That's the Spirit... of God

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John 14:15-31

May 19, 2013

 ‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

 ‘I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.’ Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, ‘Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?’ Jesus answered him, ‘Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me.

 ‘I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. You heard me say to you, “I am going away, and I am coming to you.” If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe. I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over me; but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us be on our way.

            Do you know the old philosophical question, “if a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” It’s the kind of stupid question we pondered in college, late at night, after a party, when we were feeling kind of philosophical. By the way, the answer to that question is “no,” it doesn’t make a sound. If there are no eardrums to receive the push of air molecules and interpret it as sound, there is no sound; only the percussive movement of air.

           

            There is a spiritual corollary to this question: If the Holy Spirit speaks or acts in our lives, and we don’t hear or notice, does it really speak or act? The answer to that question is “yes.” In fact, generally this is how the Holy Spirit works—without anyone listening or noticing. We often determine God’s presence and action based on whether we see or feel what God is doing. If we don’t feel or see anything, we basically assume it’s because God is too busy elsewhere exploding a star, forming a moon, or dealing with Middle East violence to pay attention to us. What we don’t realize is that most often God’s Spirit acts in ways we never sense or see, and that God is never too busy.

            I learned a lot about how the Spirit works in a series of life events that eventually led to my becoming a pastor. I know I’ve told this story before, but I experienced the Spirit’s way of working back when I was in my early 20s.

            At the time I was working as a therapist in a psychiatric hospital with children and teens. It was a very difficult place to work because of the drama of working with suicidal, violent, and/or schizophrenic kids. I loved the work, but it slowly drained me, mainly because I was working shifts of 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., or 3 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. Both shifts made it difficult to have time with friends, or even to meet new friends, other than those I was working with in the psychiatric hospital. Also, we had had a series of violent male patients who had started riots, and a few who were targeting me for harm. Going into work each day not knowing if I was going to get attacked was hard psychologically.

            In the midst of all this I broke up with my girlfriend of four years, who I had assumed I would eventually marry, so I felt isolated. It all came to a head on my 24^th birthday. I had applied to a number of Ph.D. programs in clinical psychology. When I got home that day I opened my mail and read my last rejection letter from a program I was convinced I was going to accept me. They said that because I had taken two classes at the University of Pittsburgh several summers before, and because they hadn’t received a transcript from Pitt, they couldn’t consider my application. What a Happy Birthday present!

            Feeling sorry for myself, I was cleaning the bathroom when the phone rang. I stood up quickly and hit my head on a cabinet corner, leaving a gash in my head. Blood trickled down my forehead as I answered. It was my father, wishing me a happy birthday. I burst out crying, telling him how unhappy I was, and that I didn’t know what to do with my future. I didn’t want to work as a counselor anymore, I had been rejected by all the Ph.D. counseling programs, I had no money, and I felt trapped. He went on to tell me that he might have an answer. He had met the president of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary a few days before, and was told about a program they had. He said, “Don’t laugh at me, Graham, but he said they have a program where you can get a master of social work (a counseling degree) from the University of Pittsburgh at the same time as a master of divinity degree from the seminary.” I laughed. I then said, “Dad, could you actually see me as a pastor?”  He said, “Graham, I’ve always seen you as a pastor.”  I was stunned, but laughed again, replying, “But I haven’t been to church in eight years. I’ve never even joined the church. How could you think that I would become a pastor?  It won’t happen in a million years.” 

            I eventually moved home and underwent the darkest period of my life. I was unemployed and the unemployment rate in the Pittsburgh area was 12%. There weren’t jobs available. I interviewed for sales jobs in a lot of places, but was told that either there was a hiring freeze or a freeze on training programs. I had walked away from a career in counseling, but I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And every door in front of me seemed to slam shut.

            That February I went to a hockey game with my sister, Connie. She began to ask me why I had left the psychiatric hospital, and why I had moved home the previous May. I told her about all my experiences in the hospital, how burned-out I had gotten, and how I didn’t know anymore what I wanted to do. It was in the midst of that conversation that I realized I did want to go back to school to get my master in social work, and I felt a need to also explore seminary—if only to help me understand spiritual issues that come up in counseling. A few days later I applied to the program between Pitt and Pittsburgh Seminary, and it was as if every door started to open before me. It was amazing. I was experiencing the Spirit fully in my life.

            I learned a lot about the Spirit from that experience. I originally couldn’t hear the Spirit speaking because the Spirit’s invitation didn’t fit my expectations. I figured that if the Holy Spirit was really a good Spirit, then the Spirit would help me get what I wanted. It was my crisis that allowed me to finally listen to and hear the Spirit calling me to do what it wanted.

            This often is how it is with the Spirit. We ignore it, we go through difficulty, we open up, and then we discover Spirit has already been there. Our passage for today is a precursor to the disciples receiving the Holy Spirit. They were looking at Jesus, listening to what he was saying, but they weren’t hearing or understanding. It wasn’t until after Jesus’ crucifixion and death, and their crisis of having everything they believed in collapse around them, that they finally heard what Jesus had been saying to them about the Holy Spirit. When they were with Jesus, the Spirit—Christ’s Spirit—was speaking, but they weren’t hearing.

            I think that one of the problems with our understanding of the Holy Spirit is that we’re not sure what to make of the Spirit. The reason is that we often misunderstand how the Holy Spirit relates with God and with Jesus. The whole idea of the Trinity gets in the way of many people’s really understanding of the Spirit, God, and Jesus. Perhaps a visual might help. Look at the figure below. This is how many Christians and non-Christians understand the Trinity:

            Basically what they think is that the Father is the one who is really God. You can hear this in our prayers. Who do we normally pray to when we pray?  It’s usually God, Lord, or Father. As a result, we don’t know what to do with either Jesus or the Holy Spirit. Are they sub-gods or angel-like beings who help us? Is the Father really the CEO God, with Jesus a vice-president in charge of the department of salvation, and the Holy Spirit in charge of the department of miracles? That’s not really the idea of the Trinity at all.

