Acts 8:26-40; John 15:1-8
Do any of you plan to see The DaVinci Code when it comes out on Friday? I think I will within the next few weeks. I’ve read the book, and Dave Larson did a great adult class on it during Journeys a couple of years ago. I found it entertaining, an interesting story. So I’ll go probably see it for a couple of reasons: 1) probably a pretty good movie (Tom Hanks!); and 2) I want to see how it challenges my notions of who Jesus is.
Author and pastor Brian McLaren spoke about that exact thing recently: I think a lot of people have read the book, not just as a popular page-turner but also as an experience in shared frustration with status-quo, male-dominated, power-oriented, cover-up-prone organized Christian religion. We need to ask ourselves why the vision of Jesus hinted at in Dan Brown's book is more interesting, attractive, and intriguing to these people than the standard vision of Jesus they hear about in church. . . . Is it possible that, even though Brown's fictional version misleads in many ways, it at least serves to open up the possibility that the church's conventional version of Jesus may not do him justice? . . . It's my honest feeling that anyone trying to share their faith in America today has to realize that the Religious Right has polluted the air. The name "Jesus" and the word "Christianity" are associated with something judgmental, hostile, hypocritical, angry, negative, defensive, anti-homosexual, etc. Many of our churches, even though they feel they represent the truth, actually are upholding something that's distorted and false.
I think about that as I read this text from John. Jesus talks about being “a vine,” with us as “the branches,” “abiding in him.” This is relationship language! We are to be in a relationship with Jesus – to know him, to trust him, to talk to him, to listen to him. To give ourselves to him and to receive forgiveness and new life as he gives them to us.
From him, not from our comfortable notions about who he is. Trust him, not what we think about him. This is hard to do because we all make Jesus into who we want him to be. For instance, when you think of Jesus, what do you think he looks like?
Archeologists and anthropologists have researched 1st century Palestine: facial features, bone structure, even hair style and have published a picture of a typical male in that time. Do you want to see what Jesus may well have looked like? It will challenge your assumptions.
How does this affect how you think about Jesus? The relationship is with him, not with our ideas about him.
There’s more. He talks about what this relationship with him looks like. He talks about the branches “bearing fruit,” and “being pruned.”
Look at “pruned” (v. 2) Although it does mean pruning, it is also the Greek word for “cleansed,” or “purified from evil.” kaqaros (from which we get catheter). Living in a relationship with Jesus drains the impurities out of us. Those aspects of us that are harmful, sinful, not of God are removed from us. Then he says (v. 3) that “you have already been cleansed (pruned, purified) by the word I have spoken to you.” It is Jesus, the Living Word, coming to us through the written word (Bible) that cleanses us, prunes us. Again, it comes through a relationship with the real Jesus, not an ideology that justifies our personal perspectives.
And all this is for a reason: that we, as branches, can bear more fruit. Think about that a minute. On a fruit tree or a grapevine, that’s what the branches do. It’s what they are made for. It’s natural, part of their created identity. You never hear branches say, “I work two jobs, raise 8 kids, president of the PTA, go to church every week, cook the meals, do the laundry, volunteer at Jeffco Action Center, and then you expect me to bear fruit in addition to all that?”
A couple of reasons why you’ll never hear that from a branch: branches don’t talk, and bearing fruit isn’t an extra burden in their life. It is their life. It’s doing what they are created by God to do. And they do it by being connected to the main vine.
Jesus has promised to be here with us. The real Jesus, himself. He is present through the Word, through sacrament, and through this gathering of people in this place. He comes and prunes, cleanses, forgives; and gives us a new life in him, that reflects him – the character of God. As we live in this relationship with him, as we are more strongly connected to this vine, as the old, dead, impure parts of us are removed, we bear more fruit. We live more and more like him. We reveal God more clearly to the world. We act with new love, we forgive with new readiness, we show new mercy, we use the passions and the gifts that we were created with. And in so doing, we reveal God, we bear fruit, we live more closely to the way we were created to live.
Abide in me as I abide in you. I am the vine, you are the branches. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.