Jesus, in today's gospel, announces, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified," All throughout his public ministry he has been saying that the hour has not yet come, from his response to his mother at the wedding feast in Cana (Jn.2:4) where he did what his mother asked and changed the water into wine even though he didn't think it was yet time to go public, through responding to his brothers' urging to go to Jerusalem to show off his power (Jn.7:8), Jesus knew it was not the time. What was it about Philip's and Andrew's announcing the presence of the Greek seekers that opened Jesus' eyes, enabled him to recognize his hour had come?

Since the Greeks were coming to Jerusalem for the Passover festival, it seems likely that they were Jews who lived in the Diaspora. They were not quite wholly "other", but not quite "us" home-grown Jewish types either. So is that it--foreigners coming to find him? Jesus, on the other hand, had already reached out to "others"--the Samaritan woman at the well (Jn.12:23, 26) and the Syro-Phoenician woman in the Tyre and Sidon area (Mt.15:23ff, Mk.7:24ff), folks who were considered outcasts in Jesus' day. Is the gospeler setting the stage for Jesus' inclusive promise that follows: "and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself?" Questions, questions, always questions.

And then, what is the gospel passage saying to us today? How do we know when the hour has come for us to open our hearts to each and all regardless of the differences between and among us? Can we let go of the differences that tend to separate us and accept at last the interconnectedness of all God's creation? I say to you here and now, the hour has come for us to realize there are no differences in God's love.