Interesting how we say who we are. When two or more guys get together, sooner or later they’ll identify themselves by saying what they do: I’ve always said “I’m a United Methodist minister”, and chuckled as the listeners find different excuses to move away… Church pews are “full” of people who depend upon their surroundings for their identities. Scriptures to be read this weekend speak to those whose purpose for life has waned, encouraging one and all to be identified as Christ-bearers.
A professor once remarked to the class I attended that the book of ACTS was like a pebble dropped into a puddle: the resultant ripples spread until they touched the shore. So we can see that this story–one of my favorites–about Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch (8:26-40) takes the Good News out from Jerusalem to include all the people. (Including me & you) The eunuch could hardly believe that God could love even him! Firstly, he was an official of a foreign power, the Candace of Ethiopia, and an Ethiopian himself; and secondly, he’d been castrated early on to remove any temptation of pilfering royal funds. Cast out from the Jews, who wanted only perfect men; and shunned by the royal court, he had pretty low self-esteem. But here’s a word that Jesus loves him just as he is! “Another man who felt lost and humiliated was found and restored in the wideness of God’s grace in Jesus Christ.” (Thomas G. Long, in FEASTING on the WORD, B 2:458)
I JOHN 4:7-21 urges each one and the community of Christ itself to “love one another”. It doesn’t say to just love God, but urges us to love all that God has created. Wm. Sloan Coffin reminds us that “it is not because we have value that we are loved, but because we are loved we have value.” (THE COURAGE OF LOVE, p.11) This smacks me a good one because I often look through the street-person asking for cash for food, or the guy in the wheel-scooter who hangs out near the Post Office, or you whose job has been terminated. My prayers for my children and grandchildren are that they may find their value and self-worth through those who are around them…
This brings us to the gospel of JOHN, which includes a very meaty exhortation to his friends at the Last Supper. Verses 15:1-8 speak of this love which God has in the metaphor of the Vine and its Branches–that nutrients and other goodness come from the Created Earth through the conduit of Jesus into each leaflet of the Greater Vine. The Vine could be decorative, yet the Gardener expects to harvest good grapes. “Abiding” (used here eight times!) means staying the course, enjoying the reliability of God’s steadfast love. Here is the heart’s true home, a sanctuary from the diddly stuff that grinds us down.
It’s not easy to be part of the Vine of Christ. Pruning does happen, but it makes for better growth. And when the grapes yield their goodness, when the foreign hopeful one is accepted, when the community of Christ throws wide its doors for the disenchanted and the welcome to All is extended–THEN we can know who we are and all Creation can sing, “They’ll know we are Christians by our love!”
My Blog 
Leave a comment