Fifth Sunday of Easter

Jan 30 2025

The Vitality of the Vine

Jesus the vine gives flower to some very different branches. Last week we considered Peter, so this week let us turn to Paul. No one would have suspected that Saul of Tarsus, that “breather of murderous threats against the disciples of the Lord,” would ever become known as “the Apostle to the Gentiles” and one who would refer to himself as both a loving father and mother to the communities he himself tended. As Peter proved to be a good shepherd of the flock, so Paul was a dedicated worker in the vineyard, tending with such loving care the branches growing from the one vine that is Jesus.

What we see in Paul and hear in his letters is the intimate love of Christ for his church. Take up any of his letters and you will become engaged with the spirit of Paul as an instrument that communicates the spirit of Christ. Paul’s letters reveal the many voices he used to preach Christ crucified: the evangelizer and herald, the teacher and witness, the admonishing father and loving midwife, all calling God’s children to be fully alive in Christ.

Jesus speaks of himself as a vine with many branches, befitting not only the infinite variety of individuals he called in his own day, but also the many peoples and nations that have come to believe in him. We pray for all who give themselves over to the work of the vineyard, to all who help others to remain in Christ and bear fruit.

Consider/Discuss

What does the image of Christ as the vine with many branches say to you about today’s Church?
How do you understand Jesus’ words about the branches needing to be pruned so that they might bear more fruit?

Responding to the Word

Risen Jesus, you are the vine and we are the branches. Strengthen our resolve as a community to remain in you, so that we might bear more fruit. May your words remain in me, your child; may I, like Paul, recognize the life these words carry within them, and hold them in my heart.

Jan 30 2025

Scripture Study for

Saul, the formidable persecutor, has now become a disciple of the risen Lord. Initially he meets resistance, not to his message but to his claim of conversion. It takes another member of the community to witness to the saving grace of God that transformed Saul into a believer. If God can raise Jesus from the dead, surely God can recreate Saul. Saul’s rebirth as a disciple is a sign of the grace that has been unleashed by the Resurrection. It was the risen Jesus that Saul encountered and it is that same risen Jesus that he now proclaims. The power of God is unfathomable.

The author of the Letter of John insists that it is not enough to proclaim love for God; it must be demonstrated through concrete action. There seems to have been a sense of guilt somewhere in the community. The writer assures them that God’s love far exceeds any guilt that they may experience. They are called to believe this, thus rooting their faith in confidence. This confidence is also manifested in the way they turn to God in prayer. Although only one commandment is placed before them here, its focus is twofold. They are to believe in the name of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another.

The metaphor of vine and branches characterizes the intimate nature of the relationship between Jesus and his followers. Jesus lives in his branches, and his branches live in his life. The vine is not totally dependent on any one branch or group of branches. Therefore, it can endure pruning without withering and dying. However, there is no vine if there are no branches at all. The basis of this union is acceptance of and fidelity to the words of Jesus, not ethnic or national identity. The vitality expressed by this image is unmistakable. The vine and the branches are alive with the life of God.

Jan 27 2025

Flowing with Abundant Life

The eastern white pine is one of my favorite trees. I have vibrant memories of wind-swept foliage against the bright blue sky of Isle Royale in Michigan. I recall the exhilaration of cross-country skiing through radiant white snow with white pines soaring overhead. The white pine is a majestic tree.

So I am a little sad about the large white pine tree next to our house. Bark beetles have bred within the inner bark. Sometimes a tree can fight off that infestation, but last summer’s drought weakened it. Once the inner bark is chewed all around the tree, the tree is girdled, and no sap can flow. Water cannot travel upward through the xylem to the leaves. Food from the leaves cannot move downward to the roots. This past month, all the needles have turned brown. We will have to cut it down.

Jesus knew about sap in living things. He talks about remaining in him. That word “remains” (or abide or dwell) is a mystical term that connotes a deeply intimate and constant communion. The sap of the vine continually flows into the branches and keeps them healthy. When there is a vigorous transfer of nutrients, the plant flourishes with abundant good fruit.

