It's that time of year again when people are rediscovering their yards and the joys of
gardening. Cultivating, redefining, pruning and planting…these are the activities of the season, but are they also
the primary work of the Church? That seems to be what are lections are suggesting for this morning; that there
is an annual need to re-evaluate and revitalize the "garden" that is the community of faith.
Just like the business going on in the backyard, the work is hard and the results are only temporary if seen immediately.
A lot of it seems like little more than guess work. Sometimes things get chopped back that are terribly overgrown…and
then you wonder if you've done the right thing or not. Other items which were doing very well on their own get
divided and moved to a different location, and for a while at least you can't be sure if they are going to survive
or not. Sometimes between all the extra effort and expense, followed by the aches and pains in places you didn't
realize that you even had you begin to wonder whether any of this is worth it or not?
The real question being asked is "What's at the heart of all this flurry of activity? Where does the initiative
come from, and is God directing the action…or is it just your own idea?" This is especially true when one
feels they are dealing with potentially new truths, or exploring the unknown-taking that shaky first step.
A perfect example of this kind of a "leap of faith" is seen in the story of Philip and the Ethiopian
eunuch. "Eunuch" is not a word that we use much today, but it was a terrible reality in the New Testament
world. Many slaves were castrated as a means of subduing their personal sense of self-worth and keeping them controllable.
In the world of Orthodox Judaism such a person was an affront to God, incapable of progeny and thus incapable of
posterity. They lost not only their human dignity and ability to interact with society, but in a culturally imposed
way they also lost their access to the divine. In a more than symbolic way this is a person whose "life"
has been taken away from them through no fault of their own. They are disconnected…and as a result their chances
of survival have been greatly diminished.
If one accepts that the epistle of I John and the Gospel were written at least by members of the same community
at approximately the same time in history, then the issue of connection is very important. Written after the destruction
of the Temple and the forced expulsion of many Jews from Israel, the entire understanding of what it meant to be
"religious" was in limbo. Messianic Jews who had accepted Jesus as their promised one were seeing His
predictions becoming the reality of their own time, and yet as they found themselves living scattered in communities
across the Mediterranean world and beyond with no access to their former friends nor familiar practices they began
to evolve in different ways. New surroundings also brought new realities and they expressed their understanding
of God's connection to all of these things in different ways.
Factions and splits were growing realities. They too were being forced to ponder whether they were connected or
not, and as the Gospel clearly points out it makes a big difference whether we flourish or whither!
This past week I had the opportunity to read the account of a special ministry that greatly affected this country
during WWII. It all happened at a small railroad station in North Platte, Nebraska. In Bob Greene's account "Once
Upon A Town" he tells how generosity and self-sacrifice reconnected a community as part of a commitment to
a greater cause that no one ever anticipated, yet all found themselves a part of. Strangers became family to service
personnel on troop trains from all over the US at great personal expense…simply out of love.
Abide in me, as I abide in you. "Abide" is also not a word we use often in everyday speech now. It calls
to mind the old hymn "Abide With Me" -"Abide with me; fast falls the eventide: the darkness deepens;
Lord, with me abide: when other helpers fail, and comforts flee, help of the helpless, O abide with me."
You might hesitate to adopt its sentiments as a "general guide" to living a Christian life. It is a song
of devotion for the dying: "Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day;"... "Hold thou thy cross
before my closing eyes; shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies: heaven's morning breaks, and earth's
vain shadows flee; in life, in death, O Lord, abide with me." Not perhaps your way of positively affirming
life here and now, and certainly many people feel uncomfortable with putting too great an emphasis in our faith
on what happens when we die. However, we shouldn't diminish the fact that such an abiding sense of God's presence
has been a great comfort to many believers in the face of death.
Good though it is, however, that is not what this text "Abide in me" is all about. You can see that immediately
when you see what comes next. It is about being fruitful in living the life of a disciple of Jesus, and "Just
as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me."
