Flourishing On the Vine: A Homily For the Fifth Sunday After Easter

Preached at All Saints, Collingwood, Anglican Diocese of Toronto, the Fifth Sunday of Easter (B), April 28, 2024.  Readings for this Sunday:  Acts 8:26-40; Psalm 22:24-30; 1 John 4:7-21; John 15:1-8

“Jesus said, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower” (Jn 15.1).

The Gulf Islands, dotted along the east coast of Vancouver Island in BC, are beautiful places to visit and to live, and you may be surprised to learn that they are destinations for wine lovers.   I remember visiting one years ago, and toured a winery that had literally been built out of the stone ribs of the island.   Terraces had been dynamited out of the rock, soil brought in by ferry, and vines imported from far away.  Given the costs of such an enterprise, you can imagine that the owners and investors keep a close eye on the health and production of the vines, and will quickly replace any that aren’t producing the required amount to be profitable.  In other words, the owner’s view of the vines is purely utilitarian;   what vines give the best return on investment?

Today we hear Jesus use imagery about vines and spiritual fruit, which is a common image in scripture, in the sense of how we as believers bear spiritual fruit.  In Galatians, for example, St Paul talks about how those who are “led by the [Holy] Spirit” will produce good fruits, such as love, joy, and gentleness (Gal 5.22-23).

Well, we hope and pray that we will produce good spiritual fruit, but perhaps the sense of expectation might make us uneasy.  After all, in our gospel today there is a third character, the Father as vinegrower.  Is the Father out in his vineyard, regarding us with a critical eye, measuring our spiritual fruit against his expectations of us?

And isn't there the sense in scripture that if we don’t produce good fruits, or a good spiritual result, then God will be displeased?    In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus tells a parable about final judgement where the righteous will be harvested like wheat, whereas the evildoers will be treated as weeds and burned in a furnace.  There’s similar language in today’s gospel where Jesus warns that “Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned” (Jn 15.6).

Because of such passages in scripture, I think it’s natural for us to attribute the same utilitarian motives God as we would to any other vineyard owner or farmer.   The thinking would go as follows:   either I produce results that are pleasing to God, or I will be judged as deficient and I will not be saved.  I don’t agree with that way of thinking, and I want to reassure you that it’s not helpful or true to how God in Christ sees us and loves us.    The gospel is not coercive.   God isn’t a “do this or else” God.   God loves the world God created, and God’s purpose is to save the world.   So with that in mind, let’s take a closer look at what’s going on in today’s gospel.

As they say, context is everything.   Our gospel reading today takes us back to the events of Maundy Thursday.  Jesus is gathered with his disciples, he has washed their feet, he has predicted Judas’ betrayal, and he has told them that he is with them “only a little longer” (Jn 13.31).   What follows next are words of reassurance to people who are disturbed and uneasy about a future that has suddenly become uncertain.  Jesus assures his friends that he will never abandon them.  And so Jesus “I am the vine, you are the branches” words are a powerful image of how the disciples will remain in an intimate and life-giving relationship with Jesus.

Throughout John’s gospel, Jesus has described himself as the one who nurtures, sustains, and gives life to his disciples.   These descriptions are known as the “I AM” statements.   In these sayings, Jesus variously describes himself as “the bread of life” (Jn 6.35), as “the light of the world” (Jn 8.12, 9.5), as the “gate” (Jn 10.7), and “good shepherd” of the sheep (Jn 10.11), as “the resurrection and the life” (Jn 11.25), and as “the way, the truth, and the life” (Jn 14.6).  All of these things - bread, light, protection, a safe path, and life itself - are essential to our human flourishing.   They are all part of Jesus’ self-declared mission that his followers “may have life, and have it abundantly” (Jn 10.10).  Not have life meagrely.  Not have life in a subsistence way, but to have life fully, joyously, overflowing - abundantly.

