Chetwynd Shared Ministry
March 18, 2018
Scripture: John 12:20-33
This weeks reading
from John’s gospel makes me think of one of my first overseas adventures, which
was to El Salvador. I was there with a
group that was based out of my home congregation, but we were a very ecumenical
group, including members from the United Church, Roman Catholic Church,
Christian Reformed Church, and the Alliance Church. Our little group of 12 people also included
almost every decade in terms of age – from teenagers up to one participant in
her 80s.
Before this trip, we
had fundraised enough money to build 3 houses.
We were there in March of 2002, the year after a massive earthquake in
El Salvador that had not only destroyed many houses, but had also triggered mud
slides that had swept away whole villages.
So where does the
reading from John’s gospel come in?
Before we traveled out to the village where we would be participating in
the building project, we spent several days in the capital city of San
Salvador, recovering from the travel exhaustion; acclimatizing to the very hot
weather, new food, and the culture shock of landing in a new country; and
touring around a bit, seeing the city and visiting different sites.
Two of the sites that
we visited in San Salvador were the Divine Providence Hospital, and the
Metropolitan Cathedral of San Salvador – two sites that are linked with the
life and death of Archbishop Oscar Romero, a name that some of you might
recognize.
Oscar Romero was a bit
of a child prodigy in the church world.
He heard his call to the priesthood as a young teenager, and he actually
had to delay his ordination by a year because he finished his seminary studies
when he was still a year too young to be ordained by the Roman Catholic Church.
He then made his way
up through the hierarchy of the church, becoming first a priest, then a
seminary chaplain, then a bishop, and finally in 1977, he was chosen as the
archbishop for the whole country. At the
time, it was thought to be a safe choice.
Both the government and the church approved of him – he wouldn’t make
any waves, and the church could continue to enjoy the power that it did.
Now the country of El
Salvador has a troubled past. There is a
lot of poverty, as well as a huge discrepancy between the rich and the poor – a
very few people hold all of the wealth, with most people living in extreme
poverty. And unfortunately, the attitude
of the church in the past has been to keep the rich minority happy so that they
will keep giving money to the church, and then to say to the majority living in
poverty, “there, there, put up with your suffering now and you will get your
reward in heaven”; rather than doing anything to address the systems that lead
to poverty.
The first uprising
against the government was in 1969, which the government responded to with
violence, starting a decades-long civil war.
So in 1977, Oscar
Romero became the archbishop and the church and the government breathed a sigh
of relief. Here was someone who was
going to keep up the status quo – a few wealthy elite, and a church that
comforts the poor without trying to change anything.
But 6 weeks after his
election as archbishop, Romero’s theology shifted suddenly and radically. One of his good friends, a fellow priest, was
assassinated for the work that he was doing, trying to start programs to
empower the poor and create self-reliance.
Romero’s theology was shaken to the core. He came to realize that maybe God wasn’t
impartial. Maybe God did take sides; and
if so, then God is always on the side of anyone who is poor, anyone who is
oppressed, anyone who is powerless.
And from that time
forward, Archbishop Romero used his position and the power that it gave him to
start advocating for change. He spoke
out against the government and the systems of poverty and violence that they were
upholding. He spoke out against his own
church, and their practices that were maintaining the status quo. He wrote a letter to the President of the
United States, asking them to stop financially supporting the Salvadoran
government, since the money from the US was being used to purchase weapons that
were killing the poor. For three years,
Romero preached and wrote letters and gave interviews and spoke on the radio,
all advocating for an end to violence, an end to poverty, and an end to
oppression.
And that wealthy
minority – well they didn’t like it.
They were afraid of losing the wealth and the power that they had. The government also didn’t like it – they
didn’t want to lose their power, or the foreign money and support that they
were receiving. The church also didn’t
like it – they were quite happy and did well with the current system of people
depending on the reassurance of the church – the “thoughts and prayers” to use
a contemporary phrase – in the midst of suffering, so why should it change?
On the evening of
March 24, 1980, Archbishop Romero was preaching and presiding at mass in the
chapel of Divine Providence Hospital.
The text for his homily was John, chapter 12, verses 23-26. He spoke of the grain of wheat sacrificing
itself to provide the harvest; he spoke of the hope for the future glory of the
kingdom of God which should drive our actions in the here and now; and he spoke
of all of us doing what we are able to do while we are living, so that the
harvest might be seen, even if the harvest comes after we are gone.
As he finished
speaking, he moved behind the altar to celebrate mass. And at that moment, a car pulled up outside
the chapel, an unidentified gunman ran into the chapel, and he shot Archbishop
Romero in the heart, killing him within minutes.
