New Math

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. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor [John 12:24-25].

For the past five weeks, I’ve done what doesn’t come easy: I’ve tried to experience less. That is to say that, prior to Lent, I’d spent more than a year watching the prices at HT, Fresh Market, and Wegmans register more and more. I’d listened to the sounds of uncivil discourse in both our local and national communities echo harshly more and more. As an outsider, but formerly an insider, I’ve more and more lamented the deep divide within the factions of the United Methodist Church. And for more than a year now, I’ve worried more and more about friends with deep and unforgiving illnesses and afflictions.

Oh! And on a very personal level, over the past year or so, I’ve watched the digital number on the bathroom scale slowly tick upward more and more. On Ash Wednesday, therefore, recognizing that I could do little about inflation, uncivil discourse, self-destructing denominations, or the frightful medical conditions afflicting good friends (other than fervently pray daily), I determined to head in a different direction.

I’d concentrate on two things. First, I vowed to keep my gaze upon the Cross. This is Lent, after all. Second, I vowed to concentrate on the less. That is to say, less pasta, less bread, less cheese, less red meat, less wine, less carbs, less of most everything, particularly desserts.

Our culture doesn’t much like the less. To exert international influence and power, we devote ourselves to the more. The cost of America’s latest super-carrier, the Gerald R. Ford, is somewhat north of $13 billion. The sticker price for battle tanks is now more than $10 million each. We apparently need a lot of them. More and more, the national deficit rises. More and more, the rate of children born out of wedlock rises. Perhaps the saddest “more” is reflected in the fact that this year, more than 1 million unborn children will be summarily dispatched.

We see these many signs of more and more and many of us fervently hope for—long for, pray for—some sort of new math, a type of math that concentrates much less on the “more” and much more on the “less.”

That sort of math is introduced to us, I think, in the Gospel reading assigned for this upcoming Sunday, the Fifth Sunday in Lent (RCL, Year B). In this week’s reading, John 12:20-33, Jesus has entered Jerusalem to face the Cross. The passage is somewhat enigmatic; it seems a few Gentles have approached Philip and Andrew with a request—it’s really more of a statement: “We would see Jesus” [John 12:21]. It’s the opening lines of that old (1852) favorite hymn by Anna B. Warner.

Jesus, as He is so apt to do, responds with a non sequitur. Instead of a direct answer, Jesus gives them/us a math lesson. Only this is new, unfamiliar math.

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 [John 12:24].

Jesus, of course, is the seed who will fall, die, and yet produce much fruit. He is the one who willingly gives up his life on behalf of others in obedience to his Father’s will [John 12:25]. Here, Jesus introduces a new math that is antithetical to that offered by the culture around Him/us. He teaches that only where there is loss—particularly loss of self —can there ever be true gain. Stated somewhat differently, only when the grain becomes less of itself can it become more.

Looking back, I now realize that I experienced this new math in a very personal way about a thousand years ago, at the end of the Summer of ’70, when Jane and I were 19. She’d spent her freshman year at Erskine College, in Due West, SC, some six hours— the road system wasn’t what it is now—from my Wake Forest University campus. We’d seen each other two weekends a month during the academic year. But that summer, we’d courted every evening. That summer, we lost ourselves in each other. Alas, that glorious summer, like all summers, came to an end, and we were due to return to our respective colleges.

With Wake starting a week or so after Erskine, I drove Jane down to the little Associate Reformed Presbyterian college in rural Greenwood County, SC. We spent a warm and lazy afternoon holding hands, walking around the small campus, greeting some returning friends, all the while recognizing that in a few hours, our bliss would be interrupted. But just before our final goodbyes for that day, we looked at each other and resolved that life apart—life as single seeds of grain (we didn’t, of course, use those exact words)—was not possible. Life apart was not life. And so, we determined that while we would wait one year, we then would marry.

Jane and I, in slightly different ways, have communicated an important point to each other on numerous occasions over the many years: that we had come to understand that when you love someone deeply, utterly—or as my dad lovingly said, “pathetically” —you are no longer the center of your world. She/He is.

This powerful new math is not limited to romantic relationships. Surely, you’ve seen it in the selfless actions of a mother or father as they desperately care for a sick child, in an adult child caring for an aging parent, or in a spouse tending carefully and lovingly to the needs of a husband or wife.

By “old” mathematical rules, the rules that culture teaches, when you are so utterly committed to someone else, there should be less of you, because in a real sense, less of “you” now actually exists. Yet the paradoxical truth is that in that “less-ness,” there is “more.” When you become so committed to someone else, when almost all your thoughts are on her/him, and not yourself, when life without that someone is impossible, there is a new math at play. It’s the sort of new math that Jesus speaks of in this week’s Gospel lesson. Within His new math, it is as if the seed or grain represented by your life is gone, but it is replaced by the beautiful, bountiful fruit that comes through love. And the fruit far outweighs the seed.

And while this new math can be seen and experienced in beautiful fashion within the relationships of human beings, through the giving of oneself to another, this strange sort of new math is even more evident—even more joyous—as one moves toward Christ, as one loses oneself to Christ. Our acquisitive culture loudly teaches us that abundant life is a matter of “hanging on.” And yet, with Christ, that world is turned upside down. Through Christ’s new math, abundant life consists of “letting go.”

In the culture around us, the loss of selfhood is the same thing as being buried alive. It is a fearful experience, one that our culture teaches is to be avoided at all costs. And yet, within the culture that Christ longs for us to enjoy—His culture, His Kingdom—a new math is at work. Jesus reminds us that if we are to follow Him, we must let go, we must die to ourselves (daily). We must become less, i.e., go into the earth so as to bear much fruit.

Christ’s Word is counterposed to that of the world, for He reminds us: “No cross, no crown.” Following His new math, it is in the losing of our lives for His sake that we gain eternal life. Within that new math—that new life—the joy that we experience through losing ourselves in Christ is magnified beyond our wildest imaginations.

Thanks be to God.