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/