Acts 8:26-40
Psalm 22:25-31
1 John 4:7-21
John 15:1-8
Please pray
with me,
May the
words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in
your sight O God, our rock and our redeemer.
Amen.
This is what
I had hoped it would look like…
But then
came the part I hadn’t quite thought out….the sermon was over…and well,
becoming untangled was a little more difficult than I had thought it would
be. You see, try as we might, there was
no simple way to free ourselves from this connection we now had with each
other.
In reality,
it was much more like this
with people intertwined in
the middle.
Eventually
we found some scissors, and people were snipped free and able to take a piece
of the yarn home with them, as a reminder of their connectedness to one
another.
What I like
about this image….is that it is similar to that of vines and our gospel lesson
we hear this day. Here we have Jesus
saying I am the true vine and my Father is the vine grower. Sounds simple enough….but vine living is a
little more complex than we’d like to admit.
We are
society of ‘do-it-yourselfers’. So many
times I have laughed and laughed about
the girl in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and how she must have the
Golden Egg…and how she wants the whole world, and will wrap it up and put it in
her pocket….and just like her dad, so much of culture that surrounds us tells
us that we can get just what we want, when we want it and how we want it!
Yet in this
world of individual needs and desires….we are not alone. We are connected to Jesus, the vine, and
tended by God the vine grower.
We are not alone…we are
connected to others in the midst of a tangled mess. Yet sometimes as these twisted branches, we
will support others, even when we don’t realize it. This community, united in the waters of
baptism, is one that loves and supports one another.
Each time we
celebrate a baptism, we, as the Body of Christ, promise to raise up, to love,
and to nurture the newly baptized boy or girl.
That means we, as a congregation, promise to raise them in the faith, to
help them stay connected to one another, and to be a safe, loving space for
them to learn and grow.
And just as
we have made that promise to all those who have come through into the Body of
Christ through these waters….others have made that promise for us. There are those in the faith who have gone
before us, who made those same promises that we would hear and learn the
Scriptures, be brought to the Lord’s Table and raised and nurtured in a
faith-filled community. And those who
have gone before us, and those who journey with us now, help hold us up when we
need that help.
We are
connected, we are intertwined…and all that we say and do impacts more than just
our individual selves. All that we do,
to the glory of God reflects God’s love and grace in our world. And that’s the bigger picture that is easy to
lose sight of. We can’t see the forest
for the trees….or the vineyard for the vines.
We seem to
worry about our own branch….how and where it will grow and how much fruit it
will produce, that we forget that it’s not just about us…and try as we might to
become more productive, we lose that productivity. We only worry about our own needs and our own
growth and that we forget about being bearers of God’s fruit: God’s love and
God’s grace.
And, as any
gardener knows, a trees and plants need to be pruned to be the most productive
they can be. Scary, though isn’t
it? To think of being pruned? Being cut
back? Losing some of who we are or
perhaps what we have….in order to be free to produce better fruit?
While the
pruning metaphor may seem scary and harsh, Elaine Emeth says it works for her
when she thinks of God as a gardener who grieves while watching a violent storm
rip though a prized garden. Afterward,
the gardener tenderly prunes the injured plants to guarantee survival and to
restore beauty and harmony. Pruning, she
says, is clearing away the debris of our messy lives.
Being united
in the Body of Christ, through baptism, and reconnecting with one another week
after week, in this place, we are able to see the bigger picture. We come together and pray not just for
ourselves, but for others. We sing hymns
written by those who have gone before us in the faith….we confess a faith we
didn’t come up with, we read words we didn’t write, we sing tunes that we
didn’t pick and we learn to love people who were once strangers on the street
and we learn to serve those whom we may never meet.
This place offers
a healthy pruning allowing us to return to the world outside trimmed free some
of our self-centered needs, free to see, to reach out to and to serve those in
our community around us and around the world.
I’d like us
to hear part of this passage again….it’s a literal translation that you may
think of as a cowboy or westerner’s translation…but in it you will hear that
all the times we hear the word you, it’s not personal….it speaks to us
all.
and my words (rhema not logos) would remain in y'all,
whatever y'all would be wishing, ask,
and they shall be [or come to be] for y'all.
In this thing my father is glorified:
that y'all would be bearing much fruit
and y'all would be [or come to be] my disciples.
This passage isn’t about me. Or
about just you. This passage is about
all of us. It’s about a life connected
to God, lived out in community….having the word live in us; coming to
understandings that benefit the community, not just individuals, the
opportunity to pray together and to expect God to be at work through us…for the
benefit of the whole world.
As you are sent from this place this day, remember the connectedness
that remains with y’all at all times.
And may the peace, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus and let all God’s people say, Amen.
