SECOND READING : John 15:1-8 (The Message)

The Gospel assigned for this Mother’s Day, is one of those too-clear-to-be-misunderstood images so characteristic of the Fourth Gospel. Yet behind the familiarity of Jesus’ words in which he identifies himself as like a grapevine, there lie implications regarding our life in Christ that are easily overlooked. Why? One reason is perhaps that we hear the image and comprehend what it teaches in something of a blinding flash”. “Got it!!” Understanding so fast, we think our understanding complete. But we may fail to think through how what we now see impacts the way we live and flourish, as branches of the Vine.

Today’s verses are part of Jesus’ lengthy Farewell Speech and contain his final “I am” statement. He knows he’ll soon be going away from his disciples, away, to a place they will not go, at least no just yet. In order to prepare them, as any nurturing person would, Jesus reaches out to nurture and instruct them – to give them an abiding understanding – for when it’s needed – of his on-going love for them and their readiness for an abiding connection with him.

But, how to describe this connection? They all were well-accustomed to being surrounded by grape vines. Even the intricacies of grape cultivation were common knowledge in towns and villages. Jesus drew on this shared awareness to speak about the relationship between God, the Creator, and Jesus, and between Jesus and the disciples. Experience had taught that in order to produce plenty of good fruit, grapevines require rigorous and drastic pruning/ also called cleaning/ at the end of each growing season. They knew that long tendrils, that a few months previous had been green and lustrous, had to be cut back to within an inch or two of the old wood. This radical change, they knew, secured the promise of abundant fruit in the next growing season.

Is there a pinch of warning in Jesus’ metaphor? I think so. But, as you listen notice Jesus’ focus is less on the diseased, spent limbs that are cut away, and more on the on-going, organic connection between the Farmer or Gardener (that would be God), the vine (that would be Jesus) and the healthy branches (disciples). Listen now, as I read from Eugene Peterson’s translation. Jesus is speaking…

“I am the Real Vine and my Father is the Farmer. He cuts off every branch of me that doesn’t bear grapes. And every branch that is grape-bearing he prunes back so it will bear even more. You are already pruned back by the message I have spoken.

“Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can’t bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can’t bear fruit unless you are joined with me.

“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. Separated, you can’t produce a thing. Anyone who separates from me is deadwood, gathered up and thrown on the bonfire. But if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon. This is how my Father shows who he is – when you produce grapes, when you mature as my disciples.

The reading ends here….may God’s Word for you fly the wings of the Spirit until it finds a home in your heart.

Wauwatosa Presbyterian Church May 10, 2009

Please Keep Reading

Acts 8:26-40; John 15:1-8

For decades, the pianist Jeffrey Siegel has been offering his popular concert series, Keyboard Conversations, in our fair city and throughout the country and abroad. He played here this past last week. Perhaps some of you got to hear him.

Mr. Siegel’s concerts are a full concert with commentary. In the first half, the audience is entertained, as well as educated on aspects of the composer’s life, or the composition’s history, or revelatory tidbits about themes. Armed with this commentary, Mr. Siegel’s audiences, then, hear him play the piece in its entirety. This pattern effectively uses the listeners’ personal experience to demonstrate that studying the piece – reading up on it – makes the music will be more accessible and the listening experience more meaningful and focused. After every concert and talk-back, Mr. Siegel ends with his signature closing, “Good evenings to you and, please, keep listening!”

In the first century, it was not common practice to read silently. Common practice was to read aloud. So, when Philip drew up to the Ethiopian official, he heard verses from the prophet Isaiah’s 53^rd chapter being read aloud. Does the Ethiopian know what he’s reading about? It seems not…yet we sense he knows the Scriptures to be part of the answer to his earnest desire to know the Truth of God, the Way of God and thus be welcomed into the fullness of life with God.

Have you ever been swept up by what you were reading? I remember one time, when I was just into my teens and I took on the lengthy novel, Gone With the Wind. A timid reader – at least then – I credit peer pressure for compelling me to open that tome and disappear down the proverbial “rabbit hole” into that story of the deep South, of plantation life in the years surrounding the Civil War and the romance of S’arlet and Rhett. I heard this story unfold in my head, it seeped into waking and sleeping thoughts. I practiced saying “y’all”, in secret. I practiced gliding into a room in my imaginary gowns. It was like was taken over by the spirit of something, so much so that after finishing, I tried to continue to abide in that ficticious world. But, it didn’t work. It became ludicrous to try, for even I could see that the fantasy did not bear fruit, let alone abundant fruit. These days I’m reminded of the first Letter of John, the opening of the fourth chapter, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God…By this you know the Spirit of God, every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God…. (IJohn 4:1)

Hm-m-m…This story of the Ethiopian, who yearned to be taken up into the Word of God, who read Scripture as his chariot bounced along that wilderness road, does not appear elsewhere in the Bible… It’s just here in the Acts of the Apostles. So, who was he? And to what themes does the book’s composer, Luke, want this reader listening?

Tradition holds that ancient Ethiopia was founded by the great-grandson of Noah. Located in the southeast part of Egypt, Ethiopians knew of the teaching on the God of Israel from the time of Solomon and the queen of Sheba. Some have said the Falasha Jews of Ethiopia are direct descendants from Solomon’s time.

