Fifth Sunday of Easter
Rev. Amy Welin:
Yesterday, a group of people met at the Curtins and cleaned up their yard. Over the next couple of weeks, other people will help with plumbing repairs and painting. I suppose that it is clear that parishioners should help each other during difficult times. What was surprising is that about a quarter of us were not people from the parish – they were members of the Waterbury Chorale, or a parishioner’s spouse, or a cousin. And some of us were very new to St John’s. At one point, a neighbor came over to say hello and to lend us one of his gardening tools. We were connected by our commitment to serve the need of a family.
I am struck by the many ways in which our very different lives are interconnected. There is a truism about six degrees of separation: if we encounter a stranger, we can find that we have someone in common, within six steps of mutual acquaintances. Yet when this happens to us, we are surprised to discover our connections.
In an intuitive way, most of us recognize human connectedness. We can feel our interconnection when we experience anxiety and grief over the natural disaster and tragedy in Nepal – or anger when we read about the kidnapping of young girls in Nigeria – or frustration over racial injustice in Baltimore. We are willing to pitch in and assist a neighbor or church family in need, even if we are not intimate friends.
Jesus reminds his friends that they are part of one vine, that they are all connected through him. There are many branches, and there is only one vine holding them together. It is impossible to be part of one vine without being connected to the rest of the vine’s branches. We are part of one organic human system. We are the beloved and loving community.
When we lose our sense of connection, when we cut ourselves off, we begin to wither as human beings. Jesus uses the image of pruning the vine – removing the dried out and withered pieces – to explain the importance of nurturing our connection to one another and to God. A hard pruning removes pieces of the plant in order to stimulate fresh growth. This pruning is God’s work. It is not ours. We do not get to decide which branch stays as part of the vine and which does not.
It is not enough to condemn the behavior of others that we find inadequate or offensive: violence, negligence, the mom who slapped her son in public, political policy of other nations, etc. We are part of a global human system. How can we see ourselves as part of the resolution of the problem? You may have heard me say that here at St John’s. Criticism and complaint change nothing. Working together will change things. We are connected, even to those we do not consider friends. We all have responsibility to resolve crises and conflicts.
In the global system, all lives matter. Black, brown, olive, beige, ivory, white.
In the one vine, each branch has life and is valuable Through Christ, we are part of the one true vine. Our fruit is the same as that of Christ, and it is priceless. What is our fruit? It is our capacity to love and serve, across barriers and man-made boundaries. In God’s garden of true beauty, the church is not the broker of salvation or judgment. The church is the agent of God’s love for the world, as that love was revealed through Jesus Christ. We are the Body of Christ, part of the vine that offers connection to life for the rest of the world.
I pray that people who call themselves Christian will commit themselves to this.
Steve Charleston, retired Episcopal Bishop of Alaska, wrote an interesting prayer this week:
High in our greatest mountains, the single sorrow of one people calls to us all, whatever our politics or religion, to remember the common pain we each share, when the mountains shake, or the sea rises up, or the rain fails to fall, and loved ones are swept away, our children placed in peril. Then we know no separate language, or hear the rhetoric of partisan leaders, but rather we are drawn together, held together, by the numb shock of how quickly what we have can be taken away, and even more by the courage to care, the response of our hearts to help one another, to be the family God first dreamed.
May it be so. Amen.