Abide in Me

The Reverend Max Lynn, Pastor

Scripture Readings: Revelation Acts 8:26-40, John 4:7-21, John 15: 1-8

 

John’s Gospel leads us toward a mystical union and mystical contemplation of the Christ.  Within the Gospel Jesus says, “I am” something, seven times:

I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger.

I am the Light of the world; he who follows me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life.

I am the gate; if anyone enters through me, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.

I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me shall live even if he dies.

I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through me.

 “Truly, Truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am”

I am the true vine, and my father is the vinedresser.

In addition to these “I am sayings,” I want to throw in one more.  When Jesus speaks with the woman at the well, he says, “the water that I shall give will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Written some sixty years after the death and resurrection, these are likely metaphors of John’s, as John helps to explain Jesus is for us.

It is interesting what these metaphors, particularly what this metaphor of the vine, imply about God and our relationship with God.  There is a tendency to think of God as out there, up there, distinct and separate from the world.  And we tend to think of ourselves as individuals whose identity and actions are distinct and separate from other beings.  John Cobb, a Process theologian out of Claremont School of Theology, calls this substantialist thinking.  This is the idea that the world is made up of distinct substances contained within their own boundaries.  In this substantialist way of thinking, says Cobb, “The good of each is distinct from the good of others.  The good of one may contribute to the good of others or detract from it, but only indirectly.  The most readily drawn conclusion is that relations among individuals are basically competition for scarce resources.

(As a side note,) “In reaction against the consequences of capitalist practice, Marx rejected this individualism.  But he did so by viewing larger units of human beings as substances within which individuals are subsumed.” (Cobb, John. Process Theology. www.religion-online) Thus, the application of Marxist ideas became highly oppressive for the individual.

 

If the primary constituent of reality is process and relation rather than substance, then we see that matter and people are internally related to one another.  Hence, who we are, moment by moment, is affected by those with whom we are in relation with.  Individual well-being is bound up with the well being of the community and visa versa.  “People are neither isolated individuals nor mere parts of a greater whole,” says Cobb.  “They are persons in community.”

The community of which the individual is a part is not only human but also the larger ecosystem of living things.  Essentially, in these “I am” sayings, we see Jesus identifying with life itself.  If Jesus is the bread of life, the gate through which we enter, the resurrection and the life, the way and the truth, it is quite clear that we are not just talking about an individual.  Still, the individual doesn’t cease to exist: the whole is embodied in the individual and the individual in the whole.  And more, the individual is not just an entity in a moment in time but is related both to the past and to the future.  “Before Abraham was, I am.”  That’s deep.  Before Abraham was, past tense, I am, present tense.  The present of Jesus encompasses past.  I am the resurrection and the life: the present Jesus also encompasses future time and even death.  That is a big I AM, yet embodied in a small human being who lived in a certain moment in time.  So we, though we as branches come from the vine, we are new and unique, we take nourishment and strength from the vine, the water and the light, yet we grow in our own creative way.

 

With the dualistic substantialist thinking, the more an act has its origin in one agent, the less it can be the contribution of another.  “If God is responsible for our faith or love, says Cobb, “then we are not responsible for whether we believe or love.”  In process theology, grace and freedom and responsibility coexist. If God is love and the vine, the way, the truth, the water and the light, then all our life is a gift, which comes ultimately from God.  Life is grace.  This gift of life functions, says Cobb, as a call and as empowerment to be and to do what God’s gift makes possible.  But possibility is not actuality.  Just how the creatures actualize themselves in relation to the lure of God is their decision.”  (Ibid) So we come from and are connected in relation to God and others, and yet are free to grow into our own unique branch.

 

Now in dualistic thinking, our decisions consist merely of a yes and a no, either or.  There are yes and no decisions, like the decision of the Ethiopian to be baptized and follow Christ, but most of our moment by moment decisions are made through reflection upon a multiplicity of interrelated and also changing things and past moments: rainfall, wind, shade of other plants, bugs, other branches, etc… So God gives us the possibility and potentiality, and rather than asking whether we made the right or wrong decision we would be better to ask, are we growing, are we actualizing what God makes possible?  Are we approximating or missing the mark?

