John 15:1-8
Acts 8:26-40
1 John 4:7-21
My sister used to be in
love with John Denver when she was between the ages of 3 and 8. Even if it was after our bedtime and he was
on TV, my parents would come and get my sister to get i[ and see his
performance. Yes, I was jealous! I called her the day he died to express my
condolences and she had forgotten all about that. The readings today reminded me of a song of
his, Take Me Home Country Roads, “Country roads, take me home, to the place I
belong, West Virginia, mountain mama, Take me home, country roads.”
The readings this
morning from the Bible are about roads and points of connection and about going
home. They are about a longing for a
place of belonging, a connection to place, to people, to something greater.
The Reading from Acts
begins with Philip. He is somehow open
to communication from God that asks him to go places without explanation or
maps or anything. This is a relationship
of profound trust that puts him on the country road, the wilderness road. The roads we travel lead us not only to a
destination, but bring us together with others on the road and that’s exactly
what happens between Philip and another child of God, the Ethiopian eunuch. Incidentally, the word “Synod” which we use
in the Lutheran Church to designate groupings of Lutheran Churches means “On
the road together.”
This man from Ethiopia had
some roads opened to him and others closed as he entered the courts of Candace,
queen of the Ethiopians. Being a eunuch
meant he was castrated. That meant he
could be controlled, that certain distractions would be removed. But it also meant that he could serve in a
high position, a court official, the Head Treasurer. His trusted position meant that he had some
freedom to move about, enough time off for a vacation to Jerusalem, enough
money to purchase a scroll of Isaiah, and enough freedom to pursue his unusual spiritual
and religious path. It meant he learned
to read, which gave him tremendous power to think for himself and to seek to
understand.
His spiritual path led
him to this road. He was on his way home
from a spiritual pilgrimage. He was going
home to Ethiopia, wondering how to interpret this scroll, wondering how not to
lose this connection he was feeling. It
turns out his journey is just beginning, because just then he meets Philip on
the country road.
It is likely this man
was interested in this particular passage from Isaiah for a reason. I think he
could identify with what he was reading.
Like the person referred to in the story, he has been sheared and gone
under the knife. He was damaged
goods. He was humiliated and yet he
couldn’t open his mouth—he was powerless to do anything about it. So he was drawn to the one referred to in
Isaiah, he wanted to know him. He wanted
to know that someone else experienced suffering like he did and could
understand his journey. He asks and Philip
explains the good news about Jesus to him.
Immediately, the man sees how their stories are joined and wants to be
grafted into the vine.
Here is water! What is there to prevent me from being
baptized, to finding the place I belong, from being grafted to the true
vine. He had a longing in him and he
finally found a connection that felt like home, so he wanted to take an action,
have the experience of baptism to wash him clean of all that had gone before
and signify his path on a new road to home in Jesus.
I imagine Philip was
baffled. He would have been baffled by
this man’s faith. In one moment he went
from not understanding it, to getting it better than Jesus’ own disciples. This
man didn’t fit the preconceived ideas of who would respond to the Good news. It
was years that Christians argued who could be baptized. Did they have to be circumcised? Did they have to be Jewish first? And still we ask these questions about how to
accept and welcome gender non-conforming people into the fellowship and love of
Christ. This is what this eunuch
was. He was neither male nor
female. He was different. He didn’t fit into most people’s
categories. Philip was certainly baffled
by this. Which box do I check when I
enter his baptism into the records? What
is to prevent me?—in human terms, everything.
In God’s terms, nothing. This man
was another valued branch on the vine and surprise! Philip and all of us, we
don’t have a say, nor should we, about who is on this vine with us. God made each one, loves each one, and prunes
each one. We’re all on this country road
together and God is calling us home.
1 John urges us to love
one another. To love is to stay
connected. It is to put aside any fears
we have of people who are different from us, to put aside our fears of God, and
stand in boldness on the road, remain in boldness connected to the vine. This is good for us, because we often live in
fear and shame. We are not good enough
to be connected to the vine. We don’t
know enough. We’re not wise enough. We’re too sinful. We don’t fit into the categories. But it is God who is our Savior. We don’t save ourselves. It is God’s love that flows through us like
sap, that nourishes our faith and brings us in connection with God and all the
other branches.
The road and vine are
very similar images. Both connect
us. Both convey something, or provide a
means to move along a path. So here is
Jesus in another of the “I am” proclamations (“I am the bread of life, I am the
gate, I am the good shepherd.”) This “I
am” statement links Jesus with God’s utterance to Moses at the burning bush
when Moses asks God’s name and God answers, “I am who I am.” “I am the true vine,” Jesus says. God is the vinegrower. We are branches that are connected to God. We get pruned. Even if we bear fruit, we get pruned to bear
more fruit. I don’t think this means
that people are cut off of that God takes them away from us to teach us a
lesson or get something from us. Rather
we get pruned of every part of us that gets too far from our life-source, from
our true vine, Jesus, and from God the vine-grower. We get pruned of our fears, of our
distractions, of our selfishness, of our materialism, of our prejudices, of our
limited views. Those parts of us that
are unloving, that are asleep, that keep us from seeing the truth, those things
are pruned.
They are pruned that we
may abide, that we may remain, that we would stay connected with source of our
life and power, that would love our siblings on the vine with us, that we would
be part of something greater
At the risk of ruining both a John Denver song and
scripture, I’ve written words to Country Roads.
“True Vine, nourish us, keep us in your love, prune us gently, bring
your Kingdom, Lead us home, True Vine.”
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