The True Vine
Easter 5 Sermon | The Rev. Susan Astarita Pastoral Associate
God is the vine grower, the true vine -- the vine in the Old Testament prophets has become degenerate. And now Jesus comes along and says he's the true vine. And his father is the vine grower. So we know that we will have the energy to be the branches. We will bear fruit. And we will do it in the way that is comfortable for us.
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[00:00:00] In the name of God, Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer, Amen. Please be seated.
So many riches in the scriptures, so little time to talk about it.
But first of all, before we do that, I wanted to cite ourselves. We are, as it says, five weeks from Easter. We are on Easter five. Amen. And shortly, in another four weeks, we will be in the great feast of Pentecost. So we're walking in that space and many of us are full of energy about our ministries and doing them, like the NAMI walk yesterday.
And maybe some are flagging a bit. [00:01:00] Flagging a bit And thinking that they've come this morning in community to have resurrection life back again in full force, in full force, as we go about the scriptures, it's so tempting to start with the eunuch or in scriptures, meaning the official from Ethiopia. And Philip, and this is for you Bob, if you're watching.
He told me, somebody needs to mention that Philip was a deacon.
And one of the seven, who was full of life and energy and ready to hop into that chariot and lead the official [00:02:00] along. It's very tempting to do that. But as I read through the scriptures and indeed the collect, I thought there's an arrangement in these scriptures that somebody who was doing the lectures thought of.
And it is something about reclaiming. It's about giving us a boost at this point in the season. So in the second reading, And we're kind of rehearsing the basics, you might say. And also in the gospel. We've heard that gospel so many times, I guess, and I need to say that I have read it hundreds of times because it is the gospel about the vine that is in the little prayer book I [00:03:00] take to visit.
Our shut-ins are people at home. And I've read it over and over again. So many ways to interpret it. So many ways to experience it. And we will do those two things at first, but never fear! We will get to Philip. And his hop in the carriage. So the second reading, which is the latest one in this sequence, was written, we think, about, um, 95 to 110.
And it was to a group of people who were an early Christian community. And, um, if we believe the commentaries in the new revised standard, They were flagging a bit. They were [00:04:00] flagging a bit. They were getting a little tired or depressed, even, about the type of work they needed to do in that community. And so, living in to the mandate of the collect, where we need to know Jesus and God to be the way and the truth and the life.
They reversed and rehearsed the basics. In short, God acts and we react. God is, and of course, it's never said better than by our retiring presiding bishop, love is the way. He says it with a lot more passion than I just did. Maybe I could, love is the way. Love is the way. [00:05:00] Whoever does not love does not know God.
For God is love. God is love. And that great act of love as we know and as we rehearsed in the great Easter days and the week before God loved us so much that God sent his only son That we might be saved eternally. And the great part, I think, for those of us who are on the way, that we have access to forgiveness no matter what.
And forever. And forever. God lives in us. His love is perfected in us. We know this because we abide in him. Abide in him. Abide in him. When we get to the vine, we'll also talk about [00:06:00] abiding. Abiding. But what does that really mean? What does that mean for us? I kept thinking all week. It means this. It means that as we gather together in this place on Sunday, and as we walk around as resurrected people, we have a place to call home.
We have a place to call home. We abide in God, and that home base is love. Now one of the best Sunday school teachers I've ever met took this love and the fact that we're called to love God back and to take that love out and boiled it down to this. Mirrors. [00:07:00] Mirrors. Yeah, every time she had this to talk about in Sunday school, she'd bring mirrors for the children and they'd hold it up, I guess, and look this way and there's God in love, and then toward themselves and that is love.
And then what they're called to do, which is to reflect that love out. To all people, all people, people in this community, people in the world, people everywhere, hoping that we as loved people can share that so that other people can feel it. We loved, we love because he first loved.[00:08:00]
But God doesn't leave us then, with nothing. God is the vine. God is the vine grower, especially in John. The true vine, as opposed to the one that John is referencing. The vine that is in some of the prophets, and check me on this, and the Old Testament. Has become degenerate. It has, it doesn't have as much punch as it did before.
And now Jesus comes along and says, He's the true vine. And his father is the vine grower. So we know that. And we know that in John, if we reference the vine, We will have the energy to be the [00:09:00] branches. We'll have the energy to be the branches. We will bear fruit. We will bear fruit. And we will do it in the way that is comfortable for us.