Luke’s engaging story has four actors. The first and most dazzling, by far, is the literate, educated treasurer of Candace (Kan-dah-see), the queen of Ethiopia. Luke has us hear, right away, this court official is a foreigner, most likely because his skin is darker than most people’s in Jerusalem. He is possibly a Jew but, more likely, a Jewish proselyte – bared from being a true son of Abraham because he is barren or had difficulty keep the law. Nevertheless, he’s plenty powerful as the queen’s minister; but he seems to lack the power to understand God’s Word. Something beyond his control seems not yet in place or be hindering him. Luke clues us into his longing by telling us that the long arduous journey up to Jerusalem was not official business, but so he might worship. In other words, the man’s social standing is not Luke’s interest, instead Luke spotlights his spiritual standing before God.

Second actor – the chariot driver. He drives his heavy chariot and charge as fast as he dares go, along a road presumed to be off the beaten path, a more liminal space, where there is opportunity for serious theological reflection and personal transformation. The driver utters not a word but plays his part, and plays it well. And in what appears to be something of a serendipitous moment, out of nowhere comes Philip the Evangelist, not to be confused with Philip the Apostle, the story’s third player. He is running along beside the chariot.

Now, Philip entered the Biblical narrative as the time of the early church. A Greek, he was appointed, along with Stephen and others to supervise the daily distribution of food to the widows following a dispute between the Hellenists and the Hebrews. When serious political conflict later arose in Jerusalem many believers, and Philip fled. Philip went to Samaria where is preached with power and with miraculous signs. It was there, north of Jerusalem that the angel, that mysterious force or Spirit, found and commissioned him. Enter our fourth operative…. Philip knew what it meant “to follow the wind of the Spirit.” His to-do list each day was not so rigid and demanding that it precluded his feeling the breath of God nudging him. How does Philip answer?

“Go where, God?,“ we imagine him asking, “Go south…Take a desert road from Jerusalem to Gaza? Why Lord? Samaria is where the fish are biting. How long will it take? I have am important meeting this afternoon with a group of new believers.” (slight) No, that’s what Philip said…those are our questions, but they were not Philip’s.

Every word of the text let’s us know that Philip just does what he’s directed to do: Go south, approach a rolling chariot with a powerful foreigner as cargo and ask a few questions… When a person’s heart is hungering and thirsting for righteousness – and Philip’s heart was in the eternal ready-to-go-mode – a unique encounter at the intersection of need and opportunity presents itself. You know what I’m talking about!

Just like your imagination picture this…an itinerant preacher, modestly dressed, jogging along, hearing someone reading aloud. Philip inquires if the foreigner knows about what he’s reading. And voila! a Divine Opportunity! Is this a Diving Opening or what! And Philip proceeds to tell of Jesus who was unjustly humiliated and slaughtered and hadn’t let out so much as a peep to save himself, with the result that Jesus life is everywhere. Anybody could live life for himself or herself…or he/she could let Jesus’ life live in oneself as easily as a fish circulates around in the water and the water circulates around in the fish.

Next, a pool of water (miraculously?) turns up by the side of the road as they traveled along, and the eunuch inquires why he shouldn’t be initiated into this life. There is NO hindrance, so Philip baptizes him, and before Philip can offer a celebratory handshake or hallelujah, the Spirit spirits Philip away. Philip never sees the eunuch again and never had to! And the Ethiopian? He rejoices  and the sound of his joy – Frederick Buechner writes, is like the sound of a brook rattling over pebbles.

Now, I ask you Is Luke’s account not a demonstration of thefluid connection between God, Jesus, and God’s channels or tendrils, that would be us, who bear fruit that God uses to transform the world.

And Luke’s message????? This story comes after the baptism of Samarians (chapter 7) and before that of Gentiles (chapter 10). If the emphasis of Luke’s story of the Samaritan conversion is on the reception of the Spirit, here the emphasis is on the reception of the twin gifts – the Spirit and the Word of God (Scripture). The two are decisively and strategically intertwined in Acts as the principal media of God’s Word and thus of our spirit’s being instructed in how to be a branch of the True Vine. In short, “Please, keep listening….” Listening for the Spirit guiding you/us…there is nothing hindering God’s coming Kingdom…any more than you can stop vines at the beginning and throughout the growing season, from growing, flourishing and bearing much fruit under the guidance of the Farmer, God Almighty.

Philip didn’t “sell”,“arm wrestle” or beg the eunuch. Philip was available to the Spirit and when the Spirit comes among us to teach and inspire it is God’s work, not ours. We are instructed to abide on the Vine…

Most often we think “abiding” has to do with lodging…and place. But, friends, it has to do with presence as well: Specifically, our being present to the presence of God in our midst wherever and everywhere we are. And isn’t that what Philip and also the Ethiopian were….Present to God. God’s life and our lives are bound together [by God’s design]… as[ to be like] a vine with branches… [or]as a body with members. So corporate are we that no one can give a cup of cold water to the least person in the world, without giving it to God. (Rufus Jones, The Double Search.) and for God’s glory. Amen