Now, in today’s gospel, Jesus makes this statement explicit.  Previously in these statements, Jesus has just described himself - “I Am”.  Now, he includes the disciples.  “I am the vine, you are the branches”.   It’s the same message of life and intimacy, but now Jesus makes it clear that his followers, you and me, are involved.   He is the vine, we are the branches.   

What I love about this image is that it’s one of interdependence.     The vine supports the branches and gives them life, but there would be no purpose to the vine, and certainly no grapes, if there were no branches.    In the same way, as Jesus has already told the disciples on this night, he is their master and lord, but he is also their servant who has knelt and washed their feet.   We depend on Jesus for life, for purpose, and for salvation, but Jesus depends on us to be the church, to spread the gospel, and to love the world he died to save.  Just think back to our first reading, from Acts.  How could the Ethiopian man have learned who Jesus was if it hadn’t been for Philip?

Thinking about the vine and branches language as an image of relationship with Jesus should help dispel some of the fears about good fruits vs judgement that I outlined at the start of this homily.   The vine knows that it must give life to the branches.   The branches know that they they cannot live without the vine, and if they are connected to the vine, then they will produce fruit.  The branches don’t think about how much fruit they will produce, or what kind.  They just know that they will produce fruit.

In the same way, in our second lesson, if God is love, and if we know God through Christ, then we will love.   How exactly we love, and what that will look like, will vary from person to person, but all in all, it’s going to look like love.   In a sermon on our second lesson, St. Augustine summarized it quite neatly when he said the point is this:  “love God, and do what you want”, because once we love God, then whatever we do will come from God. 

I don't think of God as the vineyard owner, watching us critically to see how we perform.   Maybe God is more like a gardener who is just happy to see plants flourishing.   I like to think that God sees us the way that Joy and I see the apple tree growing in the front yard of our house in Barrie.   We don't keep the tree for it's apples; they are little, green sour things, and we’re too lazy to try and make jam or jelly out of them.  

In the summer months, the apples drop to the ground, hundreds of them in a day sometimes, and we try to collect them before the wasps arrive.   We put up with the apples and the wasps because, for two weeks in May, when the tree blossoms, it’s the most beautiful thing that God ever made.    At the end of these two weeks, its fragrant white petals float to the ground, coating the driveway like snow. 

We love this tree simply because it gives us joy.    Someone else might cut it down as a nuisance, but as long as it’s in our care, we are committed to it.   I like to think that our love for this tree is just a pale shadow of God’s love for us.    God wants us to flourish, and sent his son to live with us and in us so that we might grow and blossom.    And maybe this is the point of the Christian life, to grow and to flourish, even blossom sometimes, because our growth and flourishing delights the heart of God.

 

Why Are We Weeping? A Sermon for Easter Sunday

 Preached at All Saints, Collingwood, Anglican Diocese of Toronto, Easter Sunday, 31 March, 2024.  Isaiah 25:6-9; Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24; Acts 10:34-43; John 20:1-18

 

Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? “ (Jn 20.13)

There are times in our lives, mercifully rare, we hope, when despair and grief are too much for us, and our only recourse is to weep, and by weep I mean something more than a sad sniffle.   Weeping is a word that we use to describe what we sometimes call, in today’s vernacular, “ugly crying”, when our faces crumple and distort and inarticulate sounds come from deep within us, hence the phrase “weeping and wailing”.   I’ve seen soldiers, strong men and women, weeping at the sight of a comrade’s flag-draped casket.   To truly weep is to find one’s self in a place of utmost despair.

It is in such a place that we find Mary Magdalene in our Easter gospel reading.     John doesn’t tell us why she has come to Jesus’ tomb in the predawn, though we can imagine what she saw and felt, standing near the cross as Jesus died along with her hopes.    Perhaps she had hoped that in visiting his tomb, she might find some comfort and companionship there, in the way that grief brings us to the gravesides of loved ones.

But Mary finds no comfort, only the confusion of an empty tomb and the indignity of a stolen body, which she reports to the disciples.   It’s only after they see for themselves and leave that Mary begins to weep.   John tells us that  “As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb” which may mean something more than “she was curious and had another look”;  rather it may imply that she in her sobbing she had doubled over or crumpled to the ground and only then did she see the angels.   Even then her grief persists, because Jesus (whom she does not recognize) asks her again, “why are you weeping” (Jn 20.13).

