Connected to the Vine

I John 4:7-21 John 15:1-8 Year B Fifth Sunday of Easter “Connected to the Vine” The importance of love in John I have not been preaching in awhile, haven’t had to do my sermon prep in awhile. Looked for an old sermon to preach, but couldn’t find one to talk about the scriptures for today. I John is important to our faith – lots of sayings about love and about being the church – the community of Christ. “Love one another because love is from God. God is love and those who abide in love abide in God. Those who do not love a brother or sister, whom they have seen, cannot love god whom they have not seen. We love because he first loved us. Abide in Christ The most important saying for today is that if you abide in love, you abide in God and God abides in you. The key word for you to take with you from today is abided. In Greek, the word for abide is meno in English it means to dwell, to tarry, to stay , not to perish, to endure, to survive, to remain. Abide in God means to be in union with God. To have a relationship with god. To pray, to worship, but most importantly – to live in community with the people of God. The vineyard If you look in the Hebrew Scriptures, you will see that the vineyard is an old old metaphor for the people of God. If you look at a grapes, grapes always grow in bunches, not alone. The people are the vineyard and God is the farmer. The people grow and God gives the increase. God tends and if we obey we are the fruit. Jesus turns that whole metaphor around, and says the he is the true vine, and the Father is the vine grower. Christ is the true nature of God. If we have seen Christ, you have seen God. A man was asked if he had ever seen God – no never seen God, but I have seen a few Jesus’ in my life. We have none ever seen or talked to God. But if we have experienced love in some way – we have experienced the reason Jesus died on the cross for us. In the book of John, Jesus gives seven I am statements – I am the true vine is the last. That means that everything that we need in life is present in Christ. In the Hebrew scripture – the vineyard is a symbol for living in union. In the New Testament the vineyard is a symbol for living in communion. Union is living together; communion is about living together, abiding in the love of God. Union is about us as the people, communion is about what God did for us in the presence of Jesus Christ. I stayed up all night to write a new sermon – because this is the most important scripture for our faith. Abide in me as I abide in you. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. If you read the whole verse again carefully it is saying that without Jesus the church is wordless, prayerless, hopeless, powerless, and most important fruitless. Jesus is our word, our prayer, our hope, our power and our fruit. Without Jesus we are a union, with Jesus the church is a communion. General Conference Report For the last few days I have been struggling with coming back to church after General Conference. I was not for sure of what I was going to tell you. It is sort of like before GC we were all headed down 94 going south. And during it was like we were kept on 94 on the bishop ford, and I think the church decided to take 57 – and all that we could hope was that somewhere further down the road I was hoping we would meet back up again, and all would be well. General Conference was a perfect example of what it means to be the church. Is it a union of people, or a communion of faith? What does it mean to abide in Christ? What does it mean to love one another as God loves you? The issues are always the same, and the drama is always present. On my way home I sat next to a UMW president from Indiana. It was her first time attending general conference – she asked is it always this crazy? GC is always crazy, but this one was a little over the top. They voted to get rid of guaranteed appointments, they eliminated the structure of the church, in the process the eliminated the organizational structures that protected the rights of women and minorities, and they voted that homosexuality is still a sin, so gays cannot get married in the church and they cannot serve as clergy. The intervention at the end There were many of us present who were prepared to leave and come home feeling very disempowered and left out of the whole process. You may have seen on the news that those fighting for gay rights go to great lengths to get attention. And many of them left hurt and wounded. People of color were wounded for another reason. They had voted to develop this committee on inclusiveness. Many were trying to explain that inclusiveness is a very broad term. And women’s rights, minority rights and gay rights are different things, and cannot be defined by one committee. A friend of mine defined the conference as the day the white man took back his church, and left everyone else outside. After that decision, I checked out and stopped paying attention to any of their decisions. I just didn’t care anymore. I was only present because I loved God, wasn’t quite sure about the Methodist church. As a matter of fact, at 5 o’clock Friday I went to dinner, prepared to come back for the closing worship – and go home frustrated and confused. Only to come back and learn that the judicial council had ruled the new structure unconstitutional. Everything that the conference had debated and voted on for the last two weeks was null and void, and could not be put into effect. At that late hour, the only thing the church could do was put the old structure back in place, the individual commissions were saved. The united Methodist church is divided like the us government. The bishops are the executive branch like the president, the general conference is the legislative section life like the senate, and the judicial council is the Supreme Court. The judicial council has the task of checking church law to make sure that any new decisions honor our present constitution. So the decision was that the new plan did not honor present church law. We are still awaiting a decision of whether the vote on guaranteed appointments is in keeping with the constitution. Many people felt that 11th hour decision from the judicial council was like the Holy Spirit intervening on behalf of those who didn’t have a voice. It was sort of reminding us that even in our best moments –the church is still just a union- a group of imperfect humans working together. And it takes a fresh voice of God – the Holy Spirit to make us a communion – God’s vineyard – being tended by God. Cutting and pruning If you look at John 15 – you will see that God’s way of tending the vine is by cutting and pruning. You cut what is dead and you prune or cleanse what is alive in order for it to grow out more fully. In fairness that was all the church was trying to do in developing a new structure. If the united Methodist church continues in its present structure, it will go bankrupt. On the surface, they want to get rid of guaranteed appointments in order to get rid ineffective pastors. They want to get rid of what some define s dead weight. And before you think that is a good thing- the vital congregation process is designed to do the same for churches. That is why I am trying to spend so much time making sure that you understand it. They want to get rid of churches that they deem as not bearing fruit. The problem comes along when you wonder who it is that determines what it means to bear fruit. In the united Methodist church the southern white churches are the ones with control of all of the money, and the African churches are the ones who claim to be growing in leaps and bounds. And if the proposed structure would have passed – everyone else would be defined as dead weight. Individual pruning The lesson for us is that pruning is not just about the church as a whole, it is about us as people. We live in a world where we are being cut back in all different places. Being pruned, cut back to almost nothing is not a good feeling. It is not just about finances, but about our spiritual life also. Pittsburgh Steeler quarterback was the youngest to ever win the super bowl – he was on top of the world doing what he wanted. Once he was asked why he didn’t wear a helmet when driving his motorcycle. He replied that he did not have to. And that if there was ever a law against it, he would change his mind. What changed his mind was not the law – it was an accident. He had motorcycle accident where he endured several facial injuries and a fractures skull. He extended an apology to his fans, saying that he understood why he needed a helmet, and if he ever recovered – he would have one all of the time. That was his pruning experience. A time of struggle, that would help him make better decisions, live a better life, be a better person. Are we being cut or pruned? Pruning is painful. But how do you know whether you are being cut as dead weight, or cleansed for a better life? It all depends on whether you abide in Christ. Whether you realize that apart from Christ you can’t do or be anything. Are you in union with the church or in communion with God. Are you still able to love to give love and receive love in spite of what you are going through? Are you determined to live, to endure, to survive, to stand firm, to wait on God? Or have you just given up? Abide in Christ John 15 is that chapter, which say in my father’s house, there are many mansions – the Greek really means in my father’s house there are many places to abide. – To dwell – to live in God. In my Father's house there are many places to live in Christ. Are you being cut or pruned? Where is God in your life? Where are you? What is going on in your life that needs an intervention from God himself to change – because there is nothing else for you to do – but to abide. To stand in the place, in that need- and depend on God. Apart from Christ – apart from inside of Christ – we can do nothing. In communion with Christ – we can do all that is within God’s will. May The Holy Spirit be with you. Let us pray….. Amen.