 

Now if in our freedom we choose to bend away from the direction the God of love encourages us, if we bend away from the light of God and choose to seek revenge rather than love, greed or lust over trust, honesty or health, exploitation rather than coexistence, then we grow further away from the potentiality of God’s grace and our further freedom declines.  When decisions and relations we choose lead us to grow away from the vine, the water and the light, we have less freedom and strength. “When, on the other hand,” says Cobb, “occasions of human experience are sensitively responsive to the new possibilities God introduces, they are able to receive still greater possibilities in the future.  The range of formal freedom expands…the more effective grace is in human lives, the more freedom grows.”  (Ibid) Firmly connected to the vine with roots to living water, growing toward the light of God, we gain more strength and freedom to reach out and bloom in beautiful, creative and fruitful ways.

 

Here is another inspiring conclusion: if Jesus is the vine and we are the branches, then Jesus experiences growth as we grow.  God grows with our decisions and creativity.  God grows as we grow. Both god and creation are in places still growing, still creating, still becoming, still being created. And from this perspective we can understand that if our decisions lead us to grow away from the potentiality of God’s grace, beauty and goodness, then God suffers as we suffer, and those we harm suffer. We limit God’s potentiality as we limit our own.  Thus God may come out as the vinedresser, and give us a clip.

 

While working in the garden, I have noticed an amazing variety of ways plants get carried away.  Some branches are scraggly and scrawny, and their fruit will come out small or dry, or they grow too far out and the branch can’t handle the weight. They are in danger of breaking off and burning out.  Perhaps too, we go way out on a limb by ourselves, leaving God behind, chasing our own personal selfish desires.

Others bushes may grow too thick, and not enough light reaches the fruit, branches or soil, and the vine may be susceptible to mold and decay.  I think sometimes we may have too much clutter, too much stuff in our lives, too much debt, too many leaves and not enough fruit.

 

It is possible that our religion too may have too many leaves of the culture, or the thick leaves of bureaucracy and tradition weigh us down and shut out light.  This week I had the privilege of reading an article on the life and mission of Fred Goff’s parents, James and Margaret Goff who were missionaries in Columbia, Mexico and Nicaragua.  (Gamer, Sam. Rethinking the Experience of American Protestants in Cold War Latin America: the Case of James and Margaret Goff.  Yale University. April 2012) In 1938, James was studying electrical engineering and Margaret dietetics here at Cal.  They were set for a lucrative career and then God trimmed their lives.  While attending First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley, James had a conversion experience and like the Ethiopian grafted his life to Christ.  It is amazing how getting a trim allows the vine to grow back even better, richer and stronger, and produce even more fruit.  They went to Columbia as traditional missionaries, apolitical but generally idealistic about the Church and the roll of the United States in the world.

 

But through the new post, through learning to love the people and culture in which he was immersed, and witnessing first hand how US foreign policy often harmed the people the American public was led to believe we were helping, God trimmed some views which provided opportunity for still more new growth.  James and Margaret were at the forefront of the push to trim foreign missionaries and give leadership of the church over to indigenous people. Weed invasive missionaries and allow the indigenous church vines to grow.  Once the Church is established in Ethiopia, trust that the Ethiopian will evangelize there.

 

James was ostracized for his transformed views and the missionary hierarchy drove him out, so the Holy Spirit whisked him Cuernavaca.  James began to see that Protestant missionaries too often came from North America with too many cultural leaves, promoting capitalism, free enterprise and the acceptance of North American economic and military dominance as the solution to Latin America’s problems, rather than the fruit of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and his concern for the poor and the oppressed.  Grafted to Christ, they began to grow out and see with His eyes, to live sacrificially as he lived sacrificially. They saw that those who say, “I love God,” but hate their brothers and sisters are liars, and they preached with boldness and without fear.

Sometimes the bush can get loaded down with too many leaves and it needs to be thinned out.  At other times there are shoots that shoot straight up from the ground, as if they are vine by themselves.  Some of us may have a conversion of sudden burst of passion for spiritual life, and we burst out ahead thinking we have got it all figured out, we are the vine for the new age, and have no need for the wisdom of mentors or the tradition of Saints.  It is great to get inspired by God’s Spirit to grow, and the old vines may look a little scraggly and have a few ugly knots, and a few too many leaves that need trimming from time to time, but there is rich wisdom underneath their old bark, and with patience to grow upon their shoulders, we see that with them supporting our growth, together we will make rich, full bodied wine.

 

Abide in me as I abide in you. If you have fallen off, allow the vinedresser to graft you onto the vine of Christ. If we have grown long and scraggly or fat and leafy, let us be open to a trim that we may grow back fuller and richer than ever before. Abide in me as I abide in you. God feeds and supports us’ we nourish and support one another; in love we are a branch of God and we are co-creators with God. God grows with our love and creativity. We day we give thanks to God, our source, our being, our destination.