It is about being effective in the mission of Jesus to people living this life with us in this world. It is about
being connected to the source of life, which makes it possible for fruit to be borne. To abide in him is stay in
communion with the Lord of life itself.
The basic idea of the word "abide" in this passage is to stay somewhere, to continue in some place or
relationship or condition or expectancy. So we might continue to dwell or live somewhere, or remain constant in
a relationship. The sense of continuity in belonging somewhere or with someone is central. In that sense it is
about being faithful. In religious terms it is an aspect of faith to remain devoted, to hold to what we believe,
to remain in communion.
So "abide in me" is a call to continue faithfully to live in a trusting relationship with Christ, just
as he will continue to be faithful in his commitment to us.
Such a faithful trust and continuity of commitment, in which people are happy with their belonging, is the very
opposite of alienation in which people feel that they do not belong, that they are no longer at home where they
find themselves. When there has been a breach of trust in a marriage or family relationship people feel alienated
one from another; workers whose loyalty to an employer has been unfairly exploited feel alienated from their work;
if national sentiment is aroused and manipulated in support of sectional interests and unworthy ambitions people
can feel alienated from the country of their citizenship; and even in the church people can feel alienated from
the communion to which they belong when they believe their trust has been violated.
Betrayal of trust is a terrible thing in almost any kind of relationship, especially where the relationship has
been founded mainly on trust. A breach of trust is a breach of honor, belonging and identity. Its consequence in
alienation is the opposite of abiding or staying or continuing to belong. When Jesus called for people to abide
in him he was addressing something very basic in who we are and how we live. There is nothing more relevant to
the modern and especially the post-modern world.
Alienation is the bane of the post-modern world. It pervades much of Western culture now. There is a widespread
feeling that there is nothing worth trusting, out there any great distance from oneself, and even the most intimate
friend or colleague might let you down. It has an ambiguous feel in regard to knowledge even of oneself: on the
one hand people seek to discover and assert a personal identity for themselves, not being content with an identity
ascribed by others, but there is a deep uncertainty even about who we are.
In the cultural revolution of the sixties and seventies they said, "Don't trust anyone over thirty!"
We who were closer to being younger than old then thought it was an _expression of youthful enthusiasm for our
own ways, and perhaps a little over-confidence in our own ability to decide everything for ourselves. Certainly
I thought then that much of our distrust was justified and most of us had a good deal of confidence in our ability
to shape the future. But that confidence is not alienation, only disagreement with the established order. In that
sense we were far from alienated from life or our society in general.
That "Don't trust anyone over thirty" theme was appealing when dressed in the common clothes of freedom;
but it became clear later that the image of casual informality declaring the value of personal freedom, while fairly
harmless in a superficial personal sense, held a political and commercial disguise behind which lay a form of aggression
that people since have sometimes sensed without being able to say just what it was. The point of power in this
don't-trust-the-older-generation was the deliberate promotion of a process of separation in which people were cut
off from their roots and made susceptible to manipulation.
The anchors could no longer hold. Indeed they seemed pointless, and just drifting along might even held appeal,
so that "dropping out" became a way of life for some who never made it back. People who were separated
from their origins, who had lost their roots and were seeking new identities were highly vulnerable to exploitation.
Political revolutionaries were well aware of what they were doing in that respect and commercial entrepreneurs
were later even more deliberate and systematic in their exploitation and reinforcement of that separation of the
young from their cultural roots.
Alienation is a social sickness going far beyond healthy question asking and struggles for allegiance. Ultimate
alienation means that the questions are not worth asking and no one and no thing deserves our allegiance.
The Christian alternative to alienation is communion, spiritual belonging, sharing the new life of God, dwelling
in him, abiding in his love by belonging to Christ, the true vine. It may at times seem like risky business, chance
taking, and foolish beyond belief…but then so was God's love for us at a time when we were totally indifferent
to anything but ourselves. Abiding in Him is abiding in hope…and hope does not disappoint! Not now…not ever! |