The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 8B

The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 8B July 27, 2021 At first glance, our readings for today seem to be strange companions. “Our reading from the Wisdom of Solomon paints a compelling vision of human life, shaped in the image of the divine at creation, and bound for enduring relationship with [God].” It talks about how God created all that is generative and none of what is destructive, even death.i Our gospel reading shows Jesus, who is on his way to heal Jairus’s daughter and is interrupted by a woman who touches him and finds healing for her disease. One question that this passage can raise for us is “who-or what-claims our time and attention, and how [do] we determine the worthiness of those people and things.” ii I’ve been listening to an audiobook titled Sum: forty tales from the afterlives by David Eagleman. Eagleman is a neuroscientist who I heard interviewed on a podcast last year about his work on the brain, and the interviewer had recommended this book. It wasn’t at all what I was expecting. I guess I thought the book would be about our brains and the afterlife, but so far, the different “tales” that I have listened to are like fables or parables with many different interpretations and much to ponder. Last week, as I was walking, I listened to one that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about; so I’m going to read it to you. (Don’t worry! It’s really short.) It’s titled Circle of Friends. “When you die, you feel as though there were some subtle change, but everything looks approximately the same. You get up and brush your teeth. You kiss your spouse and kids and leave for the office. There is less traffic than normal. The rest of your building seems less full, as though it’s a holiday. But everyone in your office is here, and they greet you kindly. You feel strangely popular. Everyone you run into is someone you know. At some point, it dawns on you that this is the afterlife: the world is only made up of people you’ve met before. It’s a small fraction of the world population—about 0.00002 percent—but that seems plenty to you. It turns out that only the people you remember are here. So the woman with whom you shared a glance in the elevator may or may not be included. Your second-grade teacher is here, with most of the class. Your parents, your cousins, and your spectrum of friends through the years. All your old lovers. Your boss, your grandmothers, and the waitress who served you food each day at lunch. Those you dated, those you almost dted, those you longed for. It is a blissful opportunity to spend quality time with your one thousand connections, to renew fading ties, to catch up with those you let slip away. It is only after several weeks of this that you begin to feel forlorn. You wonder what’s different as you saunter through the vast quiet parks with a friend or two. No strangers grace the empty park benches. No family unknown to you throws breadcrumbs for the ducks and makes you smile because of their laughter. As you step into the street, you note there are no crowds, no buildings teeming with workers, no distant cities bustling, no hospitals running 24/7 with patients dying and staff rushing, no trains howling into the night with sardined passengers on their way home. Very few foreigners. You begin to consider all the things unfamiliar to you. You’ve never known, you realize, how to vulcanize rubber to make a tire. And now those factories stand empty. You’ve never known how to fashion a silicon chip from beach sand, how to launch rockets out of the atmosphere, how to pit olives or lay railroad tracks. And now those industries are shut down. The missing crowds make you lonely. You being to complain about all the people you could be meeting. But no one listens or sympathizes with you, because this is precisely what you chose when you were alive.”iii Your invitation this week is to reflect on the two following questions. What are the most generative parts of your life right now? Who or what claims your time, your attention, and how do you determine who and what is worthy of that? i. Ed. Bartlett and Taylor. Feasting on the Word Year B Volume 3. Homiletical Perspective by Leanne Pearce Reed. Westminster John Knox: Louisville, 2009, p 171. ii. Ibid. Homiletical Perspective by Beverly Zink-Sawyer p 191. iii. Eagelman, David. Sum: forty tales from the afterlives. Circle of Friends. Pantheon: New York, 2009, pp 8-10.

