But that just wasn't how this week was going to turn out. I got the call on Sunday afternoon that Jack's condition had worsened; something I knew would be inevitable, but maybe not so quick. I did get around with Barbara on Tuesday to meet a few friends who are new to me, but on Wednesday morning, we got a message from the chair of Farragut's Associate Pastor search committee. He apologized profusely for not keeping us "in the loop" but for one reason or another, they no longer needed our pulpit on Sunday morning for their candidate's preaching. WHOOPS! Although I was relieved to be finding this out on Wednesday instead of Sunday morning - I still hoped in vain that it was a belated April Fool's day joke. So here you have it - my best-laid plans put to rest, I scrambled to get a sermon ready that might actually fit our needs for this morning.

But you see, just when we think we are safe and things will be smooth sailing in this little Christian experiment, Jesus does to us just what the chair of Farragut's search committee did to me. He announces a shift in direction, a bump in the road, something that will make us uncomfortable and challenge us to rise to the occasion. This discourse is Jesus' last public conversation in John's gospel before he turns all his attention to the disciples. It is in this conversation that we see him address the Greeks - the outsiders that had not been welcome before. They don't get much of a chance to respond, but with both Jews and Greeks listening, Jesus tells them all, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, 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."

We might be inclined to think that this is a third person reference about Jesus alone. He was the one about to be glorified by God. He was the one who would die so that the fruit of his ministry could multiply. He was the one who gave more regard for the lives of others than for his own. This was about his trial, his journey, his leap of faith. Good for him! Way to go! We thank him ever so much, and go slinking out the back door.

But wait a minute! Jesus doesn't end there. Here's where he gives us the bad news of our own responsibility. He says, "Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am there my servant will be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor." That "whoever" ---- is he speaking to me? Follow? How? Surely, he doesn't mean to MY death, that I have to die to my preferences, to my securities, to my easy living. He did that for us, RIGHT?

Wrong. (In some churches, there would be an audible gasp at that remark.) Some of us still crave the belief to be true that Jesus died to make it all easier on us - sins forgiven, rules carried out, perfect church, perfect attendance record in heaven. But that isn't the case. We are to serve, to follow, to answer that call to deliver the good news whether it comes on schedule or on Wednesday morning or whether it totally rearranges my plans and scrambles my heart early Sunday morning. There is no reprieve other than our own deaths, and the many deaths that come with the dangers of gospel living. In order to follow Jesus, we must be willing to roll with those last minute changes in our plans. There may not be the sense of order we've grown accustomed to, but in following God's direction, we will discover a different kind of order.

I'm still scrambling to understand this myself, if even on the surface, but in my very limited readings on the new discoveries in physics, at the atomic level, examples of this new kind of order are becoming available to our understanding. Particles that are in relation to one another cannot help but be affected by the other. Until very recently, we have been mostly unaware of this kind of energy. We've set up a Newtonian world where we compartmentalize and give hierarchy to everything from organizational charts in businesses to the parts of the human body, but then we find out that all the parts are affecting all the other parts. To me, that is not only relevant information for taking our scientific knowledge to whole new levels, it also will affect and is affecting the way we form our understanding and meaning in the world -- which will also have an impact on how we give understanding and meaning to our place in that world, inevitably changing our language about faith.

Throughout human history, it seems almost redundant to say, our knowledge has affected our beliefs. Increased awareness about our world led from a flat, earth-centered model, to a solar-centered model, to realizing that our own sun has a rather mediocre place in the realm of the universe. Each time, it seemed human beings got smaller and less important. The three-tiered world of scripture with heaven above and hell below became obsolete. But now, as physicists look inward to subatomic particles instead of outward towards the stars, we are, I believe, rediscovering the importance of the energy we have in us that surrounds and flows through all things. This new sense of what happens to me, even at the level of my atoms that is affecting you, and all things everywhere is making changes in how we think and even about what we believe. The technology that has sprung from this connectedness has leaped ahead of our spirituality. We are connected more now globally than we ever have been before. If you thought the Gutenberg Bible made a difference in how we view the world, wait until we begin to see what the microchip will do. Then with aid of the genome map, manipulation of things we once thought were God-determined can now become influenced by human intervention. We are desperately in need of the church to quit hiding in the closet as these things are taking place. The whole of Christianity doesn't have the best record with how it treats its physicists or anyone with a new idea -- but if we embrace the idea that this world is God's world, as Jesus did, it may make our lives uncomfortable, but certainly not unfaithful.

Jesus' example of the seed that dies in the ground in order to produce more fruit, Chuck tells me is a far cry from the scientific reality of what happens to seeds, but as a metaphor about life -- it holds true especially as people of faith experience change. Even in Jesus' day, the religious authorities were inclined to clutch on tightly to their one grain of wheat they had left instead of letting it fall into the ground and die. They couldn't trust that anything in the future could possibly be more fruitful than what they were holding on to right now. Therefore, they made it uncomfortable, deadly in Jesus' case, for anyone who advocated the death of one way of life for the abundance of this new way of life. I'm sure there are more than a few scientists, inventors, and various other creative spirits now and throughout the centuries that could have said in their own cases, "Been there, done that." When a breakthrough happens that changes our reality, we are not only reluctant to understand its implications; often we treat that new insight as having the potential for a hostile takeover.

The more that the church becomes a preserver of tradition and a guardian of the past, the less influence it will have in actually caring about people's lives. The Presbyterian Church (USA) is already bound by our love for wordiness and our infatuation with the print medium, which was the new technology about 500 years ago. Our church's most highly politicized arguments are more about what side will "win" in making policy instead of wondering how we can reach people in this new world with the love of God and the grace of Jesus Christ. We've got some dying to do!

I realize that I have an advantage that only a small portion of the Presbyterian population has in that my generation is one that is characterized as "embracing change." Our generational model is, "If it ain't broke, break it." Nevertheless, change must be faithful, not random or mean or spiteful. The kind of change that Jesus advocates multiplies that which is life-giving and fruit-bearing. Otherwise, his death, and the deaths and abuse of thousands of other Christian change agents would be in vain.

Do I know exactly what kinds of changes are in store for this particular congregation? Not yet. Do I know that some changes will be painful to make? Yep. Do I know that this church can multiply the gifts that it brings to this community and to the world? Absolutely. This church has the capacity to offer insights that will be both exciting and frightening to many other Christian communities. The key is being open to where God is leading us, whether it be in predictable, straight-forward patterns, or whether it be in a moment of astounding clarity at the most unexpected time. God's Spirit is calling us forward. "Behold, I am doing new and incredible things," God says. Watch and learn. Amen.