One Vine
John 15:1-8
Good morning and Happy Mother’s Day.
I admit I am still high from our historic trip to Iowa. If anyone who witnessed the ten weddings we officiated ever believed our desire to marry was a publicity stunt, they were surely transformed by the love stories we witnessed.
And on a lighter note, we bonded on that rusty excuse for a bus. Our driver thought it funny to tell us the bus had 1.8 million miles on it. I’m fairly certain the toilet had not been properly maintained for 1.5 million of those 1.8 miles. Were it not for the goal before us, everyone on the back half of the bus might have been tempted to flee. So we stayed and every mile we traveled together, ate together, held our noses together, laughed and cried together, we transformed our staying into--ABIDING. Abiding is a peculiar word for a peculiar people.
It’s easy to think of Abiding as a word for another time. In it’s simplest it means to stay with, still motel signs continue to read “Stay Here.” They do not say “Abide with Us, We’ll leave the light on.” I don’t say to my dog, “Sit, Abide”, though Oreo is very good at abiding. To “abide” has to do with persevering, continuing, lasting, staying with it. No wonder the term is rare. What it means is rare, in this time or any time.
What each of our ten wedding couples modeled for the world was what it looks like to abide in love; abide through one partner’s stroke, abide through another’s heart attack, abide despite cancer, abide through surgeries, family loss, life and job changes; abide no matter what the Pharisees of the day threw at them. Our scripture lesson for this morning is about just that; the joys and the intricacies of what it means to abide. The word stay transforms into abide when mutual love becomes part of the equation. “Abide” is a relational word.
It’s no accident that John’s gospel relates the story the way that it does. “The mark of a faithful community is how it loves, not who are its members.” Love is written of often in John’s gospel because love is a measure of mutual faithfulness. We know what Jesus was talking about. We see it demonstrated time and time again in our families. Jesus is saying “Live in me.” He’s saying “Make your home in me just as I do in you.” And then taking the illustration deeper, he adds the metaphor of the vine grower and the branches.
I know a little something about vineyards. I grew up in Napa, California, the center of the U.S. wine growing universe. Some years school was delayed because of an early frost, delayed because of the resources it too to get the smudge pots lit to warm the vineyards to protect the coming harvest. Vineyards take an enormous amount of care. It takes years for a young vine to produce fruit. Everything depends on the soil the vine is planted in, the sun it receives, the nourishment it gets and how well it is tended and pruned. As the scripture suggests, the amount and quality of the fruit depend on the relationship to and with the vine grower. Because at end of every season the branches turn brown and it becomes necessary to pruned away the dead canes. The new grape clusters grow only on the new vines. Our faith grows the same way.
We need to let go, prune away the dead wood in our lives, dead theology, dead hurts, dead relationships; relationships with people, substances, anything or anyone that isn’t good for our growth. And as we grow, so grows our rootstock, trunk, head, vines, and branches. The stronger our support, the further out the branches can stretch, intertwine and reach. Jesus is our rootstock, he’s were we get the confidence and the motivation to abide in his ways. Our friendships and relationships are our intertwined branches that give us strength.
Jesus is inviting us to live in it, take nourishment from it, gain strength from it, and use it as ground zero for living your life in usefulness to who you know yourself to be and how I have called you to live. Why? The why comes in verse 12, “This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you!”
Everything IS about the love. When you know who you are, when you know whose you are, your roots will be stable enough to take on anything in life you want to take on. You can stretch your branches all the way to Iowa to make a stand for love, justice and equality. You can ride 300 miles on a bicycle, supported by people who’ve died of AIDS, the people you are ride for. You can go another day knowing the right job is around the corner. You can stand up for people who can’t stand up for themselves. First you must stand up for what you need, caring for your own spiritual center. Then…
The question for the church is--- are we living close enough to the vine, the source, that we find peace around all the things that we face and all the things that we pray for. This scripture is not meant for a church that is content with business as usual. It’s for a community and a church like ours, one that is engaged in human rights and in justice. Abiding in God, we throw our roots deeply into living water. Then and only then can we bring living water to a world dying of thirst. Starting with you, that is the power of ONE; one heart, one touch, one source, one vine. May we make it be so. Amen.