Year A, Easter 6 Where do you live? I’m not talking about your street address, or your city, but your state—your state of mind. What occupies your mind? Some people live in a dream world, others in the state of denial. In this day and age, many of us live in anxiety, fear, and worry. We worry about gas prices, we fear we won’t be able to pay our bills, We worry about our children’s or grandchildren’s education, we fear we won’t have enough money to live our lives when we retire. We fear global warming, terrorists, and we worry about the ongoing war and even the presidential election. We fear death and disease. The list goes on and on. Far too often, this is where we live. We make fear and worry our home. But we are called to live in Christ. He is the vine, we are the branches. He is our home, our dwelling place, the place of safety and security. Richard Foster is a Quaker, and a best-selling writer on Christian spirituality. He tells a story about a time of temporary homelessness in his childhood during which he learned how to find home in God, giving thanks for it. He calls it "his grateful center." When he was seven, his parents wanted to move from their home in Nebraska to the West Coast. But they ran out of money before they reached their destination and spent the winter in a cabin in the Rocky Mountains. What was surely a very difficult time for his parents was heaven to this little boy. For, unlike the coal furnace of their old house, the cabin had a big fireplace. And every night, Richard slept near it on a sofa bed under a big, heavy quilt. He wrote: "Night after night I would fall asleep, watching this strange yellow blaze that warmed us all. I was in my grateful center."1 This is a great place, a sense of belonging, of comfort. A sense of home. As Christians, we find that grateful center, that home in God and in Christ. God is to be our dwelling place, the place where we abide, where we dwell, where we stay. Home. In today’s gospel, Jesus talks about being the true vine. In order to understand this saying, it’s important to consider the ideas of vines and vineyards for 1st century Judaism. There are many references in the Old Testament to Israel as the vine, as the vineyard. “Even the notion of a true vine shows up in the Old Testament: ‘I planted you as a fruitful vine, entirely true. How have you become a wild vine, turned to bitterness?’ . . . God, the gardener, cared for his vineyard but got sour grapes. Consequently he will destroy the vineyard. The theme of judgment accompanies virtually every use of this image in the Old Testament.”2 When Jesus declares himself to be the true vine, he is calling himself the true Israel. No longer are the people of God founded on a land and on their religious heritage; God’s people are those who are in Christ. He is the true vine, and the Father is the gardener, the vine grower, and his disciples are the branches. This is the focus of these verses: that the branches are in intimate contact with Jesus. These verses talk about bearing fruit, and this seems to mean that the important things are to possess the divine life itself, and especially the chief characteristics of that life, knowledge of God and love. The image of fruit symbolizes union with God which is reflected in our lives and our ethics. The Father as the gardener cuts of those branches that do not bear fruit, and prunes those that do in order to increase their yield. This does not mean that we should spend our time worrying that we will be cut off if we don’t do it right, if we don’t bear fruit on our own; we can be assured of the love and grace of God. But if we reject him, we in effect are removed from the vine. Those who do not bear fruit do their own work of separation in the light of the gospel. We are cleansed by the word of Christ, by the gospel. This cleansing and pruning can be painful as the life of self and rebellion is cut away,3 but the result will be untold blessing. The result of pruning is growth. Jesus says; abide in me as I abide in you. To abide is to remain, to stay, to live, to dwell. The branch cannot bear fruit apart from the vine. The life we seek, the life that we share in Christ, is dependent upon God’s work in our lives. Does the branch ask the vine for sap, for nourishment, to show it how to grow? This life comes naturally from union with the vine, and the fruit is the fruit of the vine. The branch is a channel for life. Union with the vine is all that is necessary. There is effort, though, in remaining, in abiding. It is not just believing, but involves union with Christ, sharing in His life, His will. This relationship is based on the initiative of God, but it demands a response from the disciple. The consequence of remaining is to bear fruit—because the branch cannot bear fruit on its own. But the consequence of not abiding, not remaining, is separation from God. The consequence of rejecting God is judgment. When disciples abide in Jesus, his words are in them. Having his words means to share his mind and his will, praying for his purposes. Thy will be done. The result is to reveal God to the world and to share his life and love so people will be brought into the community of disciples. God will answer our prayers when they are aligned with His purposes. As disciples produce fruit, the Father is glorified. “The glory of the Father is Jesus’ chief delight and has been the focus of all he has said and done. Since the disciples are now going to live in union with Christ, the Father’s glory will be the goal of their lives as well.”4 We too are called to make Christ our home, to live in union with him, and therefore glorify the Father. He in us, and we in him. We are to be totally dependent on him. Doctrine and ethics are not enough to make us Christian disciples; we must share in the very life of Christ, having an inner experience of Jesus. There are different words for this: mysticism, interiority, spiritual encounter, but without some sense of supernatural experience of the reality of Jesus, without transformational spirituality, doctrine and ethics have no value. Being a Christian is experiential. “The believer is like a living branch attached to a living vine. It is the vine that gives life to the branch. Nourishment from the vine enables the branch to bear good fruit. How one becomes attached is not the issue. But that one must be attached, that one will bear fruit as a result of this attachment, means everything.”5 Christianity is not only about believing the right things or living the right way, but about having the Father, Son and Holy Spirit dwelling in us as we live in them. We are nurtured by a life-giving relationship with Christ, and the fruit of this is love. This experience of Christ, a spiritual awakening as it were, doesn’t necessarily lead to great signs and wonders, but to a life that imitates Christ’s. We remain in Christ by learning about him: through reading the Bible and other books, and by prayer: talking and listening to God. It is not about much doing and acting, not about the deeds that we do, these things are easy, but it’s about stopping, listening, abiding with Jesus, realizing God’s presence. This is what it means to live in Christ, to make God our home, our house, the place we live and move and have our being. He is the air we breathe. The House of the Lord lacks for nothing. It is a place of abundance and beauty. In contrast to the parched places of our lives, it is a place of vibrant and nourishing green pastures. In contrast to the . . . noise of our daily lives and frazzled spirits, it is a place of deep, still waters, where silence carries us to the wellsprings of our faith. In contrast to the futile desperation of endless seeking after the latest thing, the newest, hippest, coolest whatever, when we are at home with God, we know that our cup is already filled to overflowing. God is our home. And the more we know that, really know that, and believe it in our heart of hearts, the more we will shift from anxiety to assurance, from fear to fullness, from getting to gratitude. And our prayer will become "Thank you."6 And we will bear much fruit. 1 http://www.30goodminutes.org/csec/sermon/farris_4708.htm 2 Whitacre, Rodney. The Gospel of John. P. 372 3 Ibid., 375. 4 Ibid., 377. 5 Burge, Gary. The NIV Application Commentary: John. P. 426. 6 http://www.30goodminutes.org/csec/sermon/farris_4708.htm |