Easter 5B, May 6, 2012

O God of Love, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Judging by my experience at Emmanuel Church, I’m guessing that some of you had strong negative reactions to the Gospel reading just now about the pruning and the non-fruit bearing branches being thrown into the fire and burned. I’m guessing that others among you avoided the discomfort by going somewhere else in your imaginations. I hope, if you’ve heard me preach before, you know that I think it’s all going to be okay. Just stay with me and we’ll get to that!

One of the major organizing principles of the RCL is that churches should be hearing scripture read aloud in a way that lends integrity to the many and various scripture writers’ voices, as opposed to employing small bits of their scripture voices, taken out of context, in service to a theme or to a particular Gospel lesson.

Most of you know that the scripture passages we read in church on Sundays are scheduled by very wide and deep ecumenical consensus according to what is called The Revised Common Lectionary (The RCL). The Common Lectionary of 1983 was revised and published in 1994. One of the major organizing principles of the RCL is that churches should be hearing scripture read aloud in a way that lends integrity to the many and various scripture writers’ voices, as opposed to employing small bits of their scripture voices, taken out of context, in service to a theme or to a particular Gospel lesson.

And the RCL makes great strides toward honoring this principle. BUT, major exceptions to this principle take place during special liturgical seasons: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, and Eastertide. What is left you wonder? Well, not much if you tend to take a break from church for the summer.

I’m a strong proponent of using the RCL, of the discipline of hearing scripture passages I would not choose to have read aloud in a worship service. I’m a lectionary preacher, rarely straying from the opportunity – the huge privilege really — of offering commentary on the appointed texts for the day. And I especially relish the opportunity to look for gems in the rubble. For me it’s like diving into the wreck for treasure[1] – a little hazardous and utterly thrilling. I also love to complain about the lectionary, you know, the way a music critic might assess concert program selections, noticing how they work (or don’t work) to advantage.

In Eastertide, the RCL eschews readings from the Hebrew Bible in favor of stories from the Book of Acts, which is the sequel or companion volume to the Gospel of Luke. I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I appreciate that readings from Hebrew Scripture are not explicitly being employed to prop up resurrection narratives (the way I think they get used to prop up Jesus’ birth narratives during Advent). And I love the portions of the fantastic stories from the Book of Acts of people who were completely carried away by the inspiration of spreading the Good News that the most horrific death had not destroyed the Love of Jesus in God. However, without reading the wisdom of the Tanakh—that is, the Torah or the Prophets or the Writings of the Hebrew Bible—we risk not understanding the content and context of this Good News. The content of the Good News was justice and peace, of healing and freedom from oppression, of radical inclusion and love of the God of Israel, embodied by Jesus, and joyfully experienced by his followers. The context of the Good News was the steadfast love and faithfulness of God so relentlessly proclaimed by the Hebrew Bible scriptures. Without such a proclamation included, we risk imagining that the Good News begins in the first century of the Common Era.

For example, Acts tells the story of Phillip’s encounter with the Ethiopian eunuch. This is a great story. And my favorite line is what in our translation is in parentheses: “this is a wilderness road.” That’s the line that invites you and me to understand that we have something in common with these characters, because we too are on a wilderness road, aren’t we? You might know that eunuchs and anyone with a physical infirmity or irregularity were prohibited from serving as priests according to Leviticus (21:20) and from being admitted to the assembly of the Lord, according to Deuteronomy (23:1). But the Prophet Isaiah declares that God will honor faithful eunuchs. So if I were selecting a reading from the Hebrew Bible for today, I might pair the Acts story with Isaiah 56, which says: “Thus says the Holy Name: Maintain justice, and do what is right…do not let the foreigner joined to the Holy Name say, ‘The Holy Name will surely separate me from the people of the Holy Name,’ and do not let the eunuch say, ‘I am just a dry tree.’ For thus says the Holy Name, to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.”

I love Philip’s question to the Ethiopian eunuch, “Do you understand what you are reading?” It’s a great question because biblical scholars throughout the ages have debated the meaning of this passage from Isaiah without coming to agreement, but Philip is confident that he knows. Philip understands it to be about Jesus. But that takes, what Walter Bruggemann calls “an immense act of imagination” to manage the long discontinuity between this old poem from the sixth century before the common era and Philip’s recent memory of Jesus. It’s not that this part of Isaiah 53 cannot be legitimately read with Jesus in mind, it’s just that a churchy claim that Isaiah refers only or even primarily to Jesus is endlessly problematic.[2] Don’t get me wrong, I like immense acts of imagination, I just think we should spread them around (for the love of God)!

Speaking of the Love of God, the First letter of John (more of an essay than a letter) tells us that love is from God, that everyone who loves is born of God and knows God; that whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. This John is not writing about an abstract theological concept or emotional affect, but actions consistent with right-relationship and peace. Unlike the writer of the Gospel of John and the writer of the Revelation to John, this John opposes the schisms that have torn faith communities apart over theological arguments. This John sees schisms as evidence of the refusal to love one another, of the unwillingness to abide in Love, which is God.

So perhaps when we encounter a text like today’s Gospel, we could pause to remember that Jesus says “do not be afraid” more than anything else he is reported to have said. Perhaps we could employ an immense act of imagination and view the Gospel lesson for today through the loving lens of the First Letter of John. Instead of reading this as justification for splitting off undesirable groups or members of community, as a proof text for excommunicating or shunning, perhaps we could read this as Good News of how the loving vine grower cares for the vines. We could imagine that Jesus is the true vine and, at the same time, know that Jesus is not the only vine.

Here’s where I think we should begin our immense act of imagination: with the idea that this is a teaching about each one of us as a vine, and the idea that bearing fruit means demonstrating love. I can easily admit to you that every branch inside of me does not bear fruit. And I can easily admit to you that there are fruit bearing branches in me that could benefit from pruning to make them bear more fruit. I can appreciate the removal of dead and withered branches in me, you know the trash that gets in the way of loving. I would love to have it cleared. I can give thanks for what has been cleared and burned, used as fuel to warm or cook, or just to create a beautiful fire to watch and wonder. I can believe that I cannot bear fruit by myself; that I need Love in order to be able to engage in loving actions, and that being a disciple of Jesus, for me, has been the way to glorify the Holy Name and to grow in love. I can believe that I need to remove the log from my own eye before I attempt to get a speck out of another’s eye (that’s from different Gospels,[3] but it sounds like Jesus doesn’t it? And I think it applies to the interpretation of this text from John).

If you are in church next week, you will hear the next verses in this 15^th chapter of the Gospel of John in which Jesus says, “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.” This teaching is about how to experience complete joy. (This is not a teaching about achieving smug satisfaction or self-righteousness.) Do you hear me? Jesus is saying that fruitbearing (or loving actions) will appear whenever you abide in love and love abides in you. (“Whenever” is a better translation than “if.”). Whenever you abide in love and love abides in you, request whatever you wish and it will become you. It’s not so much about having, or getting whatever you ask “done.” It’s about becoming more love in Love, the relentless Love of God. And that’s Good News!

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