Category: After Easter

The fruit in love John 15:1-8 Easter 5

I really enjoy a good bottle of red wine, how about you!  In moderation of course.  In fact I enjoy my red wine so much, that I have brought with me part of a vine and some grapes from one of the best vineyards, one of the oldest and best producing vines in the Barossa; Don’t tell Peter Lehmann!  Well, I suppose he won’t mind being a Lutheran himself.

Yes, I enjoy a nice red so much I want others also to share in my joy, so in a few weeks I plan to squash these grapes to make wine and meanwhile I’ll put this vine branch in the sun and wait for it to produce even more grapes for my wine, just like the vine in Peter’s vineyard.

Think I’ve got a hope?  Why?

These grapes are not going to last more than a few days.  Once picked, very quickly they will end up like these (sultanas), what hope have I got to make fine wine out of shrivelled, dead grapes?  And the vine branch?  Is it going to bear any more fruit now that it has been cut off from the vine?  No, not at all.  The vine branch and the fruit lived and produced because they were part of the vine.  Even though it looks like the branches and the grapes are the most important part of producing good wine, in actual fact, it’s the vine that is the life and source that brings forth the fruit.  Without the vine we have only this (sultanas). Who would like to try my wine then?

Using the vine as an image Jesus said ‘”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.’  Jesus is the vine, the way, the truth, the life.  Jesus is the resurrection, the bread of life, the gate through which we enter heaven, the light of the world and the word of God in human flesh, the word that created the heavens and the earth, the word that is Spirit and life.  Jesus describes himself in all these ways throughout his earthly ministry and clinches it with this statement ‘apart from me you can do nothing.’

Why would Jesus say such a thing?  I mean, what does this do to our ego!  Apart from him, we can do nothing.  Sound’s a bit harsh. Let’s look again at this branch and grapes.  They are indeed fine now, why?  Because they have recently been connected to the vine, but give it a few days and they will be shrivelled and dead.  Their life is not in them selves, but in what they are attached to.  As believers and disciples of Jesus, we are these branches and our fruit of the Spirit are the grapes, but we have life only through the vine…Jesus. 

Separate ourselves from Jesus, and we begin to die, and so do our fruits of the spirit, love, hope, peace, joy etc, as Jesus warns ‘you are the branches…No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine’.  Jesus doesn’t say this to hurt our fillings or belittle us, but says it out of love, knowing we constantly feel the need to go it alone; be in control of our own destiny.

Now you might be thinking how is that possible?  He must be talking about the heathens, the non-believers, those who have separated themselves from the vine by rejecting Jesus.  They are the ones in danger of dying. 

Yes that’s true, and Jesus acknowledges this saying ‘You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.’  You are not going to die in your sin.  You are already clean and ready for heaven because of Jesus’ word to you in your baptism ‘your sins are forgiven’. 

By this word, the same word the brought heaven and earth into being, declares you ‘justified’, put right with God, a member of God’s family, or as St Paul describes it ‘you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root’, that is, Jesus.  By being baptised and believing, you are in Christ Jesus and will not die or be cut off from the vine.  You have Jesus word on that! 

This is the danger for us however, in our eagerness to experience, use and explore the gifts of the Spirit, given to us in baptism and through the word, especially ‘mature’ Christians, is we think we are strong and can go it alone.  We think we have the ability to overcome evil, control our sinful desires, and have the spiritual ability to know what God wants for every situation.  We even have the expectation of ourselves, that if we can’t depend on our ‘strong faith’ in every situation, and don’t show our spiritual strength in every issue we face, then we are guilty of not really being a disciple of Jesus, not really worthy of being called a Christian.

To feel ashamed and guilty that you are not the ‘life’ of the church, the strong or wise Christian with all the biblical answers, is a false guilt, is harmful, wrong and has nothing to do with the gospel of Jesus; that’s still operating under the law, under condemnation. 

