Easter 5

Easter 5 (John 15:1-8) ‘I am the true vine.”

The glory of God is man fully alive.

So wrote the theologian Irenaeus in the late second century.

The Plan of Salvation is life. God and God alone is the author of life and the source of life. All life on this planet derives from a common source: God.
Our modern secular culture teaches that life is the result of random interactions of matter, energy, time and space. The dozens of individuals who contributed their observations of nature and humanity to form the Bible come to a very different conclusion.

In our modern world we have two competing and fundamentally opposing views of reality. The secular view proposes that the universe created itself. This view acknowledges that within the universe everything is subject to the law of cause and effect- except the origin of the universe.

This view is very new in the history of humanity. Most people throughout time have observed the reality of cause and effect and reasoned that if everything in the universe is subject to that reality then the universe itself is the result of the same process.

Not all people have been willing to attribute the creation of the universe to a deity. Most people most of the time do assert that there is an uncaused cause to the universe. That uncaused cause is sometimes identified as God, transcendence, or the eternal.

Modern secular culture observes the same set of facts as our ancestors and comes to a very different conclusion. There is no preexisting transcendent cause. By will and will alone the secular mind asserts that this universe of matter, energy, time and space is all that there is, all that there ever was, and all that there can ever be.
Of course, Moses and the Prophets would not be surprised to learn that this is what our culture teaches. Neither would they be surprised to learn that in the United States it is illegal to teach anything different.

Moses and the prophets carefully observed how human beings willfully and spitefully demand the right to define God. It is only a very small step from creating God in our own image to uncreating God and asserting there is no God.

The defining problem for humanity that Moses and the prophets identified is separation. Our species as a whole and each of us as individual members of that species choose to separate from God. We make that choice to acquire power.

Human beings look at the world and say: this is mine. It is mine to do with as I please. Moses says: this world is God’s. Human beings are stewards of nature not owners. We are responsible to the Creator for how we use and abuse the creation.
Human beings look at each other and bring forth a demand: “do it my way.” Submit to my will. Give me what I want. Moses says: you are an interdependent inter related community. You are your brother’s keeper. You are responsible to feed the hungry and heal the sick. Do not ask: what’s in it for me? Ask instead: how may I help.

Human beings look at God and say: if God is real I have the right to define God however I want. Moses once made a similar assertion. God responded to that assertion by saying: I am who I am. I am not yours to define.

In a series of “I am” statements, Jesus takes what Moses observed about human nature and human behavior. Jesus takes the abstractions of theology, philosophy and science that human beings create to redefine God and personalizes them.

Jesus says: I am the vine. You are the branches. Branches that abide in the vine draw nourishment, draw life, from the vine. Branches that separate from the vine separate from the very source of life, from the meaning and purpose of life.

Jesus not only clarifies the source of life he communicates to us and to all people everywhere the meaning of life. The meaning of life cannot be expressed in a book, a set of laws, rituals or spiritual disciplines. The meaning of life cannot be held in any one intellectual category. The meaning of life is active, dynamic, spontaneous, creative and personal. The meaning of life is Jesus Christ, the co-eternal Beloved of the Eternal Father.

Jesus is the pattern, plan and purpose by which the Eternal Father created the universe and all life in the universe through the action of the Holy Spirit.
If the observations and conclusions of Moses and the prophets are correct we can only expect human civilization to move further and further into separation. We can only expect the expansion of atheism, the increase of interpersonal and international conflicts, and the rise of ever more radical forms of self-indulgence and arrogance.

We can also expect the outpouring of divine love and compassion in Jesus Christ. The prophetic and apostolic call to reunification with God is the call to enter into a new life and a new way of living.

The new life is real, it is personal, and it is Jesus Christ. Through the waters of baptism the Holy Spirit gives us that new life. Through the waters of baptism the Holy Spirit grafts the separated, withering and dying branch back into the vine from which it separated.

As we choose to live the life of the true vine we enter in a new way of living. The new way of living is characterized by bearing fruit. The vine pours life into the branches so that the branches can bear fruit.

The fruit the true vine, Jesus Christ, produces is: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control. The life of the true vine, Jesus Christ is love for God, compassion for other people and personal holiness.
How do we abide in the true vine, Jesus Christ?

The preeminent and normative means of abiding are prayer (having a conversation with God), the Bible ( reading, studying, and memorizing God’s written word ) worship on the Day of Real Presence God designed into the universe, the sacraments (especially Holy Communion), service to others, and a desire to be transformed by divine love into divine love (personal holiness).

Whoever makes this choice chooses life in Christ. That life is eternal. Heaven is our choice. Hell is also our choice. Heaven is reunification with the pattern, plan and purpose of life: Jesus Christ. Hell is the willful and spiteful choice to remain separate in order to hold the individual will to power.

The choice is ours. Life is a gift. New life in Christ is a gift. The new way of living in Christ is a gift. The model for salvation is organic as the branches of the vine draw life and produce fruit from the life of the vine. The model of salvation is personal as we enter into the new life and the new way of living in Jesus Christ.

Jesus is life. Jesus is the pattern, plan, meaning and purpose of life. That is why Jesus announces to the world: I am the true vine. I am the source of life. Abide in me, live in me. Live the active, dynamic, spontaneous, creative life of love, compassion and personal holiness.