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“I am the vine, and you are the
branches…” This must have been a wonderful experience for the disciples to hear
Jesus talking in such a way as it was not a parable, neither was it an allegory,
but it was called a mashal. A mashal is basically an old semetic form of study
and example that includes an image and its application to real life. So, Jesus,
was giving them a "life lesson." But once again, this is a part of
that big giant diamond of Christ, I've been talking about the last few weeks.
This is just another side, another facet of this great diamond of the
resurrected life, the resurrected life that Jesus continues to try to teach
us.
This fabulous image of thinking of
the nation of Israel, the people, as the branches to the vine, that needs to be
tended to; is where Jesus begins today with yet another lesson on discipleship.
The vines that grew in and throughout Israel, Palestine and nearby countries in
real life, need to be severely pruned for them to produce fruit in abundance
and to grow healthy. Yet another vision of that Garden that keeps finding its
way into Jesus teaching the disciples. We are the wandering children that have
long since left the Garden of Eden and have been in the wilderness of the world
for quite some time.
The great Shepherd and the gardener
of our souls is also the Great Vine. Jesus is the Vine of life that we are to
be the branches from and bear wonderful spiritual fruit. Just what is he
meaning here, spiritually for us? We have images of creation. We have the
Providence of God—God guiding us. We have the great story and gift of love:
being the sacrifice and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ for our sake. Let us
begin learning through reflecting upon the past. Let us think about when we
left Eden. When we officially became those with the burden of choice: sin or
obedience to God? The Israelites before Jesus were on that road quite a long
time. They became so lost in wandering in the valleys, and over mountain tops
they didn't even realize, that they perhaps became weary and didn’t understand
or appreciate YHWH’s divine guidance.
Where is this road leading, God? Why
am I still on here? Am I really your child of Grace and promise? These
are all questions that make their way through our covenantal journey. This
journey began with YHWH and now with Jesus as members of the Body. We are
members of the Body as those branches— branching out and stretching beyond
ourselves for the sake of God and others. We have to remember as well, these
last few Sundays have been the beginning construction of the church. This is
not the brick-and-mortar church, mind you, this is the spiritual church in the
heart. The first church God needs to build, the most important one. Jesus has His
work cut out for Him to get His “everyday” disciples to understand what He's
talking about and needing them to grow in. He needs them to abide in His
mission and will for the world. He needs them to not fall weak in their faith,
and just go through the motions…, He needs them to respond.
The need to respond, this is our
goal and our challenge as disciples of Jesus. We need to go through that
spiritual warfare battlefield to listening to God or listening to the world.
This is all to, bear the fruit that God needs us to reap. The Holy Spirit has
begun construction in the Church of the heart by this time, as well as, in
regard to the early church. We are blessed with beautiful passages this morning,
not only from the Gospel writer John, but another “day in the life” scene from
the Book of Acts. Speaking of a “day in the life,” perhaps you'll want to start
playing The Beatles song in your mind, but not going there… This is more
of the day in the life of a moment of true evangelism between Philip the
Apostle & an Ethiopian Eunuch. We are literally seeing or experiencing a
first century "seeker" from Ethiopia, wanting to be baptized and
wanting to learn and grow with God's Word. This was no ordinary man, for he was
already "Church shopping," you could say, looking into Judaism but
most likely was not allowed to completely participate in the church, because he
was a eunuch. Eunuchs if you don't know, were those who participated in bodily
mutilation to make a complete vow to be celibate to God.
In Judaism this was not a cool thing
because obviously the person could not be circumcised, Etc. and therefore this
person could only be so involved with their practices of faith. This is where
the timelessness of the Gospel shines right through, for Philip saw someone who
wanted to learn about the Gospel and felt spiritually ready to join with Jesus in
being baptized. It was such a very different world of Faith back then. Today
this would perhaps, seem so alien to us. We have become consumerist, some have
become narcissistic, and some have taking the Gospel on their own terms. It is
fair to say, that we are not engaging in the notion of an enchanted world.