You are a branch trying to be the vine, which St Paul warns us about ‘do not boast over those branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you.’  Jesus also says ‘do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.’  Rejoice that you belong to the vine.

In the same way, if you or I expect others to never fail, never fall into sin or be ‘as committed’ as we might be’, showing all the gifts of the spirit and making all the right choices, is also wrong.  It is harmful to each other and does not build up, but rather puffs up, as St Paul warns ‘Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.’  We are expecting them to be the vine and not to just a branch that depends on the vine for its life and fruit.  Again, if we do this to one another, we are working under law and not love.

Jesus is the vine who nourishes us and feeds us with his life giving Spirit, through our ears as we read and listen to his word.  He pours his Spirit into our veins, like the vine feeds the branches, as we partake in the Lord’s Supper, so that we can humble love and serve one another.  This is authentic Christianity: That we remain in Christ the vine by feeding on him each day, like a baby suckles for their mother’s milk, through reading his word and by prayer and regular devotions and as we do, Jesus promise always stands ‘Remain in me, and I will remain in you.’ 

Out of this flows the freedom to love; love ourselves for who we are and the freedom to love one another.  We are free because as we live in him and he in us, Jesus liberates us from the captivity of constant anxiety about not being good enough, of trying to ‘go it alone’ against the devil and sin, of having to judge one another, of having to be the ‘strong’ ones; the lone ranger Christian.  This is the real good news, which is echoed in John’s other letter ‘This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.’ 

A baby totally trusts in the love of their mother by relying on them for every feed, for every need to strength them and to keep them alive.  They are weak, but in being weak, they are made strong.   In the same way, in our weakness we are made strong because of the love of Christ who dwells in us.

Let’s say together the first verse of Jesus loves me ‘Jesus loves me this I know.  For the bible tells me so; Little one to him belong, they are weak but he is strong.

Amen

The good shepherd John 10:11-18

Headline grabbers.  Let me list some for you. ‘Bikies united!.  Weapons of mass destruction!  The recession we had to have!  These are some famous headlines.  Headlines are designed to grab our attention, to turn our head and stop us in our tracks.  But have you noticed they say very little?  Have you realized that nothing becomes of a headline?  There’s no facts or substantiated claims.  That’s because a headline is just that; a headline…attention seeking statements meant to sell newspapers.

We could see Jesus statement ‘I am the good shepherd, I lay down my life for my sheep’ as just a headline grabber; a bold but empty statement to get our attention.  We could say that nothing has come of it, but the facts about Jesus being the ‘good shepherd’ are too great to ignore.  Yes, we could say Jesus claim was just a headline, except he acted on his word, went to the cross and died.  We could say Jesus’ words ‘The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life– only to take it up again,’ was an empty boast, but historical fact and substantiated human statements from 500 who saw him, state that he had risen from the grave.

Jesus was crucified, dead and buried and on the third day and rose again from the dead.  We say this each week in the creed.  This is not just an empty saying, a cold and stale statement of history; a headline grabber.  This is what we believe and know is true.  What you and I say in this creed is that Jesus ‘is’ who he said he was.   He is our good shepherd and the good shepherd of every person on earth, whether they know his voice or not.  He is the good shepherd because he lays his life down for the sheep and takes it up again on his own accord.  Just like we might deliberately lay down for a nanny nap knowing we will get up again whenever we want.

Jesus said his is not like a hired shepherd, a false shepherd.  You can imagine the biblical scene of a hired shepherd guarding the sheep grazing the pastures.  A wolf comes, who as we know, can kill both the shepherd and the sheep.  For the sake of his own life, the hired shepherd runs from danger, leaving the sheep to fend for them selves.  The sheep have trusted in a false shepherd and have no hope against such a foe and will certainly be killed.  This sort of shepherd is a headline grabber; a shepherd by name but not by action.