The Third Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 6B

3rd Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 6B June 13, 2021 We spent this past week at our family farm in Northeast Mississippi with my parents, brother and sister-in-law, and their two daughters. The four adults have joined together over these last few years to make their living by growing organic vegetables which they eat and sell through subscriptions to their CSAs or Community Supported Agriculture. In years past, when we have visited in the summer, we have helped with special projects that needed more hands, but this past week, it rained almost the whole time we were there, so no big projects were planned. During the few times I was able to get out and help, I spent the time cleaning out the old plants from the raised beds and the fields to make room for the new plants and seeds that they will plant in the coming weeks. At some point, I remarked to my sister-in-law that Jesus clearly didn’t know what he was talking about when he used these farm related parables that are our gospel reading for this Sunday. The sort of farming Jesus talks about makes it seem effortless. The farmer plants and then goes to sleep, and he wakes up just in time for the harvest. There’s no mention of all that can go wrong with farming—the 14 inches of rain that can fall in two days’ time; the bugs that eat the crops; the year that the watermelons just would not grow. Even though the ground was wet, the plants I was pulling up were deeply rooted and did not want to come out of the ground. I found my hands inexplicably sore the next couple of days and realized it was from all the grasping and pulling. And don’t even get me started on the ants. As I remarked on Jesus’s naivete to my sister-in-law, she began to tell me about her favorite new plant on the farm this year. It is elderflower bushes. The elderflowers are small, white, and delicate; they will eventually give way to elderberries, but she told me the elderflowers have all sorts of properties on their own. Elderflowers have been used in treating cold and flu symptoms along with sinus problems and swelling. The elderflower has a delicate, sweet fragrance that has been distilled for perfumes, and my sister-in-law used it to make a delicately sweet simple syrup which we used to make cocktails. She had spent significant time researching elderflowers and learning how to use it and what to do with it. And here’s the really cool thing about the elderflowers. They just showed up one day on the farm. Probably a bird was responsible for transplanting the berries from somewhere else but they just started growing all on their own. And she was curious enough to learn what they are and what to do with them. The kingdom of God is like an elderflower plant. You don’t know where it comes from; it just shows up one day and there is no work that you have to do to grow it or cultivate it. It offers bountiful gifts to you-first flowers and then berries- but it is up to you to notice it, to see it, to name it, to delight in it, and to figure out what uses you can make of it, how it can enrich your life and the world around you. This week, may you look for the Kingdom of God that is already within and all around you, through no work of your own. May you find ways to delight in it that it may be the free gift of God’s love and presence in your life.