The enchanted world was a
predominant viewpoint for many centuries. This was where people saw, and were
very aware of the life around them, where the spirit perhaps was assumed to be
manifested in everything. I don't know how many people have seen the ‘Lord of
the Rings’ film series, but if you have, in the second film there is a story of
the Enchanted Forest. This enchanted forest was where there was a special kind
of water that made the trees alive… and they were alive let me tell you great
special effects! We don't hold the same kind of spiritual awareness anymore
toward creation. In my opinion, I think we've thrown too much of the baby out
with the bathwater. We should strive to be more spiritually aware of the world
and the life line of creation, that God has woven throughout it. This
Enchanted view of the world was where the early church was at though. They thought
Jesus would return any day, and the notion of the Resurrection was shining most
profoundly and bright in their hearts. They were starting to become aware of
the nature of Good and Evil, as well as just what the battlefield entailed. One
thing that they needed to work on, which we see Jesus even telling His
disciples in today's Gospel, is what does it mean to be abiding to someone or
something?
Abiding is not only faithfulness,
but it goes even deeper than that. Again, Jesus is teaching about love. Especially
if He is the vine Himself, the source of life, that we are to learn to strive
from in order to experience the fullness of life, the reality of the lifestyle
of Grace. Just what is the fullness of life? We could probably clutter our
minds with a lot of things that we think make our lives “full…” but in God’s
truth, it has nothing to do with money, materialism and "eat drink and be
merry for tomorrow you die...." it's much greater than that. We always
though, seem to find a way trying to look through the keyhole with both eyes
instead of looking Inward, beyond ourselves to questioning—just, what are our
true convictions? Are we ready to branch out with the Gospel, as the quote
Church?
The lifeline vine of God's Word is
needing to wrap around that first Church the heart. This is not only to keep it
alive and well, but to get it truly ticking, operating down the right path.
Jesus is still trying to get us to begin to think about reaping the New Nature.
The New Nature is what creates a quote, “healthy Church.” This is being
committed and covenantal to the cause. The beautiful intense spirituality
in John's letter this morning, is to his community that he is pastoring. In
similar ways to Paul, John’s church planting experiences, pastoring had to
reach out to those struggling with their faith and the truth of the Gospel they
needed to live into.
John's words start becoming this
wondering poem, talking about not only the love of God, but God as the source
and Spirit of Love. He talks about God as love itself. Love is our ultimate
goal to be not only in a gracious and growing relationship with God, but that
it is a tool for us to use to live into the lifestyle of Grace. The Resurrected
life through the heart of John, the Gospel writer, and this letter writer, is
realizing the love of God through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus. It is seeing
the sacrifice as a gift of love, and he is encouraging us to be perfected by
God's love. Just what does he mean perfected by God's love? This is a kind
of Love that is nearly impossible for us to replicate ourselves. We have but
fleeting moments of it, for it is unconditional love, agape love. Agape is the
Greek word for the unconditional love, steadfast love, divine love that Christ
gave us and has been trying to teach us through His disciples and all who have
come into the priesthood of all believers to be aware of, begin to abide in,
live into.
Abiding in that wonderful
commandment that Jesus gave to His disciples—“love one another as I have loved
you.” This has been in my thoughts and in my heart when I go out and care for
people and reach out seeing what efforts I could make to do something for
someone. Before I considered church planting and Parish Ministry; I was
seriously looking at being a chaplain. I love to go and visit people. That has
been truly one of my Joys here, is visiting people. I'm hoping as well then,
I'll be able to do house blessings for some of you soon. This past week I
was finding myself living back into that passion of going out and caring for
people. These people however were my family. It's always a very hard and
draining experience to be a witness to family members who are suffering from
illness, and or perhaps beginning to turn that corner towards death. I was not
on vacation, I was on a mission. The power of prayer certainly helps a lot, for
I felt like I was going back not only into the “Old Nature Wilderness of my
life,” but seeing the after effects of Satan's work in the world with
unfortunate things that have happened to friends, and in society in general.
