3rd Sunday after
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Christ the True Vine, icon (Athens, 16th century)
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 makes pure that it may bear more fruit. You have already been purified by the power of the word that I have spoken to you.
"Abide in me and I in you.
"As the branch cannot bear fruit out by itself unless it is given life by the vine, neither can you unless you stay united with me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever remains united with me and I in them 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 much fruit and become ever more my disciples.
"As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Live on in my love. If you take my aims into your will, then you will live on 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.
Arthur Ernst Becher
"No one can have
greater love than this: that they offer up their life for their friends. You
are my friends if you follow the task I have given you. No longer can I call
you servants, for servants do not know
what their 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 fruit 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 people hate you, remember that they hated me before you. If you belonged to people in general, they would love you as belonging to them; but because you do not belong to them since I chose you out of humankind, people hate you.
"Remember the word that
I spoke to you: 'Servants are not greater than their 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. Whoever hates me hates my Father also. If I had not done deeds among them, such as 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."
3rd after Easter
May 8, 2022
John 15:1–27
"No one can have greater love than this than that he offer up his life for his friends."
To offer up one's life will not necessarily require that we be martyred. Nevertheless, we all have ample opportunity to offer our lives to others—for our lives are bound up with our time, our presence, and our attention.
Wulfing
Today is Mother's Day in the US. To be a
mother, to be a parent, is to be allowed to give one's life to a friend. For as
many who have been parents sense, the child given to us to nurture is someone
with whom we have been long connected in other past relationships. And one of
the best future outcomes of the parent-child relationship is becoming adult
friends.
As all know who have ever been a parent, parenting means giving large amounts of time and attention, of offering up one's life forces for another. Such an offering creates both joys and sorrows. Joy in watching the child grow, as each new step in their development reveals more and more of their nature. Sorrow, for their difficulties. Times may even come when the child may rail against us. But the Holy Spirit, the spirit of truth, comforts us with the knowledge that this is because they need to take a step in the direction of independence. And once they have mastered the new level, they will return.
Artist unknown
Today we rejoice that we all have had a mother
whose life gave us our lives--our bodily mothers and Mother Earth.
In this gesture of giving life, we can see an image of Christ, the God who gave life to us all, indeed even to Mother Earth herself. And we are also reminded that in His great love, He made the extreme offering of his own life so that all creation on earth could live. He lived and died for all creatures, for the earth herself. He lived and died so that humans could develop from spiritual children into servants and finally into his friends.
Christ rejoices in our independence. He
rejoices in the further revelation of our essence. And He rejoices when we turn
to him as friends.
