Sermon for the 6th Sunday of Easter
May 30, 2011
I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. John 15:1-8 (NRSV)
Holy and righteous God, you are the author of life, and you adopt us to be your children. Fill us with your words of life, that we may live as witnesses to the resurrection of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
My snappy introduction (Dr. Watson would be so proud) involved the old-time radio program Fibber Mcgee and Molly, and ended with the joke: “As the fly said when he got stuck in the strawberry preserves, I’ve been in much worse jams than this.” Much pity laughter ensued.
In our Gospel reading this morning, Jesus makes another one of his I am statements that He is so famous for in the Gospel of John. Earlier in the book he said, “I am the light” “I am the bread of life” “I am the door.” “I am Good shepherd.” In last week’s reading he said, “I am the way the truth and the life.” And, now, as he prepares his disciples for his imminent arrest, torture, death, and resurrection, He says, “I am the true vine, you are the branches…” further on, he states, “Abide in me as I abide in you.”
Like the other I am statements, this one is a rich metaphor which gives us insight into Christ’s true character. We don’t have time to unpack all of the gems that this metaphor offers us, but I would like to focus on several aspects of one of the key words in the passage. I want to dwell on the word “abide.” In this passage Jesus uses the word “abide” over and over; 9 times in 8 verses. Clearly, he wants to emphasize to his disciples the importance of abiding, of remaining, of showing up and sticking around. But, it seems like a rather odd thing to say to them right after he finished telling them that where he is going they cannot follow, and right before leaving them in the hands of the people who wish to murder him. So what did Jesus mean when He said, “Abide in me as I abide in you?”
To understand this a little better I want to look at another passage in John’s Gospel where Jesus uses a related metaphor, and in which our word abide plays a prominent roll. In John chapter 6, starting in verse 51 Jesus says,
“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” The Jews then disputed among themselves saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.”
This bread of life passage together with the true vine passage sparks in us a powerful image of what it means to abide in Christ. Because we believe that mystically, mysteriously Christ is present in the bread and the wine of the Eucharist, when we consume the bread and the wine we are in a way following Christ’s admonition in John 6 to eat his flesh and drink his blood. But this Eucharistic meal is not like any other meal. Yes, we consume it, we put it in our mouth, chew and swallow, but then it, or more exactly Christ which is present in it, consumes us. Through consuming we are consumed by the love and peace and presence of Christ. The Eucharist is a way that we are connected to Christ. It is a way to abide in Him, as He abides in us. In fact, when we use the word Communion in place of Eucharist, we can see the connection: To commune with someone means to abide with them. Through Communion we abide with Christ. But of course, there is another dimension of Communion that we also see in our Gospel reading. When we participate in Communion we are not only communing with God, but with each other. The disciples at the last supper were not just eating with Christ, they were eating with each other as well. We are not isolated from each, here on these altar rails when we receive the Eucharist. We are participants in the mystical body of Christ which unites all believers, all Christians everywhere and in all times.
Father Terrence Lee, a beloved former canon here at St. John’s, tells the story of the first time his grandfather set foot in the Episcopal church. It was in the South, during the height of segregation. When Fr. Terrence’s grandfather entered the church, he was surprised to find that there were both black and white members of the congregation present. When it was time to go down and take communion, he and his wife went down and knelt at the altar; on either side of them were two white men. When the common cup of wine came their way, the man next to Terrence’s grandfather drank, and then Terrence’s grandfather drank from the cup, and then his grandmother, and then the white man next to them drank, without hesitation or pause, and then on down the line. That was day Terrence’s grandfather became an Episcopalian. He was shocked he had been allowed to drink from the same cup as these white men. At the altar rail, he had not been treated differently because of his skin. In the midst of a culture of separation, of distrust and of hate, he found at Communion, a different reality of unity, trust, and love. That is what communion is about. That is what abiding is about. We cannot abide in Christ unless we also abide with each other. This is sort of a radical concept; as branches we cannot be rugged individuals trying to go it alone. Who ever heard of a vine with only one branch? If such a thing exists it certainly isn’t healthy.
