Breaking the cycle...by letting go!
Tuesday of Holy Week 2026. John 12.20-36
[A huge thank you to this time to Chalotte Lait, LLM, for delivering this reflection whilst I was simultaneously being diagnosed with multiple infections!]
The irony isn’t lost on me (Ben, not Charlotte).Here we are, in a week which I decided to underpin with the theme ‘Breaking the cycle’ , and I’m locked away, stuck in the all-so-natural cycle of illness and recovery. The only breaking happening here is when I break into a coughing fit!
And yet…
I’ve chosen to revise today’s reflection because the situation I find myself in speaks so well to what I want to draw out from today’s Gospel text. Before we get caught up in that, let’s look at what’s going on.
Throughout the Gospels, Jesus is portrayed as someone who isn’t particularly keen on receiving praise and adulation, consistently telling those he heals not to tell anyone except maybe the temple priests, and attempting to get away and hide from crowds who want to make him king by force. It should not surprise us that Jesus’ instinct when people come hunting for him like fans searching out a celebrity is to change the subject as fast as possible. People want to give him earthly glory, and he chooses to avoid it.
He must have been quite aware that his new choice of subject actually both undermined and underlined the positive intentions of his fan club’s Greek division. They want to give him earthly glory, and he declares that the time has come for him to let go of life, surrender to the hour, and to glorify and be glorified by the Father. In this moment of choosing to surrender human praise and life itself, he creates greater commotion than a small fan convention as the Father makes a rare vocal intervention in the Gospels, giving full-throated approval to Jesus the Son.
Of course, Jesus isn’t exactly plain speaking about any of this; he continues to speak in riddles. The giveaway is the brief parable about the grain of wheat that has to fall to the ground and die. It seems so obvious, and yet it’s so profound: in order to fulfil its potential, it has to give up on its own state of being in order to be transformed into something greater. In order for Jesus to fully glorify the Father, to fulfil his mission in our world to bring life in all its fullness, and to save the world which was only brought into being through him, he has to give up what it is to be ‘alive’, which is just a little bit more than letting go of the praise and adoration of fans and supporters.
Back to the present day.
I’m not a believer in the notion ‘everything happens for a reason’. Actually, over time, I’ve become increasingly convinced that the platitude is antithetical to the nature of God and creation, to the teaching of scripture, and life-giving theology. BUT, I am a believer in what St Thomas Aquinas identified as ‘providence’: the idea that God can and does take any situation, transforms it, and ultimately bends it towards his goodness, even if it takes multiple lifetimes for this to become clear. As a result, I’m not sitting here at my desk, drinking hot lemon drinks through a straw and struggling to stay awake, telling myself that I’m unwell because God decided now was a good time for me to have some time off. To mis-quote ecclesiastes: There’s a time to be well, and there’s a time to wrap oneself in blankets and drink cough syrup.
I do believe, however, that God is ultimately using this situation for good. That isn’t something I say easily or readily. For weeks I’ve been looking forward to sharing this first Holy Week with everyone, and the opportunity to stand up and lead a series of reflections. I know I’m not perfect, but I don’t think I’m a bad preacher, and I confess readily that in my weaker moments, I was looking forward to lots of lovely feedback and being told how wonderful it is that I’m sharing life with you all as your Rector.
If I let that arrogant/narcissistic part of me get its way, I would be with you this evening, pretending everything is alright, turning up the sound system and whispering into the microphone. Instead, I am trusting God, choosing to let go, and thanking God for the gift of fellow ministers of the Gospel. Whilst I can, by God’s grace, I will keep writing in order to minimise the burden on them, and hope to be recovered by the Triduum when it begins on Thursday evening.
I do emphatically believe, however, that God is at work in this, and that in choosing not to go glory-hunting this week, God will be able to transform something, someone, or everything in a way that wouldn’t be possible if I didn’t let my ego fall to the ground and die. If my health improves, God will bless it; if it doesn’t and I end up having to send Charlotte and Rachel sermons from books of homilies on my shelf for Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday, God will bless it, possibly all the more as he breaks through the cycle of my ego and selfishness.
As I write, the words of William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, ring in my ears: “The measure of a [person’s] greatness is the measure of [their] surrender.” I’m thus left with a question for you, and for all of us: what might God be prompting you to ‘let go’ of? To fall to the ground and die? Is it something particular to you? Is it something that we need to look at as a beneficed community that we need to surrender? That isn’t an easy question to answer, not least because letting something fall to the ground is costly, and can even seem wasteful, but if we want to see our lives and our church communities bear much fruit, as Jesus puts it, we need to let go.