The Second Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 5B

2nd Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 5B June 6, 2021 As a spin-off of my work on family systems theory for my continuing education this year, I’ve been reading the book Friedman’s Fables by Edwin Friedman. Friedman was a Jewish rabbi, who used the psychological system of Bowen Family Systems theory (developed by Murray Bowen) and expanded it to think about how organizations, groups, churches, react in the similar predictable patterns through which families interact. In Friedman’s Fables, Friedman draws upon his knowledge of family systems theory and Jewish midrash (the process of taking a story from scripture and embellishing it or expanding upon it through imaginative interpretation), and he has written a series of stories to help the reader more playfully engage some of the principals that lead to deeper personal development through self-differentiation. This week, as I was reading, I came upon the story that is titled Raising Cain: A Case History of the First Family. It is, fortuitously enough for this preacher, Friedman’s form of midrash on our Old Testament reading for today. The basis of the story is that an angelic messenger has written a psychological case study of the first family—Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel. The case study says that they family came in for counseling because “the sons have been quarrelling a good deal, and both mother and father appear quite helpless to do anything about it. Most of the focus is on the older brother, who broods a lot, is extremely sullen, and is very jealous of his far more successful younger brother.” The story continues by looking at the parents (Adam and Eve) and their relationship: “At the beginning of their marriage, both husband and wife seemed to have lived in a very blissful state, naïve, it appears, about what was happening all around them. Something, we’re not sure what, changed that, and things have never been the same since. The husband growls continuously about his lot and why life has to be so difficult, whereas the wife never fails to remind him of how much pain she went through to bear him sons. But it is more than their discontent that seems to be seeping down, particularly to their elder son. More pernicious still may be their attitude toward their discontent. Neither husband or wife seems capable of accepting responsibility for their own destiny. Both are always claiming that their lives would be far different were it not for how the other behaved. The man tends to blame his wife, and the wife tend to blame the environment….Neither seems capable of taking responsibility for personal desires, loves, or hates. Each sees the other as causing his or her own pain. Ironically, they thus each give their partner great power to guilt the other.”i After focusing on the parents, the case study moves on to look at the children-Cain and Abel. The narrator reports: “There seems to be no strength in the family at all, by which I mean the capacity of some member to say, I am me, this is where I stand. I end here and you begin there, etc. It may be this constant expectation that the other should be his keeper that prevents each from taking responsibility for himself. And as long as this attitude persists in the parents, we can hardly expect the boys to act more pleasantly toward each another, still less at times to be watchful over the other. This situation will certainly leave a ‘mark’ on one of them.” He concludes, “In a family like this, with no one able to tolerate his own solitariness, or, for that matter, anyone else’s, I fear the weakness in the children will never be corrected. Actually, my fantasies are worse. For, if the current inability each parent manifests to deal with his or her own pain continues, I fear that Cain’s view of life will never truly focus on himself and, perceiving the source of all his problems in his brother, he may one day up and kill him.”ii In his commentary on this fable, Friedman cuts straight to the heart of it by inviting the reader to “suppose the human family’s original sin is blaming others,” and then asks, “How can the members of any generation modify that transmitted attitude?”iii “Suppose the human family’s original sin is blaming others.” It’s certainly in evidence in the Genesis reading. It starts with a simple question from God to Adam and Eve: “where are you?” and then devolves into Adam blaming Eve and Eve blaming the snake. We see rampant blame at work in the gospel reading for today. It starts with Jesus’s family’s anxiety about what he is up to and their attempts to restrain him because they believe he has gone crazy and then escalates into a full on blame-game name calling by the Scribes who accuse Jesus of being possessed by Beelzebub. All of these groups are reacting to change which naturally brings anxiety, but as opposed to dwelling with their own discomfort, they are quick to try to pass that discomfort on to others by blaming. “Suppose the human family’s original sin is blaming others.” Does that give us more of an explanation of the state of the world, the state of our country, or the problems that we see in our families, in our churches? How does Jesus offer the antidote to blame in his person, in his teachings? What role does blame play in your life on a regular basis? Who do you find your blame directed most frequently toward? Your invitation this week is this. To pay attention to the very first taste of blame that you feel on the tip of your tongue or in your heart, and to draw back from it. Before speaking or acting, be curious about what pain your blame is springing from, pay attention to where you end and the other begins, and then speak or act out of that space. i. Edwin Friedman, Friedman’s Fables (New York: Guilford Press, 1990), 47-48. ii. Ibid. 49. iii. Edwin Friedman, Friedman’s Fables: Discussion Questions (New York: Guilford Press, 1990), 9.