Coming back to our Gospel passage, when Jesus says that those who abide in him will bear fruit, we see from the context of the passage that one of the things he specifically has in mind is love for one another. Just a couple verses later, in verse 12, he says, “this is my commandment: that you love one another”. And throughout Jesus’ farewell address in John 13, 14, and 15, He says it over and over, “Love one another.” This is echoed in our epistle reading from 1 Peter, “Finally, all of you, have unity of spirit, sympathy, love for one another, a tender heart, and a humble mind.” When we abide in Christ, this will invariably be the fruit, that we will also abide in love with each other.
We must not forget in all of this, that today is the sixth Sunday of Easter. The events described in our Gospel reading occur before the Resurrection, but they were written down afterward, and because we are a Resurrection people, we come to this reading with our Resurrection goggles on. If you leave out the Resurrection, our text is a rather confusing and disappointing one: Christ tells his disciples to abide in him and that he will abide in them, and then he goes off and dies, and his disciples abandon and deny him in the process. The end. But, fortunately for the disciples and for us, the story does not end there. Christ came back to life, and this One event changes everything, it marks the everything that we do and say and read and listen to.
Reading this passage through the lens of the Resurrection is not without precedent. Listen to a meditation on the image of the Vine as it relates to the Resurrection written in the fourth century by St. Cyril of Jerusalem:
“A garden was the place of His Burial and that which was planted there said, I am the vine! He was planted therefore in the earth in order that the curse which came because of Adam might be rooted out. The earth was condemned to thorns and thistles, but the true Vine sprang up out of the earth, that the saying might be fulfilled, Truth sprang up out of the earth, and righteousness looked down from heaven.”
I love this image. The true vine, chopped down by death and buried only to shoot forth out of the ground again with new life. This is our hope. This is reason we are here. The reason we are Christians. This is the reason we sign for this in the first place. In little while there will be a baptism here, and the Resurrection is what Baptism is all about. Baptism represents dying to the old life and being reborn anew in Christ. It is the sign of a new creation, a new Resurrection reality.
We are called as branches abiding in Christ to be participants in this new reality. When we abide in Him, we have no other choice; healthy branches make fruit; and that fruit is our witness of the new reality of Christ’s Resurrection, our witness to the all-powerful, death-defying, reconciling love of Christ for all the world. The world is a dark place, full of death, and hopelessness. The world needs our witness, our fruit born of Christ’s new reality. War, natural disaster, oppression, and sickness: the world could use the joy, and hope that the True Vine offers through us, his branches. As Barbara Johnson puts it, we as Christians are called to be Easter people in a Good Friday world. This is why Peter admonishes us to love one another and to live in unity of spirit, why we must not repay evil for evil, why we must keep our tongues away from deceit, turn away from evil, and pursue peace. These things, love, truth, unity and peace are the hallmarks of Christ’s new reality. These things are the fruit we are called to bear, and they just so happen to be the fruit the world so desperately needs. Not the grapes of wrath—we have the grapes of wrath—but the grapes of love and reconciliation.
But as Jesus says, we can do nothing, unless we abide in Him and He in us. The good news is that we don’t have to worry about Christ keeping His end of the bargain. We may choose NOT to abide. But Christ never chooses this. He has promised never to leave or forsake us. In a way we are stuck with Him and He is stuck with us. But, there are truly worse jams than this. [more pity laughter] I am reminded of the wonderful Easter hymn (youtube/oremus hymnal) that we have been singing, particularly the fourth verse which is based on Romans chapter 8, verses 38 and 39:
Jesus lives! our hearts know well/
nought from us his love shall sever;/
life, nor death, nor powers of hell/
tear us from his keeping, ever./
Alleluia!