Archbishop Romero was
buried in the Metropolitan Cathedral of San Salvador; and when our group
visited his tomb in 2002, there on the wall behind his tomb was a picture of
Romero, and the words of John 12:24 written in Spanish – “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.”
So what fruit did
Romero’s life and death bear? From a
political perspective, it would be another 9 years before the peace process
began in El Salvador. But the war did
end, and peace did come to the country.
There is still a discrepancy between the rich and the poor, but there is
more awareness today of this discrepancy, and the government now not only
allows groups and NGOs to work for the poor, but they encourage it.
The church has also
shifted its position in Latin America since this time. Rather than upholding the status quo –
keeping the rich happy so that they continue to give money to the church, while
reassuring the poor that they will be rewarded for their suffering when they
get to heaven – instead of upholding this system, the church has come to accept
the Liberation Theology promoted by Romero and others. The church now understands God to be on the
side of the poor and the oppressed, and that God desires every person to have
fullness of life, not just in heaven or when God’s kingdom is fully realized,
but right now, here on earth. The
fullness of life can begin in the here and now.
Instead of trying to hide Romero under the carpet as a disgrace who was
not in keeping with the church, he is now celebrated not only in Latin America
but around the world. And just a week
and a half ago, Pope Francis declared that all of the conditions had been met
for Oscar Romero to be declared a saint in the Roman Catholic Church, an event
that is likely to occur later this year.
And so whenever I read
the words of John 12:24, my brain goes immediately to the tomb of Oscar Romero
in San Salvador and those words painted on the wall behind it. If you were to go there today, you wouldn’t
see them, because his body was reburied in 2005 as part of the process of
having him declared a saint, but the image made a very strong impression on me
16 years ago.
Which is all very
well, but what does that have to do with us today? My hope is that none of us here are called to
become martyrs and to die for our faith the way that Romero did. So what can we take away from his story, and
from the gospel message?
In the context of
John’s gospel, with these words about a grain of wheat, Jesus is speaking about
his crucifixion and death, and the harvest of the resurrection that would
follow. But he says in the verses that
follow, “those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in
this world will keep it for eternal life.”
I don’t think that he
means that we are literally hate our lives – after all, God created life and
called it good, and God desires fullness of life for everyone. But what I think that we are to turn away
from is selfish individualism; that little voice inside us that tells us that
we are more important than anyone else, and we should do whatever we can to put
ourselves forward, no matter what that does to anyone else.
If we can put aside
our ego, if we can die to that selfish individualism and look around us, then
maybe we can have our eyes opened to the suffering of others, the way Romero’s
eyes were opened. If we can die to the
“Look out for number one” way of living, then maybe we can contribute to the
fullness of life for everyone. If we
love our selfish life, we will lose it; if we let go of our selfishness and
live for others, then we will live with God eternally.
I want to end with
some words from Oscar Romero’s final sermon – his sermon from March 24, 1980 on
this same text; words that he spoke moments before he was assassinated. He said:
“You have
just heard in Christ’s gospel that one must not love oneself so much as to
avoid getting involved in the risks of life that history demands of us, and
that those who try to fend off the danger will lose their lives; while those
who out of love for Christ give themselves to the service of others, will live,
live like the grain of wheat that dies, but only apparently. If it did not die,
it would remain alone. The harvest comes about only because it dies, allowing
itself to be sacrificed in the earth and destroyed. Only by undoing itself does
it produce the harvest.”
And then he went on to say:
“Dear brothers and sisters, let us all view these
matters at this historic moment with that hope, that spirit of giving and of
sacrifice. Let us all do what we can. We can all do something; we can all at
least have a sense of understanding and sympathy … all those longings for
justice, peace, and well-being that we experience on earth become realized for
us if we enlighten them with Christian hope. We know that no one can go on
forever, but those who have put into their work a sense of very great faith, of
love of God, of hope among human beings, find it all results in the splendors
of a crown that is the sure reward of those who labor thus, cultivating truth,
justice, love, and goodness on earth. Such labor does not remain here below
but, purified by God’s Spirit, is harvested for our reward.”[1]
We don’t do this alone. We join with other around the world who are
living so that all might have eternal life.
And we trust that God’s Spirit dwells within us, transforming us into
the image of Christ so that we might die to ourselves and live for others. May it be so.
Amen.
[1] http://www.romerotrust.org.uk/homilies-and-writings/homilies/final-homily-archbishop-romero
Tomb of Oscar Romero - March 2002, with John 12:24 (in Spanish) on the wall
Photo Credit: Ray and Eleanor Dunn
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