Text: John 12:20-33                                                                                       5 Lent (Judica)

“A Love-Hate Relationship”

In the name of him who was lifted up to draw all people to himself, dear friends in Christ:  Jesus said, “… the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

Every year in the fall, as part of the Homecoming festivities over at the Clarinda High School, they put on a program they call the Gong Show – which is inspired in a round about way from the old television show with the same name. Maybe you remember the old show with host Chuck Barris.  It was sort of a talent contest.  People would come and perform their act, whatever it was, and they’d be judged by a panel made up of those ubiquitous “celebrities” who never seem to have anything better to do than appear as celebrities on stupid game shows. Anyway, the acts people would perform ranged from the very serious:  well-polished singing, dancing, magic, stand up comedy, what have you, to the absolutely bizarre, like people playing a well-known melody by putting a hand in an armpit and moving their elbow up and down, or placing fifteen Ping-Pong balls inside their mouth and then reciting poetry; things like that.  Half the fun of the show was seeing what kind of crazy things people would do to claim their fifteen minutes of fame.  If a performance was particularly bad, either owing to the lack of talent of the artist or because the act itself was something no human should ever do to entertain an audience, one of the judges could, in mercy, end it by striking the gong – hence the name Gong Show. Anyway, the version at the high school is pretty much the same – but it’s a lot less serious.   It is instead an occasion for some general slapstick hilarity most of which far exceeds the even the furthest frontiers of good taste and reverent behavior.

About a year and a half ago, I had both the misfortune and poor judgment to attend one of these shows.  The best thing I can say about it is that except for a few recurring bad dreams I’ve suffered since, I don’t remember much about it; but one act does stand out. A young man stood up to do a monologue in which he listed all the things in life that he hated.  And he hated just about everything you can think of.  Mind you, his tirade wasn’t simply the whining complaint you’d expect of a spoiled and petulant teenager.  No, it was well thought out and organized; and in a bitterly cynical sort of way, it was designed to be humorous.  (My personal opinion was that it fell short of the mark, but at least I’m told that it was better than his performance the year before.)

Anyway, he attacked things he hated in bursts.  He started with broad topics like global politics, economics, world hunger, pollution, AIDS, ozone depletion, terrorism, and drug trafficking. Then he moved to national concerns and spoke about how he hated politicians, the armed services, and things like inflation, taxes, racism, and crime.

Later he went on to the kind of people that he hated:  the rich, the poor, the overly industrious, the lazy, smokers, inconsiderate drivers, telemarketers, lawyers, religious evangelists, people who talk too much, people who are too thin (he was on the heavy side), those who criticize others, who don’t return phone calls, and, strangely enough, those who complain too much.  At school he hated the jocks, the nerds, the dopers, the cheerleaders, and just about any other classmate he could lump into a discernable category.  As I recall, he wrapped up with several personal items: how he hated certain actors, forms of music, vegetables, well, just about anything served in the school cafeteria, and SPAM e-mail.  His list was quite comprehensive.

And as you sat there listening to him, a few things struck you.  First, that it was all rather depressing.  Here was a guy who seemed to hate his life in general.  Second, that he had a lot of legitimate complaints.  You found yourself thinking, “Yeah, I hate that too.”  Third, as he kept going on and on, that the whole thing was becoming rather irritating.  You began to hate his act and hoped that someone would bang the gong to stop it. (I hated the fact that no one did.) And finally, though you hated to do it, you couldn’t help thinking, “I wonder if sometimes I sound just like him.”

And that’s possible, because I think it’s fair to say that we’ve all said that we hate pretty much all the things he mentioned.  And for good reason: there’s plenty to hate about them. But the reason I bring it up is that none of this hating of the things in life I’ve been talking about has anything to do with the kind of hating life that Jesus is speaking of in this morning’s Gospel lesson.  All these things have to do with being dissatisfied with conditions in the world around us.  When we say we hate some of these things, we mean that they do not conform to our desires or ideals; or rather, that because things are the way they are, “the quality of my life does not measure up to my expectations or desires.”  We’re saying, “I hate what this does to my life, but I can envision a much better reality for myself if things were different.”

And so, though it might not be immediately obvious, to complain about the things we hate in life is generally a symptom of loving our lives in this world.  It’s a way of saying, “I deserve better.  I shouldn’t have to put up with this.  And if life were fair and right, things wouldn’t be this way.”  You see, our lists of “hates” are an indication of how much we love our lives and how we want them to be better. 

It’s strange, but it’s often said of people who commit suicide that they “hated themselves”.  In most cases, I think it’s quite the opposite.  Usually a person kills himself out of self-centeredness or self-pity. They want to rescue themselves from some kind of physical or emotional pain or embarrassment.  So you see, in most cases of suicide, the victim is thinking only about himself – which is self love—unless he’s also thinking about how the suicide will make the people with which he wants to get even suffer, which is still the self-centered desire for revenge.  It should be obvious then:  with rare exception, people who commit suicide are not showing self-hate, but self-love.