Through his resurrection Christ has conquered the disease of sin, and the drought of death, and has therefore enabled us, his branches, to abide in him, the True Vine, now and forever. Amen.
+Ramsey and the Evangelical Place of the Bishop
May 28, 2011
I’ve been doing some work in +Arthur Michael Ramsey’s neglected The Gospel and the Catholic Church, specifically to his elucidation of the evangelical necessity of the bishop. For Ramsey, the absolute foundation of the Church lies only in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, but we participate in these historical events ever anew, especially in the sacraments. (He is here, it should be noted, decades ahead of contemporary biblical scholarship that sees participation as one of the fundamental realities of Christian life, as in the work of Michael Gorman and Douglas Campbell.)
Nevertheless, following Ephesians, Ramsey traces the place and function of the apostles in the New Testament where most clearly they are understood as the foundational authorities of the Church. He sees that St. Paul “has an office of ruling and integrating” and the apostles were “a ministry, restricted in numbers and of definite authority, not attached to local churches but controlling local churches on behalf of the general church.” This “rootless” authority is an embodiment of the concrete unity given to the Church in the passionate flesh of Jesus, who himself gathered and commissioned the apostles. They represent to congregations all the other congregations and act for and over all of them; thus by virtue of their office they enact the unity given in the Spirit and the Passion.
The question he then asks is this: Does the “more developed” episcopal theory of St. Ignatius fall in line with this?
“The [episcopal] ministry is important as linking the Christians with the historic events of Jesus Christ, since Christian experience is not a spirituality unrelated to history, but bears witness to its derivation from Jesus in the flesh…Thus the Church is one Body; its members glorify not themselves and their experiences, but the one historic Christ. And its worship is one; the Eucharist is not the act of any local group, but of the one Body, represented by its organ of unity in any place. Hence the Eucharist is to be celebrated only by the bishop [and those authorized by the bishop].”
His answer is yes, the bishop “succeeds” the apostles in function; the primary difference is now that the bishop is local, but as Florovsky says in Sobornost, “in its Bishop every single church transcends its own limits and comes into contact with and merges into other churches, not in the order of brotherly love and remembrance alone, but in the unity of mysterious and gracious life.” So even this “localism” only has significance via the one Gospel, the one life of the Spirit, and so is also universal, a token of the unity that does not depend on the episcopacy but is expressed through it.
So Ramsey can go so far as to say that “the Episcopate is of the esse of the universal Church,” but only inasmuch as it expresses the unity of that one life given first in the flesh of Jesus and then in the Spirit through baptism – It does not constitute the Church. He would no doubt agree with Bulgakov, “First Church, then hierarchy.”
Why Does Easter Matter?
May 25, 2011
My sermon for the Fifth Sunday in Easter in which I relive an awkward adolescent romance and ask why Easter matters.
Why Does Easter Matter? (about 15 mins)
(Recorded on a smartphone in my pocket).
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
1 Peter 2:9
Three Relationships Every Christian Should Have
May 24, 2011
I can tell that I have been out of a degree program for a year. In trying to write a simple review for Miroslav Volf’s new book on Allah, I have become lost in the thrill of critical writing. I have only covered four chapters and already have more than two thousand words. Needless to say, this review may become my Chinese Democracy – Axl and I can sit in a dark corner together and twitch about the genius nobody appreciates.
So, I am going to take a short break from my opus of academic book reviewing, and post in a more parochial direction. I spend a lot of time watching people and thinking about relationships. I am especially interested in people who are either very successful or utterly disastrous at maintaining their relationships. I don’t necessarily intend this post to be about a certain type of relationship, whether it be romantic, filial, congregational, or professional. I think my advice applies to all relationships. In fact, I have begun to notice a trend. What makes the difference between people who fail in their relationships and those who are successful? I don’t think it is time spent. The people I know whose records are poor in the relationship department spend what might be inordinate amounts of time worrying about their relationships. I don’t think it is sincerity. The people I know that struggle in the interpersonal arena are some of the most sincere people I have met. I don’t even think it is communication skills. I can think of a couple of specific examples – people who are very good at getting their feelings across. Their relationships? Total disaster.
