Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29

In these verses, I am pulled outside of myself, responding to and praising the Lord as the Master Builder, the one who set the rejected cornerstone in its place, the one who is still building.

In his “A Future Not Our Own,” Archbishop Romero notes:

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of
liberation in realizing this.

This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.

It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning…

We may never see the end results, but that is the
difference between the master builder and the worker….

The world is not my own to perfect, nor is it to be ignored. We join in with the Master Builder, joining in the procession of praise, liberated in knowing that what we do not have to do everything; instead, we join in, freed from guilt, joyfully serving the budding Kingdom.

—Scott Rumpsa

John 12:20-26

“Now there were certain Greeks…”

There has not lived a more certain and self-possessed people than the Greeks. Even Americans pale by comparison.

Curious that Greeks should attend a Jewish festival. Cosmopolitan knowledge-seekers, these certain Greeks wanted to know Jesus.

“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” John surcharges the honorific “Son of Man” to a divine claim, but these certain Greeks, steeped in the ancient literature, would not have understood the immortality of the soul as other than a claim of divinity—all are divine souls using a mortal body.

Christians are tempted to think Jesus confounded these certain Greeks. Instead, Jesus offered a conventional ethic. “He who loves his life loses it; and he who hates his life in this world shall keep it to life eternal.” Epictetus, writing at very nearly the same time as John, set a similar qualification for the philosopher. A practiced detachment from circumstance always has been the currency of a moral life, in whatever religion or philosophy.

“If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there shall My servant also be…” This is the new idea to confound these certain Greeks. At his death, Socrates hoped for God’s favor—“the risk is a noble one”—but he had no certainty. To these certain Greeks, Jesus offered a certainty.

                                                                                          —Chris Wiers