First Sunday after Pentecost-Trinity Sunday Year B

1st Sunday after Pentecost-Trinity Sunday Year B May 30, 2021 When David and I were first dating, he had the idea that we should foxtrot together. While this seems like a good and reasonable idea on the surface, in actuality, it turned out not so great. You see, David had some basic training in foxtrot, and he assured me it was “one of the easier dances.” But I had no knowledge of how to foxtrot. The other thing that was working against us was the fact that we were attempting this endeavor in his tiny NYC apartment’s living room which was already much occupied by furniture. Even by moving the coffee table out of the way, we quickly discovered there just wasn’t enough room, and eventually, we spent more time agreeing upon the desired song than we spent actually attempting to dance. Today, this first Sunday after Pentecost, is the day in the church that is set aside to highlight the doctrine and the mystery of the Trinity: God who is three in one and one in three; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer; “Lover, Beloved, and the Love”i shared between the two. At its heart, the Trinity is about relationships, and it is through that lens that we are invited to contemplate and engage it. In the book Walk in Love: Episcopal Beliefs and Practices, the authors Scott Gunn and Melody Wilson Shobe write about the Trinity and Trinity Sunday: “One Sunday-and one Sunday only-each year, the church celebrates a doctrine. On the Sunday after the Day of Pentecost, we focus on the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity. We sing hymns and hear preaching about God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: the Holy Trinity. If you wanted to pick a good Sunday to hear a heretical sermon, you’d do well to pick this Sunday. You see, it’s pretty common for preachers to make the mistake of trying to oversimplify the Holy Trinity. And in our efforts to downsize the ineffable into something we can grasp, we almost always mess it up. We are much better off leaving the Holy Trinity as a divine mystery, something that we enter into with joy and a bit of uncertainty. Without trying to boil the whole thing down to a bumper sticker, there are a few things we can say about the Holy Trinity. At its core, the Holy Trinity reveals that our God is a God of relationship. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are in a beautiful, careful, and timeless dance. The Holy Trinity reveals to us that God is unity, diversity, and majesty. The Holy Trinity keeps us from making the mistake of reducing God to something comprehensible, to a God that our brains can hold.”ii Interestingly enough, the early church Fathers wrote about the Trinity by using a Greek term for dancing: perichoresis. Peri means around, and khoreia/khorein means dance or even to make room for. Healthy relationships are always a balance between staying connected and also making room for the other; this is modeled for us in the Triune God, and we are invited into this type of relationship with God and with each other. The Trinity transforms our understanding of God being only up there hanging out in heaven and apart from everything to God who is up there, down here, and everywhere, in the thick of things with us, in us, in others, and all around us, longing to be connected with each one of us while also giving us enough space to be who God has created us to be. This notion of Trinity not only impacts our relationship with God, but if we allow it, it can impact our relationship with every other created person and part of this world. Finally, here’s one more practical vision of the Trinity, this one from C.S. Lewis. Imagine “an ordinary simple Christian” at prayer, Lewis says, his voice crackling over the airwaves in one of his famous radio addresses (the same reflections he eventually collected into Mere Christianity). Her prayer is directed toward God — but it is also prompted by God within her in the first place. And at the same time, as she prays she stands with Jesus and within Jesus as part of the Body of Christ (recall how Christians typically pray “in Jesus’ name”). In short, as this “ordinary simple Christian” prays, God is three things for her: the goal she is trying to reach, the impetus within her, and her beloved companion along the way — indeed “the Way” itself. Thus “the whole threefold life” of the triune God “is actually going on” around and within her, Lewis contends — and as she prays, she “is being caught up into the higher kinds of life,” which is to say, into God’s own life, three and one, one and three” while still remaining herself. iii Your invitation for this week is to think about this mysterious dance of connection and making space that God does and invites you into. How might this understanding change or reshape the way that you encounter God? How might this challenge you to encounter others or Creation differently? i. From St. Augustine of Hippo ii. Gunn, Scott and Melody Wilson Shobe. Walk in Love: Episcopal Beliefs and Practices. Forward Movement: Cincinatti, 2018, pp271-272 iii. From Salt Lectionary post as quoting CS Lewis in Mere Christianity Part 4 Section 2. https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/lectionary-commentary-for-trinity-sunday

