"I am the vine; you are the branches."
Sisters and brothers in Christ, today is a chance for us to
ponder just that: that we are sisters and brothers in Christ. What does it mean that we are so deeply
connected to Christ? Jesus says in our Gospel lesson, we are “abiding” in
him? And that he is abiding in us. What does that mean?
You are a branch, dear friends, growing out of the true vine,
which is Christ. This image shatters our
notions that God is something or somewhere separate from us. Rather, God is so close to us, God is so
intimately connected to you that your life force—that which nourishes and
sustains you, that which feeds you and allows you to bear works/fruits of
righteousness for this world, comes directly from this Christ vine. We are so intimately connected to God, like a
branch’s life force, which nourished and sustained by the vine. Christ is the vine and we are the
branches. It is such a rich metaphor for
how God connects to you.
I wonder how connected to God you’re feeling on an average
day? Do you see yourself as a branch off
the vine that is Christ?
I was listening to one of these evangelical television
preachers the other day, and I didn’t feel like a branch on Christ’s vine. I heard that God loved me, but I wasn’t
hearing, in that particular sermon, that I was so deeply connected to God we
were sharing the same water, the same nutrients, the same earth. I didn’t hear that I abide in Christ and
Christ abides in me. I didn’t’ hear that
intimacy and love and connection. I
heard that there was a decision that I needed to make, and then, and only then,
would God accept me, would I become connected.
I heard “Connect yourself to the vine.”
I wondered what Jesus in the Gospel of John would say about
that sermon I heard…
Today, repaint this vine-and-branch image in your mind: that
you are a branch on God’s vine. You are
so loved by God, from the very beginning, sisters and brothers in Christ, from
the time you were just a little bud off the vine. You are so loved by God that you are fed and
connected directly by God, not through some intermediary branch, some holy,
holy human, but directly to God are you joined.
And sisters and brothers in Christ, fellow branches, that
vine is so great and so nutrient rich that there is always room for more
branches to abide!
I love the use of the word abide in the Gospel of John. It’s all over the place: “Abide in me as I abide in you.” It’s that image of being so deeply connected.
And there’s always room for more to abide, even the
unlikeliest – we are just as intimately and immediately connected, us unlikely
ones. Our first lesson from Acts, gives
us a foretaste of the breakout of Pentecost, which we will celebrate later this
month, of the Holy Spirit breaking out beyond our boundaries. Philip
baptizes even an Ethiopian eunuch…immediately!
He is immediately connected to the branch…or perhaps [slowly] he was
connected all along and Philip just ritualized what God had already done long
ago: named, claimed and celebrated that
one who was strange and rejected by the world.
God calls the eunuch “my own”, “I am the vine, the Ethiopian eunuch is
(and has always been) one of my many branches.”
And so are you.
You too are a branch.
(In case you’re not hearing it from me, turn to your neighbor and tell
them, “You are a branch.” Now tell them, “And Christ is the vine.” Now say, “So let’s abide.”) We are not all
the same (we celebrate our differences today too with this little card in your
worship folder), but we all share the same vine, we all grow from Christ. So let’s abide. We are watered in the baptismal pool. We grow in the light of God, rooted in Christ
who supplies our every need. Sisters and
brothers, we abide in Christ, who abides in us.
And so: we can’t help but bear fruit!
That’s what’s so rich about this image: Our works, our good
deeds in this world, our loving of one another, of our families and friends,
our passion for justice – that all may be fed and clothed and housed – and our
work to that end, our advocacy on behalf of the poor the outcast, the stranger,
the forgotten, the voiceless, the earth and all its inhabitants, the rejected,
the sad, the fearful among us…
Our acts of justice and kindness and faithfulness are just
natural results of our natural and immediate connection to God. Just like a branch whose fruit is a natural
result of its connection to the vine. Try
to tell a grapevine that is well watered and well nourished not to bear
fruit. You can’t; bearing fruit is a
natural outgrowth of our abiding in Christ.
Now our fruits, our good works, don’t happen overnight; but over a
season… And then the next season,
there’s more, and the more.
And it’s not the other way around. Some churches, I’m afraid make is sound like
our works—and sometimes we can even make “believing the right way a work”—sometimes
I’m afraid our good works become almost like a ticket that we offer in order to
be granted access to the vine.
But that doesn’t make sense.
We don’t offer our produce, the fruit, in order to be granted access to
the vine. And if our works are good
enough than God accepts us and grafts us on.
NO. We are naturally, inherently
connected to God, as unique as we may be, as strange or far off as we may feel,
sisters and brothers, we are in Christ, connected to God…
…and so out we grow…into the world.
This is the life of the Easter people—branches resurrected
from the vine! Because of Christ’s
death and resurrection, because of Christ’s open hands to us, like a vine
spreading out to sprout new branches, because of Christ’s love and forgiveness and
openness, OUT WE GROW.
AMEN.
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