May 6, 2012
The Rev. Shelby Ochs Owen
“I am the vine, you are the branches.”
The writers
of the Old Testament often refer to Israel as the vine but usually this is not
a good thing! As Jews, Jesus’ disciples
would have likely been familiar with the words of scripture where God speaks of
Israel as the wild and degenerate vine, the vine which bore no fruit because of
its disobedience. They would likely have
known that the lack of fruit was due to Israel’s faithlessness. Here in John’s gospel Jesus speaks of himself
as the true vine. So when the disciples heard Jesus’ words, “I am the true
vine” they may have wondered where he was going with this.
Last week in
John Wilkinson’s sermon we heard about another “I am” statement: “I am the good
shepherd” and today we reach the last of the “I am” statements in the gospel of
John, “I am the true vine.” Throughout this series of “I am’s” John is making a
point about the identity of Jesus, that he is divine, and here as Jesus describes
his Father as the vinegrower, we are given an image of Jesus’ relationship with
the Father. And then Jesus says, “I am
the vine, you are the branches.” So he
moves from his relationship with the Father to his relationship with the
disciples. The vine image seems to be
all about connectedness, Jesus’ connectedness to the Father and his connectedness
to his disciples. And in that
connectedness, there is life! And in this connected life, there is the fruit of
love.
So, to what
and how well are we connected these days? We have more ways to be connected to
more people these days than ever before.
Our increasingly complex technology gives us exponential opportunities
to reach out and to be reached in an amazing and at times disconcerting number
of ways. The internet is a vehicle for
connectedness of many sorts ---when everything is working properly! My family, friends and co-workers know that
technology is not really my thing. I am
so appreciative that it can be a vehicle for communicating and building and
maintaining relationships but I see it solely as a means to that end and am not
really interested in the technology itself, which leaves me pretty helpless at
times.
The other day
I am home trying to check my email and nothing seems to be working. I cry out to my computer literate daughter,
“Emily, can you help me?” So, first she asks me, “Have you checked the modem?”
I am embarrassed to say, “Uh, I am not sure which thing is the modem?” After
checking that and seeing nothing wrong there, she says, well you know it could
be the router. “Uh, really? The router you say? Right, the router and which box
is that, for crying out loud?” I go to
work and tell someone here my woes and she mentions, “you know it could be your
server.” I notice with each new “could
be” I seize up and feel a bit strangled, a bit choked off in my lack of knowledge, in my inability to
make sense of the whole system, but even more frustrated that I feel cut off
from those people I want to stay connected to. The means to my end is
sputtering. My computer world could be
seen as on a “need-to-know” basis. The
technical computer world has been an area in which I have not chosen to dwell
and as a result when things go wrong with the computer, I feel very isolated,
not very connected, and certainly not very fruitful.
Abide in me as I abide in you, Jesus says. I am the vine, you
are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because
apart from me you can do nothing.
Jesus is the source of our life and the source of love. The fruit we bear is the love we give to others. This wonderful metaphor of the vine gives us
a concrete sign of discipleship, our need to be connected both to the divine as
well as other people. It is because God
first loved us that we can possibly love others. And as we abide or dwell in Jesus we are
given the tools, we are equipped to do acts of love for others. As we abide or dwell in Jesus the source of
life and source of love, we find we do indeed bear fruit.
So how do we
abide in God, how do we dwell in Jesus?
First, we can
begin with belief, begin by actually believing God loves us and being
receptive to the goodness of God. Belief
opens us up to the inpouring of the Holy Spirit and helps us welcome the
goodness of God, welcome God’s love, welcome the Holy Spirit who is living and
active all around us already.
Second, we
can continue to abide or dwell in Christ through prayer, certainly
including talking to and listening to
God but also in just being present to God, in prayerful reading of scripture, in
participating in the sacraments of baptism and Holy Eucharist and in fellowship
with others who have faith.
And third, we
abide or dwell in Christ when we act, act as living branches of Christ’s
love and power. Our dwelling in Christ
does not necessarily have to occur in the order I have just described; for some
of us our belief comes after our loving actions and for some it is the reverse.
There is no set pattern for the life of faith.
God is love
and wonder of all wonders he has chosen us – you and me- to be his living
branches of love in this world. You and
I are loved; God’s love is free flowing toward us and through us not because we
are living a perfect life and keeping all the rules just so. God’s love is free flowing just because that
is the very nature of God. What an
amazing privilege to be his living branches in the world, to be connected
through the Holy Spirit to this power of love.
So what might
be holding up this flow of love with in us?
What is constricting our connection to the vine, our connection to
Christ? What is keeping us from
producing the fruit of love? Might it be
pride? Judgmental tendencies? Busyness? A sense that we can live life just fine
on our own? There are many things that can keep us from abiding in Jesus. We all fall short in certain areas of life,
we all question at times our purpose, we all wonder sometimes why we are
feeling so alone, why we might feel disconnected from God, why we might not be
able to connect in love toward our neighbor.
When we sense this isolation can we turn our faces to the source of
life, remember that the love of Christ is ALWAYS flowing toward us, and that
Jesus has promised that any of us can bear fruit if we abide in him. “I am the vine. You are the branches.” Welcome the love of God and love God’s
creatures, yourself included! Amen.
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