The Seventh Sunday of Easter Year B

Easter 7B_2021 May 16, 2021 The first time I visited the Mississippi Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina was when I was interviewing for the rector position to which I was eventually called. The Senior Warden at the time took me on a tour as a part of the interview process, and as we drove up and down the battered landscape with properties along the Coast still in various forms of destruction or even completely empty, I also noticed the trees, which had their own story to tell. So many live oaks up and down the coastline had gauges cut into their trunks where the storm surge had battered them with large debris (which included boats, cars, parts of houses…). I asked the Senior Warden about the trees, and he told me how so many oaks had been toppled by Katrina and the storm surge, and lay on their sides, roots exposed, among the wreckage. He told me about how he and others had come in soon after the storm with some of their large construction equipment (he was a homebuilder), and they used that equipment to push the oaks back upright, so that their massive roots were once again planted in the soil. “We couldn’t save all of them,” he told me, “but we were able to save some.” Throughout my years there, I looked fondly on the battered and scarred trunks of some of those oaks, the testimony of all that they had endured and continued to endure as trees planted near the shore and also as a testament to the kindness of the people who sought to help and restore them in their time of need. Today is a sort of in between time in the life of the church. This past Thursday, we marked the feast day of the Ascension, when the resurrected Christ left his disciples for the last time as God lifted him up to heaven; and next Sunday we will mark the feast day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit first descended upon the disciples after Jesus’s ascension. Jesus has left and the Spirit has not yet come. We don’t really know what to expect, what will come next, but we know things will be different. And so our collect for today holds something of a plea: “Do not leave us comfortless” we pray. And we cling to the assurance of the Psalm, that God’s people will be “like trees planted by streams of water,/ bearing fruit in due season, with leaves that do not wither; / everything they do shall prosper.” We are not strangers to the in-between times, the liminal times. This whole past year has been an in-between time, and even as things are much more hopeful, we still find ourselves in between what was, what has been, and what will be. We don’t really know what life will look like in the coming months, although we have glimmers, and we definitely know if will be different. I’ve had numerous conversations with people these last couple of weeks about unexplained emotions and behaviors that are bubbling up from us in this liminal time, this in between season. Many of you are experiencing heightened irritability or anger; some of you are feeling unexplained sadness, weariness, or lethargy. I suspect these may be the wounds and scars on our souls from this past traumatic season. “Do not leave us comfortless” is a prayer that may resonate with us now more than ever as we seek certainty and understanding in the midst of the continuing changing landscape and as we begin to assess the damage and look for ways to begin to heal. On the feast of the Ascension this past week, I read a sonnet on the Ascension by Malcolm Guite, Anglican priest and poet, where he writes of Christ’s ascension: We saw him go and yet we were not parted He took us with him to the heart of things The heart that broke for all the broken-hearted Is whole and Heaven-centred now, and sings, Sings in the strength that rises out of weakness, Sings through the clouds that veil him from our sight,i I’ve been pondering this image of Christ’s heart that broke for all the broken hearted that now sings in the strength that rises out of weakness and the promise that we have been taken with him to the heart of things. There is certainly comfort there for me to think of Christ’s heart that continues to break for all whose hearts are breaking here and now. And there is comfort to think about the ways that our strength can rise out of weakness just as Jesus rose from the grave in the resurrection and ascended into heaven. It’s an image not unlike those old oaks trees, battered and bruised, lying on their sides after the utter devastation of a hurricane, until someone came along and cared enough to push them back upright to bury their roots once again in the soil. Sometimes, we are so much like those oaks, in need of help, comfort, care from others, with our scars from this last year on visible display through our unexpected feelings and responses. And sometimes we are called to by like the ones who brought in the heavy equipment for no reason other than they saw a need and sought to help, because it is what you do when you see another creature of God’s failing and floundering. This week, your invitation is to pray about and ponder what your response is to our plea to God this week: “Do not leave us comfortless!” Are you being called to open yourself to help and healing that may be offered from unexpected sources? Or are you being called to be one of the helpers? I suspect we are all called a little bit to both in this season. How might we be called to help heal what has been damaged and wounded in each other—through active kindness, listening, patience with each other, forgiveness… i. https://malcolmguite.wordpress.com/2021/05/12/a-sonnet-for-ascension-day-10/?fbclid=IwAR3z6m1dQhlH5Ify_4PwQqzmLEKe-fxZWaQOk-do1g1-15Jw446v8orEu1E

