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.
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| Christ in the Winepress |
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
April 22, 2018
John 15; 1-27
We have the tendency to see the world as a collection of separate things. The idea of ecology, that all creatures and their environments form a living entity, is relatively recent. Thinking ecologically, we human beings can learn to appreciate how life supports us in so many varied ways. It streams to us in the sunlight, in the watercourses, in the plant and animal life that nourish us. Life surrounds and supports us in the very air we breathe. And we too have our part in this great weaving of life.
Today’s reading reveals a great open secret: it is not merely mother nature who sustains us. It is Christ who carries the great all-pervasive life of the earth. As the True Vine, the sap of His life runs through the living earth and sustains all on it. And this sap of life has a cohesion, a kind of force of attraction to it. It draws all the parts together and fits them into an organic working whole. This force is the force of compassionate love. The world is held together, interwoven by a living love.
Compassionate love also radiates outward; it is a love that offers itself up to support, sustain and to strengthen. To connect with the essence of life that permeates the world is to connect oneself with the deep love and life that binds the world together. It is to connect with a love that offers itself to all, that all may exist. It is a love that supports all in deep compassion. What this deep compassion asks of us is to become likewise.
In the words of Hafiz:
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| Arthur Ernst Becher |
The Beloved has agreed to play a game
Called
Love.
Our sun sat in the sky
Way before this earth was born
Waiting to caress a billion faces.
The wise man learns what draws God
Near.
It is the beauty of compassion
In your heart.*
*Hafiz, “It is Unanimous”, in The Gift, by Daniel Ladinsky, p. 170
