Not as a Stranger

Beware of Greeks bearing gifts. Do you know the phrase, and its allusion? Beware of Greeks bearing gifts. Virgil more or less said it first in the Aeneid; many have said it since. The simple phrase carries a whole body of mythology and history with it. Mostly what it implies, though, is caution and suspicion. Be careful, distrustful of people who are foreign or strange.

Beware of Greeks bearing gifts. Remember the setting? Two great and noble peoples at war, the Trojans and the Greeks. Under the guise of an offer of peace, the Greeks brought a magnificent gift—an awesome and wonderful horse of wood. The gift was a deceitful one, a trick. Within its heart the horse offered, not peace, but a well-armed army of Greeks who attacked and destroyed Troy from within. Beware of Greeks bearing gifts. Beware of strangers, distrust their offers of friendship and peace, be cautious and skeptical of what they bear.

In this morning’s gospel, it was the time of the Passover—a sacred holy day for the Jews. The place was Jerusalem, sacred city of the Jews, the city of David, the site of David’s temple to which the Jews came to celebrate the greatest festival of their people. It was the time and place and celebration of the Jewish people.

And among those who showed up at the festival in Jerusalem were some Greeks. Pagans. Foreigners. Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee (just north of Jerusalem), and they said to him, "Sir, we wish to see Jesus." To see Jesus. To come close to him. Can’t you just imagine the Secret Service snapping to high alert? "Sir, we wish to see Jesus." We want to share in the experience Jesus offers. For the writer of John’s gospel, seeing is believing. One commentator has suggested that what these Greeks sought was belief. Drawn by faith’s yearning, the Greeks said to Philip, we want to know Jesus, to know God, to share in your belief.

They were strangers, foreigners, pagans who did not worship Yahweh. It is possible that they approached Philip because he, though a Jew, may have spoken Greek. Philip is a Greek name and there were Greeks living in the region of Bethsaida at that time. Maybe they sought out, somehow found, Philip because he was one person in the throng of people in Jerusalem who might understand them. They came—these strangers came—to a festival amidst a people with whom they probably did not even share a language, much less a culture or a religious history. Greeks at Passover time in Jerusalem. It is hard to overemphasize how strange, how foreign, how out of place, they were. And yet they came.

And these Greeks came bearing a gift, an offering. They offered themselves. They brought an openness to God, a searching faith. A searching faith. Amid a language, a ritual and even a people who were foreign to them, the Greeks came seeking to find and be found by God. Drawn by the yearning in their souls. It’s a remarkable story of courage and of the depth of their desire for God. The risk was theirs. They offered themselves, their souls and bodies, to Jesus. In open and trusting faith, they sought to know and be known by God.

They came as strangers. Strangers among the Jews. Strangers to the rituals of Passover. Strangers to God.

A stranger is someone who is estranged, someone who, for whatever reason, is separated or set apart from others. The Greeks were separated from the Jews by language, by religion and be deep culture differences. But estrangement can also occur within people who share a common language or culture. We may become strangers, separated from one another and God. What is it that estranges us? From one another, but even more importantly from God? Lent is a time for self-examination. And as Lent draws towards an end, this is a particularly focused time to look within our own hearts and souls for all of the ways our own sin estranges us, makes us strangers, before God.

As Lent was beginning on the First Sunday in Lent we said (or sang) together the prayers and pleas of the Great Litany. We sought deliverance from the things that separate us, estrange us from God. Listen again and see if some of these don’t ring in your life. The words of the prayers are ancient, but they speak to very contemporary issues in my life and yours.

"From all evil and wickedness; from sin; from the crafts and assaults of the devil…" From all of the habits and actions that mar goodness within us and distort our relationships, Good Lord, deliver us.

"From all blindness of heart; from pride, vainglory and hypocrisy; from envy, hatred and malice; and from all want of charity…" Good Lord, deliver us.

"From all inordinate and sinful affections…" From all of our personal idols and the material things we crave and covet, Good Lord, deliver us.

"From all false doctrine, heresy, and schism; from hardness of heart, and contempt of thy Word and commandment…" From hardness of heart and indifference towards God’s Word and commandments, Good Lord, deliver us.

Pride and envy, inordinate and sinful affections, hardness of heart, disrespect for God’s Word and commandments… These estrange us from God. These separate us from God, make us foreigners, strangers to God’s presence. Like the Greeks, we are strangers before God.

In this morning’s Gospel, after the Greeks spoke to Philip, Philip spoke to Andrew. Then Philip and Andrew went to Jesus and talked to him. Then, after Jesus heard that strangers were seeking him… then, Jesus said, "Now… Now the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified."

In John’s gospel, today’s reading is the culminating, climactic scene in Jesus’ public ministry. Most of the rest of the gospel is made up of long theological discourses Jesus has privately with his disciples. But this is a public moment and an earthshaking one. It is as though, at this moment, the events leading to Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection are inexorably set in motion. In this proclamation, Jesus speaks of the coming hour of his death; he sums up the meaning of discipleship; and a voice from heaven thunders out that in Jesus, God’s name is glorified. Jesus continues that, in his resurrection, when he is lifted up from earth, all people will be saved. All people will be drawn to God. All people.

It almost seems as though Jesus had been waiting to make this climactic speech, waiting to set the final events of his life and ministry in motion. Waiting… for someone in particular to show up, so that they could hear his words. Waiting so that strangers, Greeks, not just his disciples, but strangers, too, could hear the promise of salvation. This speech was for them, the Greeks, and everyone who has ever felt himself or herself a stranger before God. Jesus speaks to everyone who is estranged and offers them inclusion in God’s salvation.

One of the opening anthems that we read in the burial service comes from Job, someone who certainly knew estrangement, but longed for reconciliation with God. These are Job’s words and they are our words: I know that my Redeemer lives. I know that my Redeemer lives. And that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though this body be destroyed, yet shall I see God. (We want to see Jesus, the Greeks said.) I shall see God; whom I shall see for myself and my eyes shall behold, and not as a stranger.

Not as a stranger. In Christ’s death and resurrection, everything that makes us strangers to God is wiped away and we are welcomed as God’s own.

Beware of Greeks bearing gifts? No. Let us seek to emulate those Greeks who came seeking Jesus. Those strangers who courageously followed the yearning of their hearts, seeking to find and know Christ, to overcome their separateness, their estrangement. Like them, even when our sin estranges us from God, let us offer an open and seeking faith. Let us bring the gift of ourselves to God, that through Christ we may be reconciled.

"And I," Jesus said, "when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself." All people. Even strangers. Especially strangers. Amen.