The Sixth Sunday of Easter Year B

Easter 6B_2021 May 9, 2021 This week’s gospel is an immediate continuation from last week’s gospel. This portion of John’s gospel is known as Jesus farewell discourse, where he is telling his disciples goodbye, that he won’t be with them much longer, and he is offering them some serious pastoral care as they are sad and confused about what he is telling them. “Abide in me,” Jesus tells them over and over again, “and I will abide in you.” Another translation of this is “make your home in me and I will make my home in you.” In talking about these passages, one of my colleagues reflected on a time when she was serving as a priest to a church that also had a day care. Her office was right near the stairwell that led from the day care to outside, and every day, she’d hear small children have complete and utter melt-downs on the stairway as they were reunited with their parents after a long day and preparing to head home. My friend remarked to the day care director one day how horrible it must be for those parents to be greeted with their kids’ meltdowns every day when they picked them up, and the day care director looked at my friend like she was an idiot, and told her that when the kids were with their parents they knew they were safe enough to have all their feelings. It’s not unlike what we do when we are all at home, when home is a safe place where we can be vulnerable. My friend connected this to a poem by Rumi titled the Guesthouse: The Guest House This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes As an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they're a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. i In our gospel reading for today, Jesus reveals his hand, showing the purpose of this farewell discourse as well as revealing the purpose of his ministry: “so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.” And a little later in John’s gospel in chapter 16 verses 21-22, Jesus talks about this joy that he offers in an unusual way: “When a woman is in labor, she has pain, because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world. So you have pain now; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.” As one commentary puts it:” Jesus’ mission is for the sake of joy, yes — but not just any joy. Think of it, he says, like the joy of a new mother, strong and creative, exhausted and exultant, a joy that is no stranger to anguish, and above all the joy of having brought new life into the world. From this angle, we may put the poetry this way: every Christian disciple is a mother or a midwife!”ii And then there’s the reading from Acts for today. This story marks the beginning of the full inclusion of Gentiles in the group of those who follow Jesus. It’s interesting to me that the Holy Spirit shows up and anoints everyone even before all the Gentiles have been baptized, and so Peter makes his case for their baptism based on the highly compelling argument “Why not?” (He actually says, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” which equates in my book to, “Well, why not go ahead and baptize them?) When joy shows up and surprises us, how often do we try to manage it or maintain it rather than asking “well, why not?” So what does this have to offer us in terms of an understanding of our own life, our own faith, our own calling? If Jesus’s mission is “so that [his] joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete,” then how does that shape your calling as his friend and follower, the one who makes your home in him and he in you? How might the Holy Spirit be calling you to experience unexpected joy, a joy that is like that of a new mother: strong and creative, exhausted and exultant, a joy that is no stranger to anguish, and above all the joy of having brought new life into the world? How might God be calling you to serve as mother or mid-wife to this kind of fierce, creative joy? And what might your suffering have to teach you about joy? i. https://allpoetry.com/poem/8534703-The-Guest-House-by-Mewlana-Jalaluddin-Rumi ii. Salt Lectionary Commentary Easter 6B: https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2018/5/1/love-for-the-sake-of-joy-salts-lectionary-commentary-for-easter-6

