FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER. YR B. -Br Simeon

Andre-Rublev's Saviour

  Homily preached by Br. Simeon     Sunday 3^rd May 2015:  

FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER. YR B.

Gospel:  John 15: 1-8

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower . . . I am the vine, you are the branches.”
“Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.”

In the Name of the one God, +Father, +Son and +Holy Spirit. Amen.

From the music of the psalms to the engravings on the temple pediments, vines were a symbol of Yahweh’s many blessings to Israel.  In his Last Supper discourse (from which today’s Gospel is taken), Jesus appropriates the image of the vine to explain his eternal connectedness to his disciples, their connectedness through him to God, and their connectedness to one another.

In this today being the Fifth Sunday of Easter, we have today's Gospel reading of the vine and the branches. The gospel reading for this weekend records for us, perhaps, one of the best known and best loved sections in all of scripture. Jesus calls Himself the “vine” and us His “branches.” “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in Me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in Me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.” (John 15: 5-6)

Jesus, the vine, rooted and grounded in His relationship with God the Father, supports and gives life to us, His branches. Without being connected to Jesus by faith, we would perish eternally, just like a branch cut off from its vine, plant or tree eventually dies!

Jesus tells us that the “Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in Me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit He trims clean so that it will be even more fruitful.” (John 15: 1-2) Out of His love for us and His desire that we be “fruitful,” the Father occasionally “prunes” us by disciplining us or by allowing distress and difficulty to come into our lives. God is not an angry, vindictive tyrant when such things happen to us; rather, “He trims [us] clean so that [we] will be even more fruitful.” (John 15: 2)

In Christ, we are “grafted” to God and to one another. The Risen One calls us to community, to be branches on the same vine, to realise our life in Christ is also life in one another.

We cannot live our faith in a vacuum: Unless Jesus becomes the centre of our lives, the faith we profess is doomed to wither and die in emptiness.

Our power, strength and life come from Jesus. He promises, “Remain in Me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me.” Through our worship together, Bible study, scripture reading, private devotions, reception of the sacraments and our service to those around us, we remain in Jesus and He remains in us. We bear fruit and grow strong and healthy in the whole life of Christian discipleship

The Easter season speaks to us of the eternal presence of Christ in our midst, present to us in the Word we have heard and has taken root in our hearts.  Our faithfulness to the call to discipleship demands that we work to enable that Word within us to produce a “yield” of compassion, forgiveness, justice and reconciliation.  In the “fruit” we bear as "branches" of Christ do we glorify God the “vine grower.”

Amen.

16th Sunday after Pentecost-Br Andrew

Andre-Rublev's Saviour

Holy Redeemer

An ECCA Parish

In the care of the Ecumenical Franciscan Order

Homily preached at Winmalee 

by

 Br Andrew on  Sunday 28th September 2014

Gospel Matthew 21:23-32

“By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave you this authority?”

Authority is a wonderful thing to have when differences are to be settled and people are to be put in their place, yes authority can be useful. As a citizen of Judah both Civil and Ecclesiastical Bodies held authority over Jesus, just as they did every other citizen. Shortly in (Matthew 22:21) we will learn that Jesus even acknowledged the right of the Roman overlords to exact their taxes. Remember also the time that the collectors of the Temple Tax approached Peter to discover whether Jesus paid that tax, a four drachma coin was found in a fish’s mouth and the tax was paid for both Peter and Jesus – whether the Son of God had to pay it or not. (Matt.17:24-27) Today the Roman Church calls this payment Peter’s pence.

The record in today’s Gospel gives us another incident illustrating one of those situation in which a citizen was required to comply with both Civil – the Elders of the People and Ecclesiastical – the Pharisees; Courts These two Bodies of Law had come out in force to arrest this imposter who recently had disrupted a very lucrative money spinner when he threw the money Changers out of the Temple.

They wanted his piece of Paper – that authorized him to preach and teach.

The Son of Man had no piece of Paper! AND they knew this!

Every Rabbi had his right to practise as an Instructor presented  to him by the scribes, or their chief representative, after they had finished their studies at the feet of some great teacher and been solemnly admitted (the delivery of a key, as the symbol of the right to interpret, being the outward token) to that office.

The second question made sense of the first. Could He name the Rabbi who had trained Him, or authorised Him to teach?

As a human being Jesus had not gone through the usual educational and study process to obtain the necessary qualifications, his knowledge and Authority came from his heavenly Father. The Authorities knew he was a paperless Rabbi because they did not have his name in their records, they knew he could not name the Rabbi who had trained him, because there wasn’t one and therefore could arrest him at the very least as an imposter.

Jesus responds to their question “I will also ask you one question. If you answer me, I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. 25 John’s baptism—where did it come from? Was it from heaven, or of human origin?”(21:24,25)

All in a tizz they deliberated that, although they had investigated John the Baptist and found him, let us say satisfactory as a Prophet. To say that John received his authority from God would mean that they must also acknowledge that Jesus’ Authority also came from God. To deny the former would cause the people to riot, because the people believed John was a prophet, this would be disastrous so they lied and said that they didn’t know. So they made fools of themselves implying that experts as they were supposed to be they could not determine the Authenticity of any prophet.

27…. Then (Jesus) said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things”

To the ears of the people of his time his parables were easier to understand and probably held greater depths of meaning as well as any word play that doesn’t come through to translation. For instance – as well as this being a parable it is also a metaphor.

What then did the parable of the two sons say to them? Let’s look at these Old Testament Metaphors:

·         Firstly for the Israelites the “Vine” is a symbol of (Israel's) Spiritual privileges.

·         Secondly the vineyard was a symbol of (Israel) and its promised prosperity.

Jesus, however is speaking of the Vineyard of the Kingdom of Heaven wherein he is the Vine, (John 15: ) in this Parable I am going to use the symbolism to represent both the Mission field and the Kingdom of Heaven.

Firstly the Parable itself intends the Vineyard to be the Kingdom of Heaven, the place wherein we shall finally attain our perfect spiritual relationship with Jesus. AKA the promised prosperity of Israel

The Sons represent two classes of people, the first: those who erstwhile were tax collectors and sinners but who received the Baptism of John and were converted, his/ their “NO” represents their former lives of sin and their Going to work the Vineyard their conversion and entering first into the kingdom.

The second son represents the second class of people, who were full of self-righteousness; who even after hearing John’s call to repentance had ignored it because they didn’t believe him, or that his call applied to them, the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. Yet after seeing this, they did not repent and believe him. Hence prostitutes and sinners shall enter Heaven before they do.

Later we will read that after the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. And in public too!

Now let us  compare the vineyard to the Mission field of the world we inhabit, we live in it, we work in it to bring others to know the love of Christ and the reality of the Kingdom and as we do so we grow in spiritual intimacy with him. Jesus is never far away because we are developing an intimate relationship with him that spurs us to do his will gladly.

If we were one of those who, like the Pharisees, only pretend conversion, who have not yet believed in the call to repentance we would soon discover that the Vineyard was too uncomfortable a place to be until we could face up to the darkness within us and believe, until then we try to conceal ourselves with our new clothes and good deeds.

It is not chic to be a Christian, not even a fashion statement, and small communities such as ours must explain our raison d’etre to some of the more innocent members of the Body of Christ that do not realise the necessity for safe havens. Ours, then is a double Mission - not only to seek out the lost but perhaps to make known to the greater Church Community that there is a safe haven for those who do not pass muster, even to show others that they may need to be here too.

Amen