Without Jesus as our shepherd, we are those sheep trusting in a headline grabber, a hired shepherd, as Isaiah says ‘We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way.’  All of us have turned our own way and hired our own shepherd for our souls.  Which means when the devil attacks, either by tempting us to sin, or by making us fear God’s anger and condemnation, our trust for protection and deliverance is in another shepherd. 

If its not in Jesus, we had better find out where our confidence lay for overcoming temptation and the accusations of the devil and get rid of it before it gets rid of us.  Do we trust in our willpower to say ‘no’ or our moral upbringing to stand up to the devil’s attack?  When alone by the computer or TV with easy access to explicit sexual scenes, are we able to withstand temptation to watch by our own hired shepherd of willpower?  Or when tempted to gossip or lie, cheat someone of money or to seek revenge, can we rely on our favourite psychologist to stop us or change our desires?

What hired shepherd do we have to protect us when the devil reminds us of God’s anger against us when we sin? Will our self-justification stand up to God’s judgment? Did Adam’s ‘she made me do it?’  Or our previous good deeds, or upright life ‘I go to church’.  ‘I worked hard to support the ministry of our church!’ be enough to excuse us?

These and any shepherd other than Jesus is a hired shepherd and will desert us to be devoured by the devil and God’s wrath, just like the hired shepherd run when he saw the wolf.  Our headline grabbing shepherds, the ones we have hired, will leave us in an instant.  They have no power to stop us from sinning and no power to save us from the anger of God wrath. 

I heard on the radio news with sadness the other day, of a policeman who was caught in the devil’s attack of sexual attraction to teenage boys.  He tried to get help for his sexual desires by seeing a psychologist and a number mental health nurses.  No one could help him overcome his sin.  Finally, he was caught with pornographic photos of boys and was subsequently jailed; his life and those closest to him now ruined because he sought help from hired shepherds.  All of us have experienced a time when our false shepherd left us all alone to fall into sin; to be attacked by the devil.

St Peter warns us ‘Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.  Resist him, standing firm in the faith’.  How do we resist the devil, sin and temptation and even death?    Standing firm in the faith; faith in the good shepherd of our souls, Jesus Christ.  The true shepherd has overcome the devil by allowing the roaring lion to devour him instead of us, his sheep.  Instead of us paying for the consequences of sin, Jesus took our sin upon himself, voluntarily, and died on the cross, as Isaiah foretold ‘the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”  

The sheep are safe as long as the shepherd is being devoured.  You and I are safe from eternal death because Jesus has died in our place, as St Paul states ‘For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.’  But what happens when the wolf is finished with the shepherd?  Are the sheep left to defend for themselves?  Are we all alone?  Has Jesus died and left us to fend for ourselves against the devil’s continuing attacks?  If so, what was the point of Jesus death in our place?

Jesus is the good shepherd because he is the resurrection and the life.  Not only did he lay down his life for us his sheep, but he took it up again and now he lives to eternally protect us in all places and at all times.  Jesus laid down his life on his own accord to pay the dept of sin, knowing he will rise again to defeat the power of the devil.  ‘I have authority to lay my life down and authority to take it up again.’   Jesus takes up his life to continue to be a shepherd of our souls, only now through his death, resurrection and ascension, he can be with us and protect us every single hour of the day, as he promised ‘Lo, I will be with you always, even to the very end of the age.’

When Peter said ‘resist the devil, stand firm in the faith’, he means to trust that Jesus has paid our dept to sin; for his sake God no longer condemns us.  He means to stand firm, despite the devil and the world attacking us.  To trust that Jesus is alive to be our personal shepherd, available to call on any time for deliverance from evil.  We can be certain Jesus will protect and deliver us because he said

‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.’ And what is even more radical is to trust that he is bodily present in and with the bread and wine to give us the forgiveness we need each day, and to trust that we are actually communing with the good shepherd.  Stand firm then and receive from your good shepherd the peace of God that passes all understanding because even though the devil still attacks us, he cannot steal you away from him, for Jesus is our good shepherd and he is always on guard.