            The Trinity was an understanding of God that developed out of people’s experiences of God, as well as their relationships with God. It is not a concept of three gods, but an understanding of God who we can form a relationship with each of us in three ways. It might look like this:

           

            The Trinity teaches that we can have a relationship with God as Father, or as Jesus, or as the Holy Spirit. In a way it is like a relationship you might have with me. You have a relationship with me as pastor. As a pastor you experience me in certain ways, and have certain expectations of me. But my wife, Diane, also has a relationship with me as husband. In fact, I don’t think she wants a relationship with me as pastor. I also have a relationship with my kids as Dad. They know I’m a pastor, but they really experience me as their father.

            Despite these three different kinds of relationships, I’m still the same person in all three roles. Despite your relationship with me, I’m more than just a pastor. And the more open anyone is to who I am in my fullness, the richer and deeper a relationship a person can have with me.

            This is the idea of the Trinity. When you have a relationship with God in Christ, you are also experiencing the Father and the Spirit. And when you relate with the Father, you are experiencing the Spirit and Jesus. And when you relate with the Spirit, you are experiencing the Father and Jesus. That fancy word at the center of the diagram, “perichoresis,” is a Greek theological term for the idea that in one person is all three persons. So these are not three gods in one God. They are three experiences and relationships with the One God. And the more open we are to all three, the deeper our experience of God will be. And for us Presbyterians, becoming open to the Holy Spirit can be difficult because we like our God nice, neat, and orderly.

            So what does all this mean to us today? It means that the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, is in us, around us, through us, and for us,… always ready to work in our lives. But we have to be ready to let the Spirit work in our lives. We have to be willing to listen, to open, to be ready, and to follow. Let me close with an example of the kind of thing the Spirit can do if we are open to it.

            Do you know the name, Ken Glaub? I’d be surprised if you did. He’s a radio evangelist who has been in ministry for about 50 years. When he got started as an evangelist in the early 1970s, he sort of had a Christian Von Trapp kind of family, where they travelled around the country offering entertainment through their singing. He had been the pastor of a church in rural Kentucky, but decided to relocate to Yakima, Washington, where he set up a ministry of Christian entertainment and inspiration.

            It was not an easy ministry for him or his family as they spent countless hours traveling the nation’s highways, going from city to city, town to town. At one point, after doing an event in Indiana, he was driving the bus south of Dayton and he wondered if what he was doing really was God’s will. Was he making any difference? He was feeling so burned-out. Was this still what God wanted? He reflected on his life to this point. He had already been fairly successful as a pastor. He had formed a fairly strong radio ministry that reached all over the country. He also was dabbling in a television ministry. At the same time he was drained, despite all of his successes. “God, is this still what you want for me?” he asked. 

            His thoughts were interrupted by his son: “Dad!  Let’s get some food.  I’m hungry!  Pizza, we want pizza!” Ken said okay and started to pull off the highway. He looked for pizza signs and thought to himself, “A sign. That’s what I need, a sign. God, please give me a sign if this is what you want for me.” He was lost in his thoughts and prayers as he pulled into the parking lot of a Pizza Hut. As the people poured out of the bus and rushed into the Pizza Hut, Ken walked slowly across the parking lot, lost in his own thought. From his right, he kept hearing an irritating noise. It was a telephone ringing. A pay phone next to the building was ringing, but there was no one there to answer. 

            Feeling kind of foolish, he walked over to the phone and picked it up. “Hello?” he said, holding the phone to his ear. On the line he heard the operator say, “Long distance call for Mr. Ken Glaub. Is there a Ken Glaub there?” (this was back when operators used to help with long-distance calls). Ken was confused and replied, “I don’t understand. How can you be calling me?” The operator was insistent: “Is there a Ken Glaub there?” “But Operator,” he said, “how can someone be calling me at this number.” The operator persisted, “Are you Mr. Glaub or not? This is a long-distance call.” Finally, he said, “Yes, Operator, I’m Ken Glaub.”

            Then he heard another voice on the line, “Pastor Glaub, this is Millie, Millie from Harrisburg.”  “How did you find me at this number?” he asked. “Isn’t this your office in California?” she said. “No, my office is in Yakima, Washington, but right now I’m at a payphone outside of Dayton, Ohio. How did you get this number?”

            Millie went on to tell her story. Her life had fallen apart, and she had decided to end it all by committing suicide. As she wrote her suicide note, she started to pray:  “Oh God, if only I could talk to that Pastor Glaub I heard on the radio. I know he could help me. O Lord, what should I do?” As she prayed, some numbers came into her mind, and she wrote them down on her note. She finished the note, but then put it aside, deciding to wait a couple of days before going through with her plan. As she did, she kept thinking about those numbers. Finally, she realized that they looked like a telephone number. So, she decided to ask the operator to dial it with the hope that it was Ken Glaub’s number. 

            Stunned, Ken took a deep breath, realizing that the Holy Spirit had just touched him. He spent the next thirty minutes talking with her and giving her the names of people in her area to talk with. Finally, he hung up the telephone. He had just been given a sign from God—from God’s Spirit—telling him that he was doing the right thing. (from Chicken Soup for the Christian Soul, by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, and from Internet sources). 

            This story may sound too fantastic, but