I think one of the major contributing factors is imbalance in the type of relationships that people maintain. In my humble opinion, people who want healthy, happy relational experiences should be cultivating three types of relationships in their lives. If we want a happy, healthy church, then we need to be facilitating these relationships within our communities.
First, everyone should have at least one “Mentor” relationship in their life. I fully expect that I will never arrive at a place where I no longer need someone to provide wisdom and insight. I am somewhat of a “perspective miner.” I have several mentor relationships in my life, and I make contact with them regularly – not just to get help with trouble. I have sought out people who live the kind of life to which I aspire, and have submitted myself to them in order to learn. I have access to some individuals that many may see as inaccessible, but you’d be surprised how willing people who God has used in tremendous ways are to invest in other’s lives. When I see people in my life that seem to be struggling with some element of their lives, when I see Christians that seem to be struggling with some element of their faith, these people often have no mentoring relationships. These kinds of relationships seem easy to come by in most institutional settings like schools. They seem more difficult to come by in professional settings like corporations. Oddly, the place you would expect to see the most mentoring happening, the church, is the place where I see people struggling the most to find and benefit from a mentor. The significance of a mentor relationships does not come in having successful tactics modeled for you. The significance of a mentor relationship comes from the fact that you are personally willing to acknowledge that someone is “over” you. We all have had parents, pastors, and principals. It doesn’t mean that we were all willing to submit to their authority. A mentor relationship done right, is a process of acknowledging that you need someone to mold your life. This is a relationship where you are almost entirely the beneficiary. Yes, mentoring offers rewards, but the amount of benefit you receive from a mentor is decidedly in your favor.
Second, everyone should have strong peer relationships. This may seem like the default setting of most people’s interpersonal lives, but you’d be surprised how many people I run into that do not have genuine peer level friendships. I have a few relationships that make my life worth living. They are people who genuinely “get” me. I do not have to temper my personality or my words. I do not have to wonder how they feel about me. They accept me for who I am, and (importantly) they can hear the inner me without fear of rejection. This is perhaps an issue that comes in degrees. The degree to which I need people to accept and interact with my true self may be different from what others need. I can say this, though, people who I know that have trouble with relationships have no outlet for what is really going on inside of them. A real peer relationship is a process of giving and receiving from the other person, it is mutually beneficial.
Third, everyone should have disciples. I imagine most people will immediately see the common sense of the previous two categories. However, I am not so certain everyone always appreciates how much a mentor needs to have a mentee. So, at the same time mentors are pouring into our lives and peers are enriching our lives – we NEED to be giving ourselves up for others. Many of us have run into a peculiar, even paradoxical, bit of wisdom in living life: when things get tough, you must seek out people for whom you can sacrifice yourself. Nothing gets you out of life’s tough spots like helping someone else out of a tough spot. It is actually quite remarkable what a sense of responsibility for the welfare of other people can do for Christians. (Let’s be clear here; I am not talking about becoming the spiritual police or a legalist - I am talking about giving yourself up to make someone else better). Without fail, I ask people who are having a hard time being in community, if they are discipling anyone. Without fail, they always give me a look of questioning my sanity. As if to say, “why would I, in my broken down state, have anything to give someone else.” The answer, of course, is that people rarely need you to be perfect or for you to have all the answers. They need you to share your life with them. If you are a Christian and you are not giving yourself up in real (and sometimes painful) ways, then you are missing out on what it means to imitate Christ – and all of your relationships will suffer.
There you have it, my pastoral advice for the week. Go out and enjoy community with God’s people!
Hugh Latimer (1485-1555): Prayer and the Common Good
May 19, 2011
This quote is snatched from the blissful Love’s Redeeming Work: The Anglican Quest for Holiness, 17-18. Taken from a sermon on the Lord’s Prayer, using the Vulgate as the base text.
“He saith not ‘my,’ but ‘our.’ Wherefore saith ‘our?’ This word ‘our’ teacheth us to consider that the Father of heaven is a common Father; as well my neighbor’s Father as mine; as well the poor man’s Father as the rich: so that he is not a peculiar Father, but a Father to the whole church and congregation, to all the faithful. Be they never so poor, so vile, so foul and despised, yet he is their Father as well as mine: and therefore I should not despise them…Here may we perceive what communion is between us; so that when I pray, I pray not for myself alone, but for all the rest: again, when they pray, they pray not for themselves only, but for me: for Christ hath so framed this prayer, that I must needs include my neighbour in it…
I desire God to comfort all men living, but specially domesticos fidei…Yet we ought to prayer with all our hearts for the other, which believe not, that God will turn their hearts and renew them with his Spirit; yea, our prayers reach so farthat our very capital enemy ought not to be omitted.
Now to make an end: we are monished here of charity, and taught that God is not only a private Father, but a common Father unto the whole world, unto all faithful;…Where we may learn humility and lowliness: specially great and rich men shall learn here not to be lofty or to despise the poor. For when ye despise the poor miserable man, whom despise ye? Ye despise him which calleth God his Father as well as you; and peradventure more acceptable and more regarded in his sight than you be….But there be a great many which little regard this: they think themselves better than other men be, and so despise and contemn the poor; insomuch that they will not hear poor men’s causes, nor defend them from wrong and oppression of the rich and mighty. Such proud men despise the Lord’s prayer: they should be as careful for their brethren as for themselves. And such humility, such love and carefulness towareds our neighbours, we learn by this word ‘Our.’”
Heretics and Their Beers II
May 16, 2011
First, a blessing from our dear reader Josh:
Bene dic, Domine, creaturam istam cerevisae, quam ex adipe frumenti producere dignatus es: ut sit remedium salutare humano generi: et praesta per invocationem nominis tui sancti, ut, quicumque ex ea biberint, sanitatem corporis, et animae tutelam percipiant. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen
Bless, O Lord, this creature beer, that Thou hast been pleased to bring forth from the sweetness of the grain: that it might be a salutary remedy for the human race: and grant by the invocation of Thy holy name, that, whosoever drinks of it may obtain health of body and a sure safeguard for the soul. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Of all beeresies, Docetism is the single most pervasive. Because what seem to many to be good beers in fact are terrible beers. We’ve all heard it before, “No, really…it’s a good beer.” I’m afraid to tell you, it is pork swill, worse, it is putting you in dangers of the eternal fires of hell, which do exist for all beeretics despite whatever Rob Bell and Karl Barth told you.
And thus the Theophiliacs shall not back down from it’s duty to preach the whole gospel. Speaking the truth in love, we will proclaim the pure light of the everlasting word against all foul attempts of the enemy to deceive with pretty labels and fancy sell-words like “European.” We all know he appears as an angel of light.
So consider closely the following beers which often fly under the docetic banner:
PBR – “But Tony, you’re a hipster, aren’t you? Or at least that’s what all your friends tell me. Aren’t they supposed to like PBR?” I don’t know if my skinny pants and ironic smile make me a hipster, but the nostalgic revival of this vile beverage is most unfortunate. Yes, the tall can is romantic and pretty, it makes you think back to a bygone age when you could work a blue-collar job in Milwaukee, come home, sit in a lounger in a sleeveless T-shirt in front of a fan and beat your wife, but despite what people tell you, this beer is a crime against the name, no better than any of it’s other cohorts of lesser repute – I’m looking at you, Miller!
Heineken – It’s hard to know whether to describe the beer or just say that when I was a waiter, the only people I saw drink this were 45 year old slick-haired polo-shirt-wearing business men ‘dating’ 19 girls who drank this between vodka-red bulls to keep the night going. A mass-lager is a mass-lager is a mass-lager, even if it’s from Europe and comes in a fancy green bottle.