“Why are you weeping” is the question that undergirds the miracle of Easter.   It is the question that Jesus likewise asks as we stand, confused and uncertain, beside his empty tomb.  “Why are you weeping?”

Why are we weeping?   We are weeping because we, like Mary, have been weeping since we saw our Lord taken in the garden.  We have wept for his betrayal by his friend.  We have wept to see an innocent man cruelly killed.  We have wept for ourselves, because we cried out “Give us Barrabas” and “Crucify him”, because we promised to stick with him till the end, until we abandoned and denied him.   We have wept for our sins which Jesus took to the cross to be bought and paid for.   We have wept and we still weep for the world which God so loved, and which we have imperilled in so many ways.

Why are you weeping?   It seems to me that we as a society are either weeping, sad, or just laughing nervously because we find ourselves, like Mary Magdalene, in a place of grief, confusion, and hopelessness.    Last week in The Guardian, Dorian Lynskey wrote  a piece on our current dystopian mood called “End of the World Vibes”.  Lynskey he noted that “A peer-reviewed 2021 survey of people aged between 16 and 25 around the world found that 56% agreed with the statement “Humanity is doomed” and that one in three Americans expect an apocalyptic, world-ending event in their lifetimes.    This mood is fuelled by books, streaming shows and films about zombies, pandemics, and environmental collapse.     While Lynskey notes that doomsayers have always been around, the current mood, and the fading of religion to the margins of our society, mean that we are living through a crisis of hope.  Many smart and caring people I know just avoid the news these days, and those who are addicted to social media use a word, “doomscrolling”, which means going from one moment of horror and outrage to another.

It is to us, and to those of us fearful or just numbed by this crisis of hope, that Jesus comes and asks, “Why are you weeping?”   It is a question put to us with the greatest sympathy and understanding, for Jesus asks this question with great sympathy, because he has never been afraid to weep.   John tells us that Jesus wept and was “greatly disturbed” at the grave of Lazarus, even though God would give him the power to raise his friend from the dead (Jn 11:35,38).      In Luke’s gospel, as Jesus sees Jerusalem for the last time, he weeps for the city, for its faithlessness and for its impending destruction (Lk 19.41-45).  In the Garden of Gethsemane, Luke doesn’t tell us that Jesus wept for himself, but his anguish and sweat “like great drops of blood” suggest something very close to weeping.  So of course Jesus asks Mary why she is weeping because he understands what it means to weep.  He understands the human condition because he shared it fully, all the way up to death.   Such sharing and solidarity was the same point of the incarnation.

Likewise, the point of the resurrection is that the raising of Jesus from the dead means the end of our weeping.  Nothing less than the resurrection can solve crisis of hope and end our tears.    As he does with Mary, Jesus calls us to rise from our crouching posture, to get up from our fear and despair and sadness, to look into his face and see again our Lord and friend.     Imagine Jesus gently brushing your face and wiping away your tears.  Notice the wounds in his hands as he does so.   Those wounds are there for us.  

As Isaiah said, “by his stripes are we healed”.  Today promises us that we are loved and forgiven.  Being loved and forgiven does solve wars or save the planet, though it is a start.  What it does mean is that we are not doomed.  It means that we as followers of Jesus can do our part for God's kingdom while facing whatever befalls us with peace, knowing that doom and death have no dominion.

The risen Jesus is the end of our weeping.   Indeed, the final story of the Bible, the climax of the Christian story, is the abolition of weeping.

‘See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.’

(Rev 21:3-4)

God does not promise us a life free from pain.  There will be times for tears, as there was in our Lord’s life.   But today is the assurance that hope and life have triumphed over despair and death.  Today is the beginning of the end of all our weeping.

Children's Talk: Jesse the Bible Bear and Fr. Michael on Easter Eggs