5 Easter Yr B May 2 2021

 5 Easter Yr B May 2 2021

Acts 8:26-40, 1 John 4:7-21, John 15:1-8, Psalm 22:24-30

 

What an amazing passage from John. This is filled with good news, promise, and such encouragement in difficult times. There is so much to consider, and all of it is based on the fundamental claim of the intimate relationship Jesus has with his followers, and the promise that we are intertwined, never left to wither. 

 

A branch cannot live by itself, apart from the vine. We cannot untwine ourselves from Jesus, there is no separateness, no vine apart from the branch. We are intertwined. The word that John uses is meno, a Greek word translated abide, or sometimes dwell. This is the primary designation of relationship in John’s gospel. This is the fundamental claim of the intimate relationship we have with Jesus. This is one of John’s themes. And it is the promise of what Jesus is leaving with the disciples, never severed, never to go away. 

 

This is a symbiotic relationship. The closest I can come to trying to understand, and remember all metaphors will fail eventually, is pregnancy. When I was pregnant with Tom, my firstborn, my doctor was telling me about eating. I must have been worried about something, now I don’t even remember what. He said, the baby is a parasite, it will take its nourishment from whatever I eat. I’m not sure I appreciated his using parasite, but I do appreciate the intimate relationship between mother and baby in the womb. 

 

What happens during this miraculous process? Science tells us that within the mother’s womb the placenta transfers oxygen and food from the blood of the mother to the blood of the embryo. Reversely, it transfers waste materials from the embryo to the mother. The fetus does not have to breathe or eat because the oxygen and food it needs is brought to it via the placenta. This new life uses the mother’s lungs, digestive organs and kidneys to sustain it during development.

 

As I think of how God devised such a beautiful and intimate connection, I realize that the message of the vine and the branches is also one of incomparable intimacy. It paints a picture of a symbiotic relationship. Symbiotic simply means life together—a life that Jesus wants to share with all of us, those who walk the way of love. Listen to the way Eugene Peterson in The Message translates this, I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you’re joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant.

 

Another really amazing phrase in this passage is the I am statement. We have heard I am statements in the Old Testament, when Moses asks God’s name, God’s response I AM. John uses a number of I AM statements, all followed by a predicate nominative, do you remember that from your high school grammar class? I am followed by the shepherd, the bread, the light, a path, a gate. But this one is different, Jesus adds another clause this time, and you are the branches. Not only do we hear another I am, the culmination of all the I am’s that precede it, but this time we hear who we are as well. You are the branches. The symbiotic relationship is complete, fulfilled, and aspirational. 

 

So first of all, being connected makes following Jesus, and the claim on our lives to love, conceivable and probable. Loving one another and loving our enemies is possible because of this symbiotic relationship. We are not alone, we don’t love alone, because of this relationship loving is possible. So what about the part that says “apart from me, you can do nothing.” Hear this as a statement of affirmation. This verse challenges our sense of being self-made men and women in the world. And yet… maybe after a year of pandemic and racial reckoning and political paralysis, maybe this is the year we can hear that affirmation more accurately and with fresh appreciation. Embedded in these words is a promise. It is precisely because everything we do depends on Jesus that we can count on doing something meaningful. Jesus’ words here remind us that it’s not up to us. It never was. It never will be. Thanks be to God. And Jesus’ words here remind us that it is the connectedness that supports, affirms, and empowers us to do the work that God calls us to do.

 

And secondly, it is this symbiotic relationship that makes it possible for the disciples to carry on after Jesus dies, is resurrected, and ascends. It is this symbiotic relationship that makes it possible for you and me to carry on after the trauma, the grief, the displacement, the chaos that is present in our lives most especially now, but really, always. This symbiotic relationship means that we do not wither, in fact, we may bear fruit, give birth.

 

Remember, by declaring their allegiance to Jesus by following him, Jesus’ followers have been thrown out of the synagogue, maybe even their families. They have been kicked to the curb, relegated to the margins. So this relationship that John describes, this intimate, intertwined and connected relationship, comes to Jesus’ followers as a promise in a very difficult time. Do not be afraid, connected to the vine you will have life. 

 

But what’s more, because you and I have read to the end of John’s gospel, we know that Jesus leaves another advocate, whom we call the Holy Spirit. This is grace upon grace, when Jesus leaves, the disciples will not be left alone. They are part of the vine, intimately related, having abundant life, bearing fruit. We are not left alone, and we are in this together.

 

Bearing fruit means engaging for ourselves as individuals and as the church in those activities and tasks that recognize and invest in the goodness of God’s love by spreading that love to the neighbor whom we are called to love. The specifics of bearing fruit, what that love actually looks like is varied. Sometimes it is taking part in already vibrant community ministries, sometimes it is creating something new, sometimes it is quiet and contemplative. But what is most important and what this symbiotic metaphor shows us is that we are not self-made. We are individuals, yes, but the reality of the Christian life is that all that we are and all that we have are as a result of the abiding grace of God. 

