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The Fifth Sunday of Easter Almighty God, the breeze of your love and grace is ever blowing; may we set our sails to capture that breeze, and may it inspire these words and those who hear them. Amen Over the last few weeks, we’ve been immersed in the gospel of John where Jesus uses one rich metaphor after another in an attempt to make clear to his followers just who he is and what that means for them. Last week we heard that Jesus was the good shepherd, and this week, again appealing to an agrarian people, Jesus refers to himself as the “true vine,” an image that had both Old Testament roots and real life relevance for his audience. But when I read this week’s gospel with its rich imagery of vines and branches and pruning and abiding, the first thing that came to my mind was not vineyards but trees. I love trees and I’ve long seen them as evidence of God’s grandeur in creation. Behind the rectory there stands a tall and stately oak tree with branches that reach far into the sky. I love to hear the wind move through the branches of this tree and to sit under its shade in the summer; I watch as the squirrels run up and down its broad trunk and the birds rest on its limbs. It’s really a magnificent tree—it is full of life, and it supports life for others who depend on its wide branches. Over the years, though, the weather has taken its toll on this tree. The wind that moves through the branches, when it grows fierce, can also bend and break them; the last couple of winters were particularly hard, leaving two large limbs severely damaged, hanging as it were, by a thread. And so it was that one day I looked out to see Ed, the tree guy, climbing up this sturdy oak. I expected that taking down these two branches would be quick work—after all they were barely attached to the tree so it ought to be a simple matter to just saw them off and be done, right? Wrong. As I watched the tree guy edged his way carefully up the tree, testing branches, examining limbs, carefully snipping here and judiciously sawing there. It was absolutely mesmerizing—he was like an acrobat suspended high above the ground, working with care and a certain delicacy on the branches of this majestic oak. Even when he came to the largest and most damaged limb, he didn’t just whack it off—instead he worked with deliberation and concern, like a surgeon performing an exacting procedure; it was, as someone once described the act of pruning, truly a dialogue between two living organisms. For me, this mighty oak, and the care that the tree guy lavished on it, powerfully illustrate the themes we hear not only in today’s gospel where Jesus proclaims himself to be the true vine but also in our epistle which continues last week’s message about God’s love. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jesus is for us like that sturdy oak—stout and stalwart and reliable, and when we choose to entrust our lives to him, we become like the branches—the various parts of the body of Christ, extending out into the world, but rooted nonetheless. Jesus reminds us that to bear good fruit pruning must take place; we must be prepared to let go of things that hold us back, that impede our growth. Pruning can be painful, and just as we sometimes must remove what look like healthy limbs from the tree, so too must we be willing to relinquish things we cherish. But our God is a loving God, and surely as the vine grower—the caretaker—that pruning will be done with the utmost tenderness. Here I think again of Ed, the tree guy, cutting with care and precision, knowing what to prune and what to leave to nourish new growth; surely this is an apt metaphor for how God prunes us when we open ourselves to that possibility. Of course, pruning is not all that is essential for the health of the tree—or for our relationship with God. It must be nourished as well. If you listen carefully to these two readings, you will hear a phrase that speaks to this nourishment—a phrase repeated 14 times —and that phrase is “abide in”—the branches must abide in the vine, Jesus’ followers must abide in him, those who abide in love abide in God and God abides in them. It sounds lovely, but what does it mean, really? Abide is not a word that is part of our everyday speech, and if you look it up, you find a number of definitions that aren’t so helpful—to endure, to tolerate, to await; the most common usage of abide today is a negative one—as in “I can’t abide such bigotry.” It’s only when you look at its archaic meaning that you come close to what I think this passage is trying to convey—to abide is to dwell. And then there’s the preposition: “in” not “with” as we hear in that great hymn, Abide With Me. Abide IN me, dwell IN me. How do we do that? The most helpful mage that comes to mind for me when I try to understand what it means to “abide in” is one of being porous, being open so that things can flow right through. When we abide in God we open ourselves and invite God into our very being. Like the sap that runs through the tree, providing life-giving nourishment to even the most far-reaching branches, when we abide in God and God in us, that life-giving spirit fills us to overflowing, sustains us and strengthens us. And what is the nature of that life-giving spirit? The letter from John reminds us that it is love. If we know God, we know love, and we are able to love because God love us. When we abide in love, we are suffused in that love—not just surrounded by it but filled with it—and we are commended to shower that love on one another. Like the branches of the mighty oak, we must allow ourselves to be pruned—letting go of those things that separate us from God, and we must open ourselves to God, abiding in God so that God’s love fills us and nourishes us and overflows to others. But there’s still one more piece to this picture. Not only does our well being depend on abiding in God—in being attached to the trunk—it also depends on caring for one another. Just as a diseased branch can affect the health of the whole tree, so too does weakness or disease in one part of the body of Christ affect the whole. When we enter into life in Christ—when we abide in God and God in us, it is not just as individuals; it is not just about me and God, it is about the life of the whole world. Life in Christ, full and abundant life calls us to be interdependent, to care for others, friend and stranger alike, just as we care for ourselves. But you know, there’s something wonderful about that that we tend to overlook; God’s call to love and care for one another provides us with a holy obligation – but it also provides us with the reassurance that we need not be alone. Imagine what the world could be like if each and every one of us took this commandment to heart—each of us loving and caring for one another, all the while rooted to Christ as the limbs are attached to the tree. Imagine…because that is the world that God is calling us to, that is the world of the kingdom of God. Amen. |
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