            And it’s our love of self that Jesus would have us hate. That’s because self-love is the number one problem of the human condition.  Ultimately, it is the source of all sin.  It directs our attention inward.  It causes us to measure the quality of our lives in terms of personal pleasure and satisfaction.  It causes us to weigh each thing we do not in terms of what God has said is right, but rather in terms of the questions, “What benefit will this bring to me?  How will this make me happy?”  Each person in our lives is evaluated in terms of, “What will you do for me?”  And anything or anyone that stands in the way of attaining our personal goals is going to be removed or ignored, and if that’s not possible, it will be tolerated with deep resentment.

Unfortunately, all this “looking out for number one” never produces the desired results.  We are seeking happiness and fulfillment.  The problem is that we’re all going at it all alone.  Even though we are surrounded by many others, because each one is focused inward, there is a part of us—really the essence of who we are—that lives in total isolation.  And we weren’t made to live that way.  We were made to be in God’s image – God who is a tri-unity of persons in constant fellowship and communion.  Similarly, we were made for fellowship and communion with others; but our self-centeredness opposes this.  One of the most frightful themes that writers of science fiction have given us is the “last person on earth” story.  It’s the one where the main character wakes up and finds everyone else in the world is gone or dead.  Suddenly he’s got everything and anything he wants.  He’s got no responsibilities or cares.  The whole world and everything in it is his.  For a while he’s thrilled with the limitless possibilities.  But in the end he always goes mad in his fruitless quest to find someone else to share it with.

We were made for fellowship with God and one another.  But because each one lives for self, we cannot satisfy that which is our deepest need.  As long as we love our lives in this world, we are condemned to isolation.  Like Jesus says, “[as long as it remains as it is,] a kernel of wheat … remains only a single seed.”  It’s all alone, doing nothing for anyone.

The solution?  Jesus says we are to hate our lives in the world.  He means we are to hate the self-centeredness within.  We are to hate ourselves in the sense that we set aside the quest for personal pleasure and satisfaction, and commit ourselves instead to fulfilling the lives of others.

And that’s not easy.  As a matter of fact, it’s impossible.  There are two reasons why.  The first is that we simply don’t believe living for others is better than living for ourselves.  It runs against all human logic.  We think, “If I don’t look out for myself, no one else will.”  And there it seems we sell God short.  We forget that he’s the one looking out for us.  We don’t trust that he can take care of us better than we can take care of ourselves.  The second reason we don’t live for others is that we can’t. So deeply ingrained is our self-love that no matter how hard we try to put others before us, we can’t do it. It’s impossible for us to consider taking an action without weighing the cost and thinking about the personal rewards that may result.  So, we’ve got a dilemma:  we need to live for others to fulfill our deepest needs, but we can’t because on some level we don’t believe it, and even if we did we are powerless to change.

But the Lord knew our dilemma and he knew what he had to do to solve it. He had to hate his own life and give it up for us.  That’s why he set aside his glory and came to this earth to be born one of us.  And when he was lifted up on the cross all alone, he drew all people to himself.  He drew all of our problems:  our self-love, sin, and all of its consequences.  He took upon himself the frightful punishment of total isolation from both God and man that our self-love caused.  He gave himself so that we could be reunited with his Father and also with one another.  And when he rose from the dead, he gave us his Holy Spirit to give us the faith to believe it, and to give us the power to live for others like he did.  And today he continues to give himself for us.  In his Holy Supper he feeds us with his body and blood so that we can enter into oneness with him and with all the saints who are similarly united with him.

And I don’t want to be misunderstood.  I’m not saying that the Christian life is one of pure drudgery: avoiding all pleasures and thinking up ways to deprive ourselves of happiness.  Not at all.  That’s a false sort of self-denial.  It serves no useful purpose.  God’s good gifts are to be enjoyed with thanksgiving.  And to best serve others we have to see to our own needs.  We need homes, food, and clothing.  We need rest and relaxation; we need to develop skills and pursue education; we need to work and earn money – all these things, precisely so that we are equipped and able to live for others.  And we need to graciously let others live for us.  Often our self-centered pride stands in the way of that.

And no, it still isn’t easy to hate this life and live for others.  Nor will it always be a pleasurable experience. Jesus’ own heart was troubled knowing what lay ahead; it won’t be any different for us.  Very often we will suffer loss and disappointment as we follow him.  But where we, the servants, are, he has promised to be helping us to bear the load. And he’s helping us to identify and root out the resistant self-love that continues to cling to us.  He points it out so that he can kill it.  Because when we die to self, when the kernel of wheat dies and is buried, it brings forth much fruit. 

May he then, in his mercy and love, make us fruitful in this way.  May he give us the grace to hate our lives in this world, so that we keep them with him for all eternity.  Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria!