Sermon: Locating The Vine

Below is the text of the sermon I delivered Sunday, May 6, 2018 at Grace and St. Peter's in Hamden, CT. As described in the sermon we had switched the Gospel lessons between last week and this week, so the text was John 15:1-8. I did vary a bit from this draft as I presented it, but the ideas and framework remained the same.

[From the center Aisle]

Good Morning. Bob is out of town today and Dexter has graciously given me the opportunity to preach. In today's lesson were going to talk about about location and I’m going to do something a little bit differently. Bob has been preaching from the aisle, Amanda used to preach from the pulpit. I’m going to do a little bit of both and maybe bring in a little bit from my studies in seminary. I also invite you to think pay attention in a different way. I want you to pay attention to all that is going on here. Look around the sanctuary. Look at the altar. Look at the light coming in through the stained glass windows. Listen to my words. Listen to the sounds of people shifting around in their seats, rustling papers, and the sounds of the world outside the church, the traffic, the birds, and so on.

[pause… Walk to the altar and then to the pulpit]

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, oh Lord, our strength and our redeemer.

Today, we hear the lesson about Jesus being the vine and us being the branches. We’re doing things a little bit out of order. Our lesson last week about God’s love should have been the lesson for this week and vice versa, but Bob wanted to change the order so that youth Sunday would have such a great passage to preach from and that fit in with their song. We need to keep in mind that today’s lesson comes before the lesson we heard about love last week.

These two lessons, together come as part of the Jesus’ great Farewell Discourse in chapters 14 through 17 of John. They are preceded and followed by Jesus telling the disciples about God sending the Holy Spirit.

In Biblical Studies, a lot of attention is paid to the location of various texts. When and where were the texts written? Who wrote the texts and how did they fit into the society of the time? What about the location might shape what got included and what didn’t get included in the text? Finally, how does our location today shape how we think about the texts?

An important question that the early Christians at the Gospel of John was written were struggling with was the relationship between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. Would Gentiles have to adopt Jewish customs? If so, which thread of Jewish customs, the customs of the Greek Jews spread out across the Middle East, or the customs of Hebrew Jews in Jerusalem? This was about more than things like keeping a kosher kitchen or being circumcised. It was about the very understanding of who they were.

What role did Jerusalem play to these Jews and early Christians? Jesus’ comments about being the vine need to be thought about in terms of Old Testament scriptures about Vineyards.

In Isaiah 5:7, we read:

The vineyard of the LORD Almighty
is the nation of Israel,
and the people of Judah
are the vines he delighted in.

Deuteronomy 28:30 echoes this theme but with an ominous warning, “You will plant a vineyard, but you will not even begin to enjoy its fruit.”

Various commentators have suggested that what Jesus is saying here is that what matters is our relationship with God instead of any specific physical location. In this light, John 15 fits very nicely between the discussions of the Holy Spirit coming in Chapters 14 and 16. The physical body of Jesus cannot possibly be with all people in all locations at all times, but the Holy Spirit can be.

As we continue to think about who we are as a community, I think this is an important perspective. We have a beautiful church building at a great location. Its purpose should be to draw each of us closer to God and to one another as we bring God’s love to the greater community. We, as a community, can bring God’s love, as we experience it here to people in our daily lives, wherever our paths take us.

In the Gospel, Jesus calls us to remain in him, as he remains in us. An older translation of this is ‘abide’. What does it mean to remain or abide in Jesus? The same word is used in Matthew when Jesus sends out the disciples. “Whatever town or village you enter, search there for some worthy person and stay [or remain or abide] at their house until you leave”.

This location here in Hamden is where we are sent out from. It is where we abide as we show God’s love to those around us, through programs like Dinner for a Dollar and Abraham’s tent.
Another place where the word ‘abide’ is used in the New Testament is by Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. In Matthew, Jesus says to his disciples in the garden, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here [abide or remain] and keep watch with me.”

Our location here in Hamden is also where we abide in times of grief or sadness as we say good bye to loved ones and comfort one another. We abide with those we love when they are grieving or troubled, whether they are with us here at Grace and St. Peter’s or far away from us. It is part of what makes us the community we are.

And what is the result of our abiding in Jesus? Jesus tells us, “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”

What is this fruit? We find the word used many different places. Many of my evangelical friends think of these fruits in terms of the number of new people we bring to church. That is part of it, but that is much more. In Galatians are told that the fruits of the spirit are “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control”.

In the story of Jesus birth, we get another view of what these fruits. In the beginning of Luke when Mary visits Elizabeth, Elizabeth shouts out, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb”.

This is the fruit we are called to bear, to bring God’s love into the world. It is what the children of our Sunday school spoke with us about last week. It is what we show through ministries like Dinner for a Dollar, Abraham’s Tent, Arden House, Older and Wiser, and simply showing God’s love to those around us.

Finally, we come to the type of fruit that grows on vines. The grapes used to make wine; the wine which will become for us the mystical blood of Christ in the Eucharist in a little while. We are the body of Christ. We are the branches of vine, bearing the fruit that will bring hope, love, and joy to those around us. Let us keep all of these things in mind as we consider our location, here in Hamden, and as branches connected to the vine of Christ. Amen

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