Easter 5B’24
28 April 2024
Acts 8.26-40; Jn 15.1-8
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church
North Little Rock, Arkansas
The Rev. Carey Stone <+>
I need thy presence every passing hour,
What but thy grace can foil the tempter’s power?
Who like thyself my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me. Amen.
– From “Abide With Me” by Henry Francis Lyte, c.1793-1847
Other than the hymn that we occasionally sing known as “Abide with me” when else do we even say the word, ‘abide?’ Yet Jesus uses the word eight times in the 15th chapter of St. John’s gospel, it might be an important word for us to understand what it means. Abide means “to wait, to stay, to live.”1 So when Jesus invites us to abide with him, he in effect is saying, “wait for me, stay with me, live with me.” Jesus uses a botanical metaphor to get his point across: “I am the true vine, and my father is the vinegrower…(Jesus then expresses his desire for us to all be included in this interconnection) “I am the vine, you are the branches.”
Maybe a better and more 21st century word to describe this rather than abide would be connect. God wants to be connected to us and wants us to be ‘connected’ to God.
Electronically we all understand what happens to all of our devices when they lose connectivity. We can’t access the internet and we are literally “left to our own devices” that can’t reach beyond our own four walls. Another example, with all the zoom calls that many have been on during and after the pandemic we’ve certainly seen the effects of a low internet signal. People’s faces would pixilate, their voices would stall and stutter, going into a total freeze where the person literally stops being able to move, listen, or talk to the other participants. Going back to Jesus’s botanical metaphor he says that if we don’t abide (remain connected) we won’t be able to accomplish anything for God.
As branches, trees and limbs stay connected, the sap will rise in the spring, providing the nutrient rich resources that will produce a lush growth of leaves, cones, pods, and fruits. So, what are the fruits that we will be enabled to produce? It’s helpful to review the lists in scripture where various gifts given by the Holy Spirit are mentioned. In the book of Romans, we find gifts of prophecy, teaching, leadership, compassion, encouragement. In First Corinthians we hear about words of wisdom and knowledge, healing, working of miracles, discernment, speaking in other tongues. In Ephesians we hear once again about prophecy, evangelism, pastoring and teaching, and the gift of being a helper, and the gift of generosity manifested as giving to others who are in need…and there some others I’m sure I left out. What sets these gifts in motion, how do they activate? Through abiding, through staying connected with God. And how do we stay connected? There are many ways to connect with God, through spending time in the beauty of creation, healthy religion: church attendance, worship, giving, outreach, and the lifeline of our connection is prayer.
Just a quick unpacking of prayer. It’s so important to remember that prayer is not a monologue where we tell God a bunch of stuff, but a dialogue, it also involves listening. Henri Nouwen has the best explanation of this more than anyone I’ve ever heard: “A spiritual life requires discipline because we need to learn to listen to God, who constantly speaks but whom we seldom hear….We have often become deaf, unable to know when God calls us and in which direction.” Nouwen adds that when we don’t hear God our lives become absurd. In the word absurd we find the Latin root surdus which means deaf…When we do learn to listen our lives become obedient lives. The word obedient comes from the Latin word audire, which means listening. So, to summarize the life of prayer: as we move from a monologue to a dialogue, God can move us from an absurd to an obedient life.2
What this ultimately can leads us into is a closer relationship with God which leads to a fruitful life of service.
We are given a beautiful story in the Acts of the Apostles about how this kind of relationship with God plays out on the ground. In Acts we read: “Then the angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” So he got up and went. It is here that he runs in an Ethiopian Eunuch, a government official in charge of the Queen’s treasury on his chariot and reading from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah chapter 53 to be exact. Philip is able to explain the prophecy found there and that it was pointing to the coming Messiah, which of course is Jesus! The Ethiopian Eunuch and a seeker of God asked to be baptized, and just at that place in the road there was a stream of fresh water. Philip represents the mature believer whose faith is highly developed and the connection between he and God was strong. This made it possible for him to accomplish a great act of ministry. The eunuch goes back to Ethiopia, and shares the Good News of salvation. Well, isn’t that great for all of those people way back then. Yes, for those way back then to the present day.
While in my last semester at seminary just outside of Washington DC I had the privilege of participating with the rector of my field church (St. Mark’s Alexandria) in a service help in the 9/11 chapel in the Pentagon. After the service, the rector wanted to treat me to a meal at great burger restaurant at the Pentagon City Mall called Johnny Rockets. The waitress that walked over to us was a very attractive young woman of color with an accent. She noticed the collars and asked what church we were with. She took our order and came back with our food, and she preceded to tell us of her lively Christian faith as it is expressed in Ethiopian Orthodox Church. She left the door open just in case either of us two wanted to jump ship and join her at the orthodox church for services! Yes, I would say Philip and the Eunuch both had a fruitful ministry, and thanks to that hot day in the first century their labors were still bearing fruit in 21st cen. America!
“I am the Vine, you are the branches…My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much frit and become my disciples.” – Jesus in St. John’s Gospel chap.15
1 https://www.etymonline.com/word/abide
2 Nouwen, Henri, Making All Things New (HarperCollins: San Francisco, 1981) p.67