April 28, 2024
Rev. Mary Erickson
Hope Lutheran Church
John 15:1-8; 1 John 4:7-21
Abiding in Jesus, Growing in Love
Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.
Jesus encourages us to abide in him. He likens our abiding to a grape vine with its branches. The branches grow from the vine. Without their connection to the vine, they would become disconnected from everything that supplies them with sustenance and vitality. They would wither and soon die.
We don’t really grow a lot of grape vines around here. You can find them growing at local vineyards, for sure. But the presence of grape vines in western Wisconsin is nothing like it is in Israel, and especially in Jesus’ day. Everyone in the hearing of Jesus’ teaching would know exactly what he was driving at. They could easily picture the imagery in their minds.
The vineyard also held a special place in the consciousness of Israel. A vineyard had long been a symbol of God’s relationship with Israel. When the Hebrew spies entered Canaan, they came back bearing a grape cluster so large it had to be carried on a pole by two men. The Promised Land was a good and abundant land.
And the prophets used the imagery of a vineyard. God was the vinedresser and Israel was the vineyard. What kind of grapes would Israel bear?
Grapes and grapevines were a very common part of everyday life in the culture of first century Palestine. So Jesus calls upon an image his disciples would readily know. “You need to abide in me in the same way as a branch grows from the vine.” He tells them that when they remain grafted into him and his message, they will bear abundant fruits. What good is a grape plant that doesn’t produce any fruit? None! The whole purpose is the fruits.
Jesus says that when we “abide” in him, then we will bear abundant spiritual fruits.
Interestingly, Jesus utters these words on the evening of his arrest. He will enjoy just a few more hours in the presence of his disciples. So it seems a bit untimely for him to encourage them to abide in him just as he’s about to leave them.
But as we all experience, you can be separated from someone for a very, very long time and still abide in them, in their love, in their very being. My father died when I was 16 years old. He’s been gone for 48 years now! But he is very much present with me every single day. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about him, don’t cherish my connection to him. I abide in him and his love.
And we’ve all had friends or kinfolk we haven’t seen for years. But when we do get together, the relationship doesn’t skip a beat. It’s just like yesterday. Something between us has abided through all the years apart.
Jesus urges us to abide in him. “Apart from me you can do nothing,” he says. Like the branch from a grape vine, if we become detached from Jesus, we are detached from his divine energy and focus.
In our modern-day view, we might compare the grape vine image with an electrical cord. If a fan or a light isn’t plugged into a live socket, it won’t work. The implement is no good if it isn’t supported by energy. If we aren’t connected into our divine energy source, we won’t be energized and fed by the divine source of all goodness and life.
So…if we’re not plugged into Jesus, if we’re not tapped into the life-giving source of divine life and light, what are we plugged into?
No matter who we are, we’re fueled by and tapped into some thing. Something drives us, so, if not Jesus, then what? There’s an endless cast of players contending for our attention. If we just explore the letter A, we get:
• Ambition
• Adulation
• Anger
• Acceptance
• Addiction
• Alienation
• Abuse
• Animosity
• Anguish
• Ashamed
• Accomplishment
• Arousal
• Arrogance
• Amusement
• Apathy
Whatever it is that we’re tapped into, it will fill us with its energies and drives. What fuel are we receiving? What fruits will it grow within us?
In his novel The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkein included the tragic figure Gollum. He wasn’t always called Gollum. By birth, Gollum was a Hobbit who lived among the River Folk. At that time, he was known by another name, Smeagol.
Smeagol was a regular fellow. One day he went fishing with his relative, Deagol. While they were fishing, Deagol found the bewitched and terrible ring in the river. And when Smeagol saw the ring, he immediately came under its spell. He demanded that Deagol give it to him. But when Deagol refused, Smeagol strangled his relative and took the ring.
Smeagol called the ring “My Precious,” and it completely possessed him. He withdrew from society, and over time, his very being was contorted into a terrible, small and slimy creature, into Gollum.
The character Gollum is a reflection of ourselves, of what happens when we’re aligned with destructive forces. We become bent and corrupted. Our true self, the self that God intended for us, shrivels and withers and is tragically never fulfilled.
What do you abide in? Whatever it is we tap into, we shall bear its fruits. Its energies will fill us. We will manifest its drive and character.
This is the reason why, at a baptism, we declare what it is we believe in and how we align ourselves. And we begin that confession with a three-fold renunciation:
• Do you renounce the devil and all the forces that defy God?
• Do you renounce the powers of this world that rebel against God?
• Do you renounce the ways of sin that draw you from God?
It’s very important for us to maintain a clear understanding of what we reject. Martin Luther spoke of what baptism means on a day-to-day basis. Day after day we give consideration as to the forces we wish to die to. This daily dying, this daily repentance keeps us unplugged from the forces that can only promise us destruction, deceit and death.
I remember a developmental psychologist once told me the importance of the word No. As infants, we learn “no” much earlier than we do “yes.” She told me, “No is a very important word.” What energies do you NOT want to be connected to? This is the 3-fold renunciation. This is the daily dying in baptism.
And then once we’ve renounced these things, then we make a three-fold affirmation: Do you believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit?
What do you want to be plugged into? This is what Jesus was driving at when he directs us to abide in him. We align our lives and our consciousness in him. We consider his teachings, we strive to reflect his light and love in our thoughts, words and deeds.
“Abide in me.” Jesus invites us to be as tapped into him as a branch is into its grape vine. When little Tatum was baptized this morning, he was grafted into that vine of God’s infinite love. It’s a covenantal love that will abide with him through all his days.
Abiding in Jesus is to abide in all that he has said and done on our account. And in our first reading for today, John’s first epistle, he addresses just what this is. What we have received from Jesus is love. He simply IS the love of God. This tremendous love God has for us was made known to us in the person of Jesus. This divine, loving force took on our flesh to come to us in a form that we can see. Jesus came to ABIDE with us. He abided with us so that the full impact of God’s love might be known to us.
In his words, in his teachings, he describes this love to us. He tells us of the Good Shepherd who gives everything for his sheep. And in his healing ministry, he shows us the scope of this love. It embraces all, even those whom polite society would spurn: the leper, the foreigner, the mentally ill, the lowly, the rejected. It is a love so big and accepting that it shocks even his own disciples. And in his dying, Jesus demonstrates a love so big, so embracing, so powerful, that nothing – not sin or death or anything in all of creation – can overcome it.
This, friends, is what we are invited to abide in. In this overwhelming love of God that comes to us in Christ Jesus our Lord. This love is the source of our being. And when we’re tapped into him, then his love fills us. We are filled through and through with the love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Our lives bear the fruits, the beautiful fruits of his love. May we ever stay connected to the vine of Christ’s love, that our lives may bear the fruit of love for a hungry world.
