Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks.They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, "Sir, we wish to see Jesus." (John 12:20-21)

It’s maybe unfair but there’s the story of the Brit on holiday in France who wants to get to the railway station so he goes up to a local and says, “Excuse me. How do I get to the railway station?” The Frenchman shrugs his shoulders uncomprehendingly and says, “Pardonnez moi, Monsieur. Je ne parle pas l’Anglais. “ “I don’t think he understands” says the guy’s wife but he says, “Leave this to me,” then drawing on all his skills and mastery of communication he says, “EXCUSE ME! HOW DO I GET TO THE RAILWAY STATION?” Brits abroad have a reputation of being terrible at languages - partly because in lots of countries lots of folk speak English. It’s not quite a common tongue but it’s widely spoken. 

Our text speaks of Greeks approaching Philip. According to John they said to Philip. “Kyrie, thelemon ton Iesouv idein” - that’s Greek. Maybe, then, these guys were Greek. From Greece. Not necessarily. First off the whole of the New Testament was written in Greek because that was the common tongue of the time - especially in a place like Galilee where Philip came from. It was a cosmopolitan area with traders passing through buying and selling their wares from all over the place and, since Alexander had marched all over that area some three hundred years earlier Greek - or at least a form of Greek known as Koiné - was widely spoken. That’s the thing about the New Testament. It wasn’t written in some archaic, fossilised form of language: it was written in the common tongue of the time.

When, in the New Testament, it talks about ‘Greeks’ it basically means “Not Jews” or “Gentiles”. It harks back to the distinction that runs through the Old Testament of Jews over and against “The Nations” - the “Goyim” and it alerts us to the big change that Christianity brings in contrast to the form of Judaism that came before it and, to be fair, came after it. For the Jews of Jesus’s time they were the Chosen People of God. Their scriptures told them how God had chosen them in Abraham; how he had rescued them from enslavement in Egypt and made a covenant with them in which they would be his people and he would be their God. Their God  - special relationship and all that. Folk from beyond - the Goyim - well, sure, they could accept God as their God but they could never be fully Jews. They could enter the outer court of the Temple - the court of the Gentiles but that was as far as they got.

The Jews who embraced Christianity rejected all that. That’s what this passage is all about - it’s why Jesus recognises this as the moment when God is glorified. It’s why he speaks of himself as the Son of Man - of humanity. It’s why John makes a point of telling us where Philip - and Jesus as well, of course - come from. These Gentiles who have come looking for the Jewish Messiah represent a reaching across the border between two peoples. It’s a narrative representation of what Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians, “In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek….for all are one in Christ.

In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek. Nor black nor white. Nor Scottish nor English  nor Chinese or Russian or American. In Christ God calls us in the common tongue of humanity as humanity. In Christ God calls us to recognise each other, regardless of the colour of our skin, the language we speak, the clothes we wear, the flag we wave, the traditions we follow, as brothers and sisters bound together in the love of our Father - the God who loved the world  - not just one little bit of it - so much that he gave his own son that we should have eternal life.

That’s what God calls us to, in Christ, in the common tongue of humanity that is a simple as a hand held out in friendship across the barriers that divide us. Not that that’s always easy. I said that the Jews who embraced Christianity rejected the distinction between Jew and Gentile but that wasn’t easy and it wasn’t overnight. The Book of Acts and the letters of Paul speak of tensions within the early Christian community about accepting the Gentiles. If you read them they speak so much to our times, of people regarding “incomers” with suspicion and demanding that they “conform to our ways”.

There is always the temptation to be suspicious of those who are different; of those who see the world differently from us, of those who speak a different language. The challenge Christ presents us with in his embrace of the Gentiles who came looking for him is to resist that temptation and to speak in the common tongue of humanity; in a language that is as simple as a proffered hand and a smile. The things that bind us together. The things that make us human.

I say it’s the challenge Christ presents us with. It’s the challenge life presents us with and in which Christ challenges us to meet it as his followers. We are coming to the end of Lent so now’s a good time to look back and to to ask ourselves a question. The Gentiles came to Philip and said, “We want to see Jesus.” Do we? Do we want to meet Jesus? If we do we’re not going to meet gentle Jesus meek and mild, we’re going to meet the man who took a knotted rope and drove the money-changers from the temple; we’re going to meet the man who refused Peter’s temptation to walk away from the road to the Cross; we’re going to meet the Christ in whom God faced down the darkest places in the world to offer light.

And he will challenge us. He will challenge us to question the world’s values. He will challenge us to ask ourselves how far we let money get between us and him; between ourselves and those who go hungry and homeless. In the common tongue of humanity he will ask us who we are. He will challenge us to ask us to ask ourselves how far we buy into the world’s vaunting of success and despising of failure and how far we turn our backs on those the world forgets. In the common tongue of humanity he will ask us who we are. He will challenge us to ask ourselves how far we identify with the victims of the world - with the weak and the oppressed. In the common tongue of humanity he will ask us who we are. He will challenge us to ask ourselves whether we love our brothers and sisters regardless of where they come from or the flag they wave. In the common tongue of humanity he will ask us who we are.

We should rejoice in that because faith isn’t just about comforting words and comfortable rituals. It isn’t just about worship and churches and familiar hymns. It’s the call of a loving father who wants his children to grow and be all they can be. It’s the call to throw aside the shackles of greed and power and fear and hatred that hold us down. It’s the call, knowing that we are loved beyond measure and without limit by the God who is beside us all the way through life and on into eternity, to answer Christ’s challenge, “We are children of God, made in the image of God” and, in the common tongue of humanity, to love one another as our father loves us.

Prayer