Sunday/The Universal

 

Sunday/The Universal

Today's gospel is fascinating. "Some Greeks" ask Phillip "who was from Bethsaida in Galilee" to see Christ. The message works its way to Christ who answers with what appears to be a non sequitur:

'Some Greeks who had come to worship at the Passover Feast
came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee,
and asked him, “Sir, we would like to see Jesus.”
Philip went and told Andrew;
then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus.
Jesus answered them,
“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies,
it remains just a grain of wheat;
but if it dies, it produces much fruit.
Whoever loves his life loses it,
and whoever hates his life in this world
will preserve it for eternal life.
Whoever serves me must follow me,
and where I am, there also will my servant be.
The Father will honor whoever serves me."'

This gospel is long but in this opening paragraph, a basic human problem is developed, then answered. First, the provincialism. Initially, we are shown two geographic, ethnic, and philosophic groups--the inquiring, philosophical, pagan, western Greeks and the faith-based, religious, eastern Jews. Both of these subsets have their own history, genetics, literature, traditions, successes, and failures. Both are looking for truth.

Do all of their disparate elements distort them? Does each have their own truth? Are the philosophical Greeks looking for answers in an impossible place? 

Can there be any commonality between the two groups?

The entire nineteenth century in the West was devoted to answering "No!" Marx and his homicidal accomplices built a murderous world on the concept of 'different truths' depending upon different circumstances. These competitive realities had to be resolved with conflict. The more recent "Critical Theory" is the twisted scion of this disbelief in truth.

Here both groups are looking for a hub. Christ says there is one.