My efforts to get back there and be
a presence both listening and active for family and friends was operating with
God's love flowing through me. God’s love was flowing through me as that vine
of life, inspiring me to bear all of my fruit that I could give and helping
others, by being there for others. I was saddened to hear that one of the “little
old Grandpa's,” I used to care for, for several months or actually almost a
year through Visiting Angels, had passed away this past November. His dementia
was getting very bad. It was getting to the point, that his wayward son needed
to move in with him. Fairly soon after that, they couldn’t even have a female
caregiver look after him anymore, because he was becoming violent. And let me
tell you, he would do crazy things. I remember the one time I came into check
up on him and he was slamming a stick into the floor vent trying to drain the
flood waters he said were coating his bedroom floors… Trying to tell him it was
just a bad dream got him pretty angry… I
stopped caring for him back in February of last year, but I was sad to see his
obituary and I wondered about his family, and I wondered about his cat, and I
just really wondered how many people will remember the many things this man did
throughout his life before his illness took over.
Healthcare is very difficult these
days. It seems our world has profoundly imprisoned it, or “dismantled its
ethics” to make it all a matter of money. “Money makes the world go around, the
love of money is the roots of a lot of evil…” Caring for one another should
have nothing to do with dollars, but welcome to where we're at, as the
postmodern world. These are things in the world around us, that as we are those
sheep following the Shepherd's voice, as we are those branches growing from the
Vine… we need to be aware of what we can and must do. It's beyond a call to
action, and I'm certainly not preaching about works righteousness(!) These are
things, that the heart urges us, that first church, to not turn an indifferent
or greedy or guilty eye away from.
I was overwhelmed almost to the
point of tears to see a few friends who came to help me this past week. They
came out to help another person, that they didn't even really know. It was a
lot of work. It was grueling and frankly awful. Let's face it, moving is
miserable— see this gray hair? It's not from you guys yet (just kidding!) It's
probably from last year when I moved here. But through my compassion for
helping my friend, I felt the misery of moving with him. I have a bad knee and
I have a bad heel. There is very little I could do to help him lift a zillion
boxes, putting them into storage units, putting them in his new third floor
apartment and what not. I'm not even 50 yet, my body is just not in shape. But
at least I was there. I was driving the
cars, and the UHaul trucks, and my friends were driving their SUVs and vans… We
were watching things and those who were in better shape than me, were helping
to move things. It was a burden, but it's that love that Jesus talks about that
makes it all worthwhile— where the fullness of life is even seen through the
struggle.
In a few weeks here, or less than
that I should say, pretty soon, we are going to all have to pitch in and help
move things. But that's going to really be a joy! It's not just, as I've been
saying, because it's a new steeple, bricks and mortar but hopefully you'll see
this is the glory of God in our spirit to revive, to be replanted. We could say
honestly, that we have Resurrected as a family in Christ. We have been those
faithful branches clinging to the vine of life, that kept us searching, and
kept us building towards this moment. Don't lose that Spirit now, battle the
world faithfully in knowing that God is providing for us and guiding us. Every
step of the way, God has been with us, is with us, on the journey— this is
Faith.
Branching out of yourself, living into
those true convictions, is the cost of discipleship. Truly being those Easter
people is making the right decision, which is abiding in Christ, and literally
does make all the difference in the world! When we go out to visit or care for
others, there is probably something very personal that drives us there
initially, but we need to keep encouraged that God is helping us to work
through being a gift of love, perfecting ourselves in Christ, for the sake of
neighbor. When we leave these doors today, think about walking through
another door to reach out to someone who may really need you to be there for
them. Be a gift of love to those who may really need you, and you don't even
realize. God is love, putting on, living into this love, abiding in it is what
gives us strength to realize the truth of life and live most gloriously “full”
in this life.
Let us pray
Gracious and Loving Lord Jesus,
We thank you for the wonderful gift
of Agape Love, Divine love
You have shared through Your cross
and Resurrection
Teach us to abide in this love by bearing
gifts of kindness, compassion, selflessness, mercy and Grace to others.
It is through Your perfecting love,
that we truly begin to realize the Spirit
Of what makes us children of Grace
and of Your promise.
May we always be enlightened by Your
will and purposes for us.
In Your most holy and precious Name,
we lift this prayer to You.
April
29th, 2018; Fifth Sunday of Easter; Year B; SOLA Lectionary
Sermon
by: Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins
Psalm
150; Acts 8:26-40; 1 John 4:1-21 & John 15: 1-8
The link below is to this sermon's delivery at First Congregational Church at 9:30am
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