20150503 WILL you?

Your life is not your own, and your acceptance of the Blessing obliges you to bear much fruit as your witness for Jesus Christ. You may be seated.

You realize of course, that the apostolic New Testament Greek word for "witness" is "martyr." Martyrion, martyr. Witness is martyrdom, giving your life for Christ. Is the cost of your life too great a price for you? If the cost is too great, for what are you giving your life now? Because you are martyring your life for something. 

Surely you were not serious Wednesday evening when you told me to preach hellfire and damnation on this Gospel, oh I can do it alright, and call down Dies Irae, the Day of Wrath on the lot of you and, if the Gospel is true, leave the place a ruin of smouldering rubble; but I will not, I will not give you the satisfaction of having made me do it! 

Comes to mind yet one more time again a story I’ve told you before about the Episcopal parish where rector and vestry had called in one of the many church consultants who make their living as Experts from Out of Town. Arriving to conduct a weekend consultation (which is the usual church consulting job format), they meet with a gathering of parishioners, have them count off and break up into small groups of four or five parishioners with an assigned topic to discuss, then come back together in plenary session to give their small group reports while the consultant earns his fee by nodding his head and jotting down notes on a tablet of newsprint. The important thing is The Product: sheets of newsprint that get ripped off and taped to the walls of the room. This happens three or four times over the course of a paid consultant weekend until the walls are covered with newsprint. At the end of the weekend the church consultant tells the members of the parish what’s wrong with them, leaves the newsprint on the walls, collects his check, and somebody drives him to the airport for his flight back to New York City. 

On the occasion I’m recalling (which I’ve reported here before), at the Friday evening opening session in an Episcopal parish, the Church Consultant complimented the members of the church as good and godly people already doing quite well in their ministry. Agitated, consternated, the rector jumped up, and shouted, “My God don’t say such things to them. Half of them are going to hell with their eyes open.” Reading today’s gospel about being cut, gathered, thrown into the fire and burned, I’m worried, and here you are, the post-Resurrection Half of the church. The other half, the Holly & Egg Half, are doing fine, they came Easter Morning and returned home satisfied: evidently the drums not drum drumming for them. 

It’s still Easter: you heard the gospel. If you weren’t listening, you can read it again, it’s right there in your bulletin, Jesus the Vine calling you the Branch to bear much fruit, what does that mean?! What does it mean to bear much fruit? I’m serious: what does that mean? What is it to bear much fruit? It’s metaphorical, isn’t it. It’s a metaphor. If we insist on making it literal we’d have to say “Jesus wants us to make grapes,” that’s nonsense, ridiculous; but no, it’s a metaphor. In fact everything Jesus calls himself and us in John’s gospel is metaphorical. Last week he was the good shepherd and us the sheep; always he’s the Lamb of God, a metaphor recalling the children of Israel that first Passover in Egypt, saved by the blood of the Lamb that was slain; today he’s the true vine and we're the branches; before we run out of scripture, he’ll be living water, bread of life, and the way, the truth and the life.

Right from the start, John’s gospel has Jesus as the master of metaphor: (John 1:1f) In the beginning he was Logos, the creating word, a metaphor already existent in Greek philosophy that Gospel John appropriated to Jesus, staking a claim to eternally preexistent force and power, which therefore is what our Nicene Creed says Jesus is, cosmic force calling creation into being: “In the beginning ... God said, let there be light, and Logos, there was light; and whatever God said, it was so.” 

Like Old Testament prophetic writings, John’s gospel is either elusive poetry or sublime prose, but always metaphor. Can we unravel John’s gospel so it’s effably literal instead of so intensely metaphorical?

When I was growing up in the Episcopal Church we had a tantalizing prayer, the Collect for the Sunday Next Before Advent (in 1970, the pope changed that Sunday to Christ the King Sunday and accordingly all Western Christianity now has a new collect for the day); but in those days we had this wonderful collect, which in fact could and should have been our prayer for today instead of the collect we did pray, which is for another gospel reading altogether. But for today,

Listen!

Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may by thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

It’s still beautifully metaphorical. But in those days we called that Sunday Next Before Advent “Stir Up Sunday.” Ignited by the collect for the day, the custom was to go home after church and stir up the batter and candied fruit for the Christmas fruitcakes. It was in fact an annual pre-Christmas custom in my home when I grew up; and all those years I, being the oldest, was the one called to do the stirring, and the more you stir, the thicker and heavier the batter gets, and the tireder my arm: no metaphor to me, it was literal, God’s truth plain and simple. My younger brother and sister, lazy, pampered babies, children playing outside all Sunday afternoon and listening to Sunday evening radio programs while Bubba, the answer to prayer, was in the kitchen stirring up the fruit of good living, and no metaphor!! That lasted until I went away to college on my 18th birthday -- the fruitcakes probably stopped after that for lack of a stirrer!

How can that old prayer, and Saint John’s Gospel for today, Jesus’ metaphorical call to bear much fruit, be just as true and literal in your life?

Do you pay attention to what you promise in the Baptismal Covenant? To what you stand and promise when we Renew the Baptismal Covenant? Easter is Baptismal Covenant Season, do you pay attention? The baptismal covenant is not chiefly about “believing,” you know, any satanic force under heaven can stand and say “We believe in One God the Father Almighty” -- in fact at James 2:19, Saint James derogates belief with a full blast of sarcasm, “You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you!!! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror,” what are you doing about what you claim to believe? James goes on to say any pious fool can say “'be warm and filled,' what good is that?” Are you caring for suffering people’s physical needs, that’s the gospel. A major political issue in our wealthy day and age. 

There is a foul ball at play in the Christian outfield that jerks a verse out of Scripture and quotes “If you confess that Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised him from the dead, you’ve saved yourself and are as sure for heaven as if you were already there.” That ain’t what it’s about, friends and neighbors, that is a desperate, selfish, depraved perversion of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We are not here to save ourselves into heaven. By the will and love of God, whatever, whenever and wherever heaven may be, you’ll be there in God’s time and eternity because Jesus loves you and for no other reason -- “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” Jesus hopes I love him too, and so I do, not hoping thereby to get myself into heaven, but because he first loved me and gave me life and breath.

Unless life is but a dream, this is no metaphor, this is real. I have this life to live, you have this life to live, live it for the Lord, bearing much fruit to share, because whatever may come after this is God’s province alone. You do not get to take your basket of fruit to St. Peter at the golden gate, Jesus means you to share it today, this week, in the here and now, not in some there and hereafter.

Here’s what it’s all about, then. Lent is over and done: judgment and repentance are behind us,  Alleluia, Christ is risen, this is Easter, the season of resurrection and baptism. Pruned of sin, as Jesus says in today’s Gospel, cleansed by the Word, washed in the blood of the Lamb, you are called to another and ever new chance to bear much fruit: will you do it? Will you?

Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?

Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?

Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Jesus Christ?

Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?

And as your ultimate witness for Jesus Christ in this terrible day and age, Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?

You can with God’s help. But Will you? Will you?

20150503 Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year B

Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City, FL 32401

The Rev. Tom Weller

Text: John 15:1-8