Killians Irish Red – Look, I can add red food coloring to urine, chemically modify it to form a thin head when poured, bottle and chill it, but that doesn’t make it good. This sad flavorless ale utilizes it’s bright color to trick people into believing it is better than it is, but drink it alongside a Hamm’s Can and you won’t be able to tell the difference. Especially unfortunate is when anyone in Minnesota drinks this child’s drink, what with Finnegan’s Irish Amber in so many venues. Not only is it delicious, it’s made with real potatoes and all profits go to charity!
Stella Artois – cf. Heineken, only add the travesty that it’s $9 for a six pack and some scorn on the fact that it has social respectability. ”Ooohhh, is that Stella Artois? My, aren’t you fancy?” No ma’am, he’s just a benighted fool taken in by the fact that, having drunk it, he’s allowed to say “Artois” 20 times to sound cool.
Blue Moon – Aspiring to be the Budweiser of Wheat Beers since 1995. I mean Coors brews it for god’s sake! It’s one thing to add an orange slice because it’s a beautiful yet unnecessary touch to an already fine beer, it’s another when the citrus only masks the flavor of shame.
Heresy is no laughing matter, and docetism has struck most of us at various points. Often we don’t know better. But beware! You must hold the catholic faith to be saved, and now you have been warned. Turn away from these beers and return to the true doctrine.
Speaking of Orchards: On Church Planting
May 15, 2011
A friend of the blog and blogger himself, Rev. Josh Rowley, is in the process of starting a new ‘missional community’ for the Presbyterians, and he recently posted a quote by H. Stanley Wood in his Extraordinary Leaders in Extraordinary Times (p. 152-153)
“A way forward for new-church development in denominations that value the connecting tissue of their congregations and judicatory structures might be to aid existing churches to start new churches, including the sending of ‘home-grown’ leadership to be NCD pastors”
As it happens I was just about to post something on this very topic. My diocese of Minnesota was started by one of our great missionary bishops, the Rt. Rev. Henry Benjamin Whipple. In large part because of his efforts, Minnesota has a very strong Episcopal presence relative to most other states in between the coasts. Besides saving hundreds of Sioux who were due to be unjustly executed by appeal to Pres. Abraham Lincoln, it is said that he once floated an entire church building down a river in order to plant it downstream. If you are ever in Minnesota, do go venerate his tomb underneath the Cathedral of our Merciful Savior in Fairbault. Which, as it happens, was the parish I was confirmed in.
We are all aware of the myriad of opinions there are as to why the Mainline is shrinking so rapidly, and we shall save such speculation for another day. At the very least it must be admitted that we lack the same zeal for planting new churches that Pentecostal and evangelical churches do. While the new multi-site campus style of growth is an anti-charismatic personality cult, and is therefore to be scorned in every way, what some evangelical churches often do is have thriving congregations put resources into starting new parishes, often sending clergy and lay people to aid.
To the extent that we even do plant new churches, the Mainline tends to do so in ways that are extraordinarily expensive, centralized, slow, and conservative. And if we’re honest, we don’t naturally put effort into evangelizing immigrant populations. (Though we’ve had some great opportunities with Hmong and Karen immigrants here. We’re slowly translating a prayer book into the language of the Hmong after a several hundred Hmong Roman Catholics sought to become Episcopalians, and the first parish I attended, Messiah in St. Paul, has successfully integrated a substantial Karen refugee group.)
Now I don’t want to suggest we go around our diocese’ at all, but there is no reason that a diocese could not encourage this kind of planting and even give aid to those congregations who would do so. Does anyone know of any diocese’ or parishes in particular that are doing this sort of thing? There are many avenues that could be explored for fundraising but this seems like one of the more successful and generally healthy kinds.
Tony Hunt
jstambaugh
Shawn Wamsley