The Fifth Sunday of Easter Year B

Easter 5B 2021 May 2, 2021 It may come as no surprise to those of you who know me or have heard me preach that I have a complicated relationship with vines. This past week, I invited Mary Hardee to come over to my house to help me try to transform the waste land that is our backyard and to tell me what things I needed to plant. As Mary surveyed the 8 foot tall privacy fence between us and our neighbors, she said, “You know, you could plant some jasmine on that to soften it up a bit.” “Oh, no!!” I replied. “There was jasmine growing all over that fence from the neighbor’s side when we moved in, and it was so heavy it pulled the fence down, and we had to replace it! I’m not doing jasmine again!” She looked at me in that classic, no-nonsense Mary Hardee way and said, “Well, you have to prune it, Melanie.” And then there’s kudzu. Have I ever talked to y’all about kudzu? You don’t see much kudzu around here, but it runs rampant in and around central Mississippi. Kudzu is a plant that was imported from Japan to help with erosion control and what started out as a good thing quickly began to take over because kudzu is incredibly invasive. It’s so invasive that you can’t even really prune it; once it shows up, you just have to rip the sucker out as best as you can and be aware that it will come back sooner or later (usually sooner) with a vengeance and it will cover and smother anything in its path. (I fought a losing battle with kudzu in the yard of the rector that was our first home in McComb, Mississippi.) But you know what else grows in vines? Green beans. All different types of peas. And boy, do I love any and all kinds of green beans and peas. Our family grow these on our farm, and they have built whole structures that look like long tunnels for the beans and peas to grow on. The structures are designed to support the weight of the vines, and you don’t prune the vines for peas and beans. The way that you keep them healthy is to pick. The more you pick the peas and the beans during the peak of the season, the more beans and peas they bear. And if you don’t pick the beans and peas, the plants will stop producing. This past week, I finished up my continuing ed course I’ve been taking over the course of this past academic year. We’ve had nine days of instruction via Zoom on Bowen family systems theory and how that applies to our own families of origin and to churches and other organizations. The theory behind Bowen family systems is that families (and organizations) all respond in predictable ways and patterns (Bowen has identified 8 concepts) and that all relationships fall somewhere in the balance between two seemingly competitive needs: 1. our need to be independent selves, differentiated from our families by understanding what our core values and ideas and beliefs are which cannot be changed or shaped from outside of us and 2. To be together in a place where we belong, connected via relationship. The goal of the healthiest individuals and families is to retain connectivity with each other, while being mindful of the ways that our own reactivity can impact others in the family and staying defined in who we are as individuals. This is especially true when something happens to create anxiety in the self or in the family or group. I’ve been thinking about all this in the context of the vines. Because families and churches, too, can often fall victim to an overdrive of the togetherness function. (If you’ve ever visited a church and discovered that all the church members are too busy talking to each other to even notice you, then you’ve experienced this phenomenon.) Sometimes that togetherness function in churches can look like jasmine: it is lovely and smells so fragrant but if it isn’t controlled through pruning, it will tear down the entire fence. At it’s worst, that out of control togetherness function in churches looks like kudzu: it’s something that started off being helpful but quickly becomes invasive, choking the life out of the other plants that it quickly covers and absorbs. And then you’ve got the beans and peas. When they have a structure that is built to support them and someone comes along to water them and pick them, they continue to bear fruit throughout the season. I’d say that’s what the healthiest congregations look like. So, how do we function more like beans and pea vines and less like kudzu or out or control jasmine, as individuals and as a church? Jesus says, “I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.” This is a truly anxious time for Jesus’s disciples. This part of John’s gospel is known as the farewell discourse. Jesus has told the disciples that he will not be with them much longer. He continues to use metaphors that will be familiar to them to give them reassurance and to give them some sense of what the future will look like. As one commentary puts it: “In the context of Jesus emphatically assuring his disciples that he isn't abandoning them, the image of the vine and the branches functions as a soothing word of solace. The enduring connection with his disciples, Jesus insists, will be so organic and integral that separation is virtually unthinkable: the disciples’ very lives will be signs of that connection, just as the life and fruit of a branch are signs of its ongoing connection to its vine. In this way, the gist and upshot of the metaphor is not (as it’s too often read in Christian circles today), “If you want to live, you’d better stay connected to me, or else” but rather, “Don't worry, we'll be together; your life itself and all its fruit will testify to our ongoing intimacy. Take heart: I will be with you, and our companionship will be even closer than it is now. Today we walk side by side — but in the days to come I will live in you, and you in me. Today, you walk in my footsteps — but in the days to come you will walk, so to speak, ‘in my feet,’ and I will walk in yours. Indeed, you will be my hands and feet for a world that needs healing and good news. Friends, I’m not abandoning you! On the contrary, I will abide in you. You will abide in me. I will not leave you alone...”i So what’s most important isn’t about how we connect to one another. What’s most important is how each one of us connects to Jesus the one true vine. He is responsible for connecting us, and what we need to most worry about is how we connect to him. And as a result of that connection, our very lives will be signs of that connection, bearing fruit again and again and again. We also need to be prepared for new growth in the vine that is Jesus. We saw that yesterday with the joyous celebration where 22 new people join this community, this branch of Jesus that is St. Thomas Episcopal Church. Each one of them belongs to Jesus in the same way we all do, and their presence in the vine will change us, expand us, challenge us in new and exciting ways. The priest and poet Malcolm Guite has a sonnet about this. I Am the Vine John 15:5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. How might it feel to be part of the vine? Not just to see the vineyard from afar Or even pluck the clusters, press the wine, But to be grafted in, to feel the stir Of inward sap that rises from our root, Himself deep planted in the ground of Love, To feel a leaf unfold a tender shoot, As tendrils curled unfurl, as branches give A little to the swelling of the grape, In gradual perfection, round and full, To bear within oneself the joy and hope Of God’s good vintage, till it’s ripe and whole. What might it mean to bide and to abide In such rich love as makes the poor heart gladii This week, your invitation is to ponder what it might mean to bide and to abide in the vine that is Jesus Christ. What might that look like in your life right now? What kind of fruit are you being called to bear? What kind of fruit are we being called to bear? i. Salt Lectionary Commentary for Easter 5B. https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/lectionary-commentary-for-easter-5 ii. https://malcolmguite.wordpress.com/2016/04/11/i-am-the-vine-a-sonnet/