4th Easter
John 15: 1-27
I AM the true
vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that does not bear
fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he trims clean, so
that it will be even more fruitful. You have already been purified by the power
of the word that I have spoken to you.
Abide in me and I in you.
Just as the branch cannot bear fruit out of itself unless it is given
life by the vine, neither can you bear fruit unless you stay united with me. I
am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains united with me so that I can
work in him, bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever
does not remain united with me withers like a branch that is cut off. Such
branches are gathered up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you abide in me,
and my words live on in you, pray for that which you also will, and it
shall come about for you. By this my Father is revealed, that you bear rich
spiritual fruit and become ever more truly my disciples.
As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Ground your being in my
love, just as I have taken the aims of my Father into my will and live on in
his love.
These words I have spoken to you so that my joy may be in you, and that
your joy may be complete. This is the task I put before you: that you love
one another as I have loved you.
No man can have greater love than this, than that he offer up his life
for his friends. You are my friends if you follow the task I have given you. No
longer can I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master
is doing. But I call you my friends because I have made known to you all that I
have heard from my Father.
You did not choose me, but I have chosen you, and appointed you that you
should go and bear fruit and that your fruits should live on after you, so that
what you ask the Father in my name he should give it to you. I say to you out
of the fullness of my power: Love one another.
If the world hates you with hatred, remember that they hated me first.
If you belonged to people in general, they would love you as belonging to them;
but you do not belong to them, because I have chosen you out of mankind. That
is why people hate you.
Remember the word I spoke to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his
master’. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they have
held on to my word, they will hold on to yours also. Everything that they do to
you they will do as though they did it to me, for they do not know Him who sent
me.
If I had not come and had not spoken to them, they would be without sin,
but now they have no excuse for their sin. He who turns in hatred against me
turns in hatred against my Father also. If I had not done deeds among them,
deeds which no one else has ever done, they would be without guilt. But now
they have seen me, and have still hated both me and my Father.
But it was to fulfill what is written in their law: ‘They hated me
without a cause.’
But when the Comforter comes, the Spirit of Truth who proceeds from the
Father, he will bring knowledge of me and will be my witness. And you also will
be my witnesses, because you have been united with me from the very beginning.
4th Easter
May 11, 2014
John 15: 1 -27
A good gardener removes dead branches. This is not only for
esthetics. It is also because on some invisible level, a dead branch becomes
something that prevents the plant or tree from filling out its own form
properly. Something dead becomes a place the plant has to work around. It
weakens the tree’s energy.
We too may have dead areas in our lives. On the physical
level, the ‘dead branches’ are those things and objects we never use. We may
even be paying rent, pouring out our monetary energy, to store them!
Emotionally such branches may be relationships that are no longer living,
perhaps even debilitating. Spiritually our dead branches may be practices in
prayer or meditation or reading that have become stale and no longer vital.
Once we remove what is no longer living, our life, on all levels, can take on
its own proper form. For the essence of living things is change – new growth,
another flowering, seeds for new life. And because we are all connected, this
new life affects everyone. The poet says:
Vine and branch we’re connected in
this world
of sound and echo, figure and shadow, the leaves
contingent, roots pushing against earth. An apple
belongs to itself, to stem and tree, to air
that claims it, then ground. Connections
balance, each motion changes another. Precarious,
hanging together, we don’t know what our lives
support, and we touch in the least shift of breathing.
Each holy thing is borrowed. Everything depends. [1]
of sound and echo, figure and shadow, the leaves
contingent, roots pushing against earth. An apple
belongs to itself, to stem and tree, to air
that claims it, then ground. Connections
balance, each motion changes another. Precarious,
hanging together, we don’t know what our lives
support, and we touch in the least shift of breathing.
Each holy thing is borrowed. Everything depends. [1]
Christ is the sap of our lives, individually and
collectively. He bears and orders the life of the world. He would penetrate us, give us new living
forces, so that we may truly live, so
that our lives together are fruitful, physically, emotionally, spiritually. The
Good Gardener helps us trim our lives clean, so that we all remain strong,
healthy and productive.
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