Sermon for May 3

The Readings

Acts 8:26-40

Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, "Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza." (This is a wilderness road.) So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. Then the Spirit said to Philip, "Go over to this chariot and join it." So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, "Do you understand what you are reading?" He replied, "How can I, unless someone guides me?" And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him.  Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this: "Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth.  In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth."  The eunuch asked Philip, "About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?" Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, "Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?"  He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him.When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing.  But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he was passing through the region, he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.

1 John 4:7-21

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.  God's love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God.  So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.  Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world.  There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us.  Those who say, "I love God," and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.

John 15:1-8

"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.

The message

This morning, I am going to talk about what it looks like when we abide with God and God abides with us. Now, other than the Hymn “Abide With Me” we do not use this word too much at church and almost never in our daily lives.  That is why I want to take a moment to talk about what it means. The word abide in the bible expresses something along the line of lives or resides with, stays in place with patience and endurance or remains unmoved.

Many stories we have of the early church are not always neat and clean but they are the stories of what it looks like when we abide with God and God abides with us.  We can see this from a survey of Acts 8 which our first reading comes at the end of. A lot of things happen in this chapter before Phillip has this beautiful encounter with the Ethiopian court official on the road to Gaza. Acts 8 begins with the first Christian Matrydom, Stephen is stoned to death by the crowd because he is preaching the Easter news, that Christ is Risen from the dead for the forgiveness of our sins. (This killing happens with the approval of pre-conversion Paul, then known as Saul, a feared persecutor and enemy of the new church).   This event sparks a widespread persecution of Christians and most of Jesus followers  flee to other places where they continue announcing that Christ is Risen from the dead.  Phillip goes to the non- Jewish area of Samaria. At this early time in the church, the inclusion of non-Jewish people was still a deeply contested and undecided issue.  Phillip converts and baptizes many people in Samaria, including a very prominent and highly followed magic worker named Simon.  After this, Peter and John arrive and pray for the new converts to receive the Holy Spirit  through laying hands on them (this is the same thing I will do at Confirmation in a few weeks).   Simon the magician offers money for Peter and John to give him the Holy Spirit as well.  He is scolded for this and they announce the gifts of God are not something we can buy and sell (Simon’s attempt to buy the Holy Spirit is the origin of the term simony, the sin of buying church offices, a common practice in the medieval world). 

After all this, the angel comes to Phillip and directs him down the wilderness road to Gaza, where he will encounter, teach and baptize the Ethiopian official.  In this story the Ethiopian official comes to faith through God’s word, hearing the good news about Jesus from a believer and the waters of baptism This is probably the most prominent convert so far in the Christian faith and the most foreign.. This person is the treasurer of an empire and servant of its Queen. He was an Ethiopian, which many viewed as extremely strange. He was also a Eunuch, a term with several possible meanings but one that usually refers to a man who had his male parts altered or removed to serve female leaders.  Eunuchs were seen as unclean and social outcasts. The welcome of this person into faith through baptism is an indication that this salvation though Jesus death and resurrection is for all people and that this new church has a place for everyone. 

These are the things that happen when we abide in God and God abides in us. The early church and its leaders shared the news that ‘Christ is risen from the dead” by their steadfast actions, placing faith at the center of life and work, facing obstacles, finding new ways to reach people, bravely approaching everyone to proclaim the good news, preaching despite the very real threat of death, knowing their scriptures and traditions, working together despite different ideas and always praying.  Over almost 2000 years, these things have not changed, even though the world has changed, these actions remain examples of what it looks like when we abide in God and God abides in us.

   

This is the same point that Jesus makes when he talks about the natural metaphor of the relationships between the vine grower, the vine, branches and fruit. Jesus metaphor explains and shows us spiritual things in physical terms, revealing what it looks when we abide in God and God abides in us in a way we can understand.   Here, God is vinegrower or caretaker, the one responsible for cutting out the dead branches and helping the ones bearing fruit thrive.  It is important for us to note that this is God’s job and God does not ask us for any help with it. It is too much for us to decide and often done in ways we cannot understand. 

Next, we hear that Jesus is the vine, the physical, touchable, understandable connection to God. Here, connected to the vine, is where we abide, where we find rest, reside, remain, know comfort, receive forgiveness, enter new life, get direction and experience peace. The branches are the ways we celebrate, share and invite others into this connection with God. The fruit this way of life bears, the things that are possible when we abide in God and God abides in us are incredible, throughout history, they have included innovations in music, art, science and medicine, efforts at relief and charity work, community improvement, advocacy for change, protest, and the fight for equality, sharing the power prayer and God’s comfort, joy, and hope (just to name a few)          

We might not always notice these things though. It might seem impossible for so much diversity to come from, be nourished and sustained by only one vine. Remarkably, even all these centuries later, we still have constant examples of how one vine can do all this. For instance, at the bank we go to for the church, there is a very long counter that you have to pass to go to the teller windows.  I have walked past this 25 or 30 foot counter 100’s of times.  I always thought that it was covered with a lot of different plants.  The entire area, from one end to the other is covered with leaves of all different sizes and shades of green.  This week, I stopped to take a closer look and I noticed that it was actually just one plant that took up the entire space.  There was only one pot, one set of roots, one source of nourishment supporting all of those different branches and leaves, even the ones all the way on the edges of the counter, the oldest and the newest leaves, and the ones that look a little different.  That is our church.  

 (on Sunday, I actually changed the last few paragraphs and I talked about what happens when parts of God’s vine are suffering, struggling or in need of help)