Now, I'm not going to sing. That's not my gift. But, I have other gifts and so do you. And as we're called, we will use those gifts to show out what? The basics. Love. Love for all people. Only, I guess, caution is that we do that best when we abide in the mind. When we keep on coming back and knowing that that love space That God is, and that never fails, is the place we call home.[00:10:00]
We're able to do that the best. And so finally, to Philip, and the official, as it's called in scripture. You know where they are? It's kind of interesting. They're on a road from Jerusalem, which led via Bethlehem and Hebron, and joined the main road to Egypt, just south. Gaza. They're in Gaza. Ring a bell?
Gaza has been destroyed in a war in 93 B. C., and a new Gaza was built in the south in 57 B. C. The first was called the Old or Desert Gaza to distinguish it from another. And this same [00:11:00] road is now being rebuilt by the IDF. By the IDF. So along came this chariot carrying the Ethiopian official Very, very respected, certainly, as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
And some people think that Candace is not even a person, but not a proper name, but a title, which all the queens of Ethiopia bore. Now this particular eunuch, it's a great story, had been to Jerusalem to worship. Because he wanted to find, and all the traffic of the world passed on this road. All of it. And we're told that he wanted [00:12:00] to, uh, get above all that was happening in the world.
He wanted to find one god, rather than all the gods that were existing at the time. And so he was looking for something, and he went to Jerusalem. And I gather he stayed there, and did what a lot of people did when they went to Jerusalem. They became seekers. In Judaism, if they were circumcised, they were called prophelites, meaning a person who has converted from one religion to another.
Okay. If they were not circumcised, but continued to attend Jewish synagogues and read scripture, they were called God fearers. So the Ethiopian, it is surmised, must have been a [00:13:00] God fearer, because what was he doing in that chariot? He was reading scripture. He was reading Isaiah. He was reading the 53rd chapter.
So when Philip was prompted by the angel, Philip became known as Philip the Evangelist, by the way. He could not be contained. He was on the road all the time. He was able to begin with that chapter, and essentially he was meeting up with the seeker. With a seeker, he had something to build on. So he jumped in the garage and he started to explain to him about Jesus being the way, the truth and the life.[00:14:00]
And it worked, didn't it? It worked because the official said, well, I think I'd like to be baptized. And Philip looked for the next body of water, and they both went down, and the official was baptized, and they both came up, baptized in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And then what happened?
Philip was snatched away to go on preaching. And it is said, but this is not verified, that the official went home and preached to all of Ethiopia and converted them.
So here we are, I hope energized on this middle part of the way and thinking about how we might be [00:15:00] disciples and how we might go about it in our daily life as disciples. It's not a very big thing, I don't think. It's about small things. First of all, I love thinking about the official going down the road joyfully chuckling to himself about being baptized.
And I thought, you know, how would that be? If I just went around looking like I'm a loved person. God loves me and I've been baptized. I think that would be a start. And I've been feeling good about it all week. It's like I'm a loved person and I'm baptized. So, uh, then, you know, it kind of leads me to things that are large and small.
Going on with the service we're already doing, all of us here, I see you all, you're all in [00:16:00] service, one way or another. But then thinking about the small things that we need to do to stay close to Jesus as the way and the truth and the life and the true vine, more than the light and the truth, the true vine, the one that we can always go back to.
So what can we do? I do think when we react, it requires a little effort on our part. And that is maybe doing the daily office every day, but maybe not. Maybe just a few prayers in the shower that says, you know, I'm a loved person. God loves me and I have gifts and I can take them out and I have a faith life and I can share that too with other people or.
If they're [00:17:00] not ready to share and they want to be with me, I can at least create a space where they know that they can come and share faith life, whether it's going well, not going well, but indeed they will find a kindred spirit. There's a wonderful article by a person named Lisa Kimball, who's at Virginia Seminary.
Hate to give that other seminary a plug, but I'm gonna do it. Anyway, she talks about walking wet. And that's the other thing I've been thinking about. What do you think she means by that? Just a guess. Walking wet. What do you think?
It means feeling that you're still wet with the waters of baptism, [00:18:00] right? Yeah. Walking wet. Knowing that you have time, you've been baptized, you're in this community, you can come to this church every Sunday and share that community, you can share it out and beyond, knowing that you don't have all the answers, but you've got the basics in the baptismal covenant, and you can walk wet.
You can seek and serve Christ in all people, and You can strive for justice and peace among all those people, and maybe even sometimes challenge the systems that make you upset. And finally, you have this seal, as I've been saying, of oil on your forehead so that you are God's own forever. Amen.