But what about those little bugs? In the spiritual life, we don’t often pray, “Jesus, just go away.” We don’t deliberately cut ourselves off from the vine. Rather, little things begin to eat away at our relationship—having no time to pray, harboring resentment, getting so busy that God’s beauty passes by unnoticed, forgetting faith-filled friends, or ignoring our conscience. Difficult seasons can weaken us. Without meaning to, we can inadvertently allow the bugs of life to chew away at our connection to the Source of life and slowly start to wither. Jesus, help us to flourish and not be cut down!

Consider/Discuss

It is Easter! It is springtime in our northern hemisphere! It is not time to think about plants dying but growing! How can you allow the Holy Spirit to fertilize your spiritual life this week?
Jesus’ sap of love flows within us to help us to flourish. How can we open ourselves to the vigorous transfer of spiritual nutrients and not block that flow? How can we so abound with love that we bring abundant compassion to others?

Living and Praying with the Word

Jesus, you ask over and over again to love each another. You know the bugs in our lives. You know that we do not dwell in your love as we ought. You know that we do not stay in communion with you as well as we could. Strengthen us to follow you more closely. As you did for the early church, build up the people of faith in this Easter season. We will praise you, O Lord, in the assembly of your people!

Jan 27 2025

Scripture Study for

The reading from Acts this week takes place after the baptism of Saul, who has begun to preach the gospel, to the astonishment of those who had known him as a persecutor of Christians and to the consternation of some of the Jews, who conspire to kill him (9:1–25). Given his past, it is understandable that when Saul arrives in Jerusalem the disciples are leery of him. Barnabas, whose reputation among them must have been good, vouches for him, and Saul gives further evidence of his sincerity by his “bold” proclamation of Jesus as the Son of God (9:20) and his debates with the Greek-speaking Jews. Now that Saul has stopped persecuting the church, it can enjoy a period of peace, consolidation, and growth.

John has continued to exhort his audience to love God and one another, even to the point of laying down their lives for each other in imitation of Jesus (1 John 3:16). Those in whom God’s love abides show that love through their actions; love expressed in words alone cannot be true love. When one acts in love, however, then one “belongs to the truth,” and may stand with confidence before God. This confidence in God’s good will toward those who belong to the truth is grounded in the knowledge that they are obedient to God, which itself is a sign that they “remain in him, and he in them,” a mutual indwelling that is attested by the Spirit.

Like that of the Good Shepherd, the image of Jesus as “the true vine” is drawn from the Old Testament. In Sirach 24:16–17, Wisdom says that “I spread out my branches . . . I bud forth delights like a vine.” And Isaiah 5:1–7 is just one of several passages that refer to Israel as the vineyard of the Lord. Jesus as the true vine is both tended by the Father (making him the embodiment of God’s people) and the source of life for Christians. Just as God tends the vineyard of Israel, so God “prunes” the church through the “word” of Christ, whose teachings and actions form God’s people. Just as Jesus remains in the Father and the Father remains in him, so it is for Jesus’ disciples, whose very lives are truly dependent on remaining in Jesus.

Jan 14 2025

A House of Living Stones

Over the years several television shows have focused on rebuilding and reshaping houses. For over thirty years PBS’s This Old House has offered tips on repairing homes. More recently, Extreme Makeover takes a team into someone’s home and transforms it to meet the serious needs of its occupants, often dealing with health or disability issues or trying to serve the larger community in some way.

From the beginning the church has been imagined as a house of living stones, built on Jesus Christ, a dwelling place where people come for shelter and sustenance, where they can set down their burdens and find comfort and consolation before being sent back out in the world to make it a better place to live.

The risen Christ is truly one who offers an “extreme makeover.” He can be trusted to shape us into a dwelling place where the Spirit of the Lord takes up permanent residence, bringing gifts to benefit the world. From the beginning there have been challenges for those who form the church, and an ongoing need for renovation to meet the needs of the time.

Our efforts to make the church a home where love, mercy, justice, and peace will be found should lead us to build more firmly on Jesus our cornerstone. When the time comes, the home he promised to prepare for us and take us to should be easily recognizable. It should not be that much different from the church we have been living in all our lives.

Consider/Discuss

What does it mean to be a community of “living stones”?
What are the “works” that Jesus empowers us to do, perhaps even greater than what he did?

Responding to the Word

We pray the Lord to give us confidence to trust in his word that he has gone to prepare a permanent dwelling place for us, where we will be with him and all those who have gone ahead of us. We pray that this assurance may strengthen us to live as if we were already there.