by coalition soldiers, meeting Sunni and Shia leaders, working with refugees and children in schools, helping to set up a Muslim peacemaker team and sending back reports on the situation in Iraq to people in the West, especially North America.

A year before he was taken hostage he wrote this:

October 7, 2004. Statement of conviction: “We members of Christian Peacemakers Teams in Iraq are aware of the many risks both Iraqis and internationals currently face. However, we are convinced at this time that the risks, while significant, do not outweigh our purpose in remaining. Many Iraqi friends and human rights workers have welcomed us as nonviolent independent presence. During the previous year, they asked us to tell their stories, since they could not easily be heard, nor could most flee to a safer country. We continue to act as a resource to connect citizens of Iraq with human rights organizations, both local and international, as well as accompanying them as they interact with the multinational military personnel and Iraqi provisional government officials. As Peacemaking Team, we need to cross boundaries, help soldiers and other armed actors be humane, and invite them to refuse unjust orders. We need to help preserve what is human in all of us and so offer glimpses of hope in a dark time.”

Tom Fox was taken hostage on November 26, 2005 along with three other members of the Christian Peacemaker Team. His body was found in Baghdad on March 9, 2006, he had apparently been shot in the head by his kidnappers. He was 54 years old.

Now many people, no doubt think that Tom Fox foolishly put himself into harm’s way, and that by so doing lost his life for no good reason. To go unarmed into a war zone does seem insane. People are supposed to preserve their lives at all costs. But we are told that if you enter a war zone in a uniform and carrying a weapon, you are not insane you are patriotic. To risk death to kill the enemy is noble but to risk death to show love for the enemy is crazy. That is what we are told.

The problem is that what we are told is all wrong. It is so very wrong that it is hard for us to even begin to see the truth that is obscured by the lies we are told.

That is why, the words of the Bible sound so strange to our ears at times. Jesus here in John’s Gospel talks about glory and being lifted up but what he is really talking about is being tortured to death on a crucifix.

Jesus it seems walked unarmed into the land of his enemies the Roman Army of occupation and the religious leaders who aided the Romans with the intention of opposing these powerful forces. And not only does Jesus do this unnatural act of placing himself in harm’s way, but he calls on his followers to do the same. That is what he meant when he talked about hating your life. He is not talking about hating existence; he is talking about the call to his followers to turn their backs on all of the lies that have formed the framework of their lives prior to meeting Jesus.

Some of those lies, which are the same as the lies we are continually fed include: personal survival is everything, violence is essential to maintaining the human community, take care of number one first and foremost, the more you own the more you are worth, people who suffer generally deserve what they get.

These basic lies form the foundation for our social order and the social order in Jesus’ day. But lives built on such a foundation are lives cut off from the eternal spirit of the Holy. They are lives lived in fear of violent people, sickness, poverty, unpopularity, powerlessness, homelessness etc…

And when we fear we are easily manipulated to condone and even participate in acts of violence against a perceived threat. When we are afraid we often decide to turn our backs on those who need our help.

Jesus here in John’s Gospel is looking at his own death and refusing to be intimidated into changing his course, refusing to escape into the lies. In so doing he shines a light onto the lies. As he says: “Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.”

In his choice to move forward, even at the cost of his own life, in order to embody the light of truth, Jesus defeats the fear and the lies that have imprisoned humanity for thousands of years. He defeats it not in that the lies disappear but that people are shown an alternative and given a choice. And each and every time one of us breaks down a barrier separating people, reaches out in love, refuses to be motivated by fear, each time, we too become the light for others.

Tom’s death was not in vain; for he died as an embodiment of the truth. He died while breaking down barriers of hate. He died to show the world another way live in this world, another way to face those we call enemies. Our world wants to belittle those who enter conflict unarmed as crazy and those who enter conflict armed as heroes. Those who seek to kill the enemy as honorable and those who want to transform enemy to friend through love as unrealistic dreamers.

Such beliefs show how blind we are to the truth of Christ.

I speak of two men, one who died nearly four years ago and half a world away and one who died nearly 2000 years ago; undoubtedly they seem so far from our lives here. We are trying to cope with the challenges that face us here and now. But the challenges of which Jesus spoke are here and now. The fear is out there if we let claim us. The lies are part of the social fabric which surrounds us.

One way of reading this passage is as if it were a cruel joke on humanity. If you hate your life you get to live it eternally but if you really love your life you will lose it. But John is pointing to lives lived in the midst of the domination system.

This passage in John’s Gospel proclaims that the death of our old sources of security, our values and maybe even dreams is the path towards the new life in the light. If we fear losing our possessions, our status, the very things which defined us in terms of the old violent system of domination then we will be possessed by that system. But if we can stop measuring ourselves by our possessions, titles, income, or education, if we can instead embrace our new identity as bearers of the love of God to a hurting world, then we have job security, we have status enough, we have purpose, we have direction. We have hope.

Tom Fox like Jesus left his old secure life, to take on the risky role of bearing the alternative message of justice and peace to places where violence reigned.

He wrote: “We must come from a spirit of love and compassion to help our leaders and many of our fellow citizens come to see that if we truly love God then we must make a drastic change of direction in the course of our country. The only way we will gain respect is by showing it to others, even those we disagree with. The only way we will gain love is by giving it to others, even those we disagree with.”

It is remarkable to see fellow human beings who walk in the path of their convictions. It is heartbreaking to see such a person die as a result. Whether the death of Tom Fox and Jesus have any meaning rests with people like us and the choices we make. Amen.