May 2, 2021 – John 15:1-8
John 15:1-8
We Abide – A Sermotion
Fifth Sunday of Easter – May 2, 2021
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
Normally I would preach this sermon in our worship assembly on Sunday morning,
right into our gathered community.
But once again it is necessary to suspend our worship services for everyone’s safety –
and for the common good of the people of Manitoba.
It is in itself – this suspension, this holding back, this giving up – an expression of love.
And that is, of course, only fitting.
It seems a strange way to love, but – as I often say – there are many ways to love.
And our community has made this decision fundamentally because of love.
It seems so strange to have so many readings lately that focus on community and gathering –
when we are prevented from gathering!
Last week it was the shepherd gathering the sheep.
The week before we saw the disciples gathered together on Easter Sunday evening.
It’s interesting, right? This shift in the Easter season from appearances of the risen Jesus to
meditations on Christian community.
Today the image of community is a very familiar one: the one vine with the many branches.
I am the vine, says Jesus, you all are the branches.
Jesus speaks of being a grapevine, and of us as being the branches that bear fruit.
And everything is rooted in the love of the farmer Father, who is responsible for everything.
It is a beautiful, continuous, organic image.
The love of the Father given to Jesus flows through the disciples and
ultimately bears the fruit of loving action in the world.
There is, it turns out, only One Love.
One Love that is deep at the heart of all that is, that is indeed the reason for everything’s being.
Through Jesus, we somehow, mysteriously, have access to that love and can pass it on.
Hymn-writer and musician Susan Palo Cherwien writes beautifully of this:
The power of love and abundant life that flows from God into Christ flows also into the community that gathers around Christ and partakes of Christ. . . . Through this connection to the vine of life, the community is filled with the creative, loving, and merciful energy of God, that same love that flowed through Christ. And because of this creative and loving connection, we will bear fruit.
But this is tough right now, because the image is a very communal one.
When you look at a grape vine, all the various branches are intertwined with one another.
They are all massed together, nestling together, supporting each other.
Jesus says that we are to all together abide in his love, but this is very hard right now,
especially for those of us who live alone.
When will we be able to embrace one another again as branches on a vine seem to?
How can we love if we are not able to love one another?
Where will we receive love from if we cannot gather and embrace?
For Christians, these are real questions.
Love is fundamentally a gift that is received and passed on.
But where will we receive it?
I don’t know, but I will assume that God will find a way – God always finds a way.
We regularly gather for worship because we know that in worship is where we dependably
receive the gift of love: in God’s loving word to us, in God’s loving meal set for us,
in our bearing of love to one another in the gathered assembly.
There is a reason Sunday worship is sometimes called a Feast of Love.
Without it, yes: it is very difficult to abide in Jesus’ love as he would have us.
But God is not limited to Sunday worship, and God will find a way.
Maybe the key is the word, “abide.”
The word appears 8 times in this short passage and very frequently in John’s Gospel,
from beginning to end.
The word is also translated in the Gospel by the words “remain,” “stay,” and “dwell.”
For now, perhaps, we abide in Jesus’ love by simply being present to those around us.
By abiding and remaining with those who are near.
Jesus simply says we abide in his love when we love one another,
perhaps when we simply abide with one another.
For we remain a community even when we cannot meet.
We pray for one another even when we cannot meet.
We remain, we abide, until the time we are called together again.
So, yes: it is strange that we are getting readings these days that emphasize how fundamental
community is to the Christian enterprise.
On the one hand, the readings are trying to emphasize in the Easter season that
the gathered community is now where the risen Jesus abides.
We are literally the risen body of Christ in the world.
We are literally Jesus’ hands and feet now.
So if people look at us and do not see the risen Christ, that is sad.
And yet, on the other hand,
why do the readings speak so beautifully of Christian community now?
In this time of pandemic and isolation?
I don’t know.
Perhaps the loss is making clear to us how essential community is, how important, and how dear.
Those of us who have been able to gather for in person worship lately have been surprised,
I think, at how wonderful it has been simply to gather in the same room together,
with not much more than a few words and some music.
Gathering is powerful, abiding together is human –
and we lose our humanity when we are prevented from doing so.
In the meantime, however, let us abide, let us remain, let us simply stay.
Let us abide in Jesus’ love where we can,
by simply being fully present to whomever we are fortunate enough to encounter.
In this way we will abide in Jesus’ love,
and in this way we will continue to bear good, loving fruit for the world.
As a community, we will abide.
Amen.
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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