 

It is such a wonderful image, isn’t it? Being intertwined with Jesus in this way. And yet, it implies a claim, a moral imperative. Bearing fruit, co-conspiring with Jesus to love flows from this relationship. Go out and be love. It’s already possible, we don’t have to conjure something up, we have to go out and do the love that is already present. And that is Good News. Thanks be to God. 

Fifth Sunday of Easter Yr A May 10 2020

Video

Fifth Sunday of Easter Yr A May 10 2020

Acts 7:55-60, 1 Peter 2:2-10, John 14:1-14, Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16

These have been some hard days. On one level, being healthy and happy at home is a great thing. We’ve gotten some things done, cleaned some drawers, thrown some stuff out, gotten a good start on yard work, finished the Doctoral Thesis -- but, we all know that we are beginning to fray, our edges are beginning to show, our patience is thinning, our hair is getting wild, we want to get back at our lives. And in and among all of that is grief, sadness, and loss. Our hearts break for the doctors, nurses, and front-line workers who put their lives on the line each day. Our hearts break for the service industry workers who have lost so much income but are afraid to go back to work. Our hearts break for missed rites of passage, graduations, 16^th birthday parties, getting a driver’s license. Our hearts break for loved ones whose people have died in this time, those who have died from COVID-19, and those who have died from something else, we can’t have funerals that are so very important as a place to put our grief. I have a great nephew to be baptized, we’re actually considering doing it on Zoom.

This is life with all the feels amplified, we cry tears of joy when people say thank you, we cry tears of grief when we see the faces of the nurses, we cry tears of gratitude when we can see the people we love, we cry at all the montages on tv inspiring us to stay connected in all this – well at least I do.

And yet, into this very peculiar time we are living, we hear these words of Jesus, do not let your hearts be troubled. Jesus’ assurance to the disciples is an assurance to us as well. John reports this exchange in the midst of the grief the first followers of Jesus are feeling as it is become real to them that Jesus will be leaving them. Let’s remember some things about John’s gospel.

The central event of John’s gospel is foot washing. There is no Lord’s supper or last supper. We wash feet here, at Trinity, on Maundy Thursday of Holy Week. We bring our dirty, smelly, funny looking feet forward for someone we may or may not know, to wash, and dry. It is an amazingly vulnerable act. This is what Jesus does. Jesus gets down on his knees and washes the mud, dirt, the dust, the crap, off of the feet of his friends. I’m not sure we can understand the intimacy of this act, this is the service of a true friend, a relationship that has been built as Jesus and the disciples have shared everything together for the last three years.

Do you have a friend like that? A friend you have known since childhood. A friend for whom you would give your life. A friend who tells you the truth. A friend who knows all your secrets. This relationship, this friendship, Jesus and those who followed him them, and those who follow him now, is a deep and abiding relationship.

Jesus washes his friends’ feet, and the whole time he knows that Judas has already sold him out, and that Peter will deny his own friendship with Jesus. We must picture this foot washing with this in mind, we must feel the poignancy of the moment, in order to understand the depth of betrayal, denial, and the shattering of relationship.

But despite all of that, Jesus says, do not let your hearts be troubled. They are having an awful time accepting the fact of their separation, accepting the fact that Jesus is going away, and accepting Jesus’ promise that they will always be with him. Thomas voices their confusion; how do we know where you’re going Jesus? Thomas wants a map, he wants geography, but what Jesus has for them is not a map, but a relationship. A deep, abiding relationship where there is room for all of them. A deep, abiding, expansive relationship that is wide enough for all to enter.

Early in John’s gospel Jesus has said, I AM, which means your God is present. Jesus also says, I am the bread, I am the light, I am the door, I am the resurrection and the life, I am the good shepherd, I am the vine you are the branches, indicating a deeply intimate relationship. And here Jesus says, I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the life. These are words of comfort and description; they are not conditional. These are words that help the disciples know about relationship, Jesus and God, Jesus and them, Jesus and us. These are words that assure us of a relationship, they are particular in that way. This is a relationship that is deep, abiding, and intimate. These words invite, they do not exclude.

The disciples were living in a very troubling time, and they were afraid to let go of Jesus. Jesus assures them that he is already preparing a place for them, already preparing to be with them in a new way, a way of comfort and spirit.

At the core of John’s gospel is relationship, deep, abiding, ongoing. Everything in John’s gospel shows Jesus pursuing that relationship, and it shows the very much human disciples betraying, denying, and bungling. And in our time of uncertainty, our time of disconnection, our time of grief, our time when we cannot do anything that we have always believed to be at the center of connection, Jesus does not ever stop calling to us, being with us, holding us up and holding us together.

Community and relationship look different today, they look like love from a distance. But relationships are no less strong, and community no less resilient. In fact, we are being called to a new way of love today, a way that demands more from us, not less. More commitment to love one another from a distance, more commitment to be connected. Jesus invites us to follow the way, be the truth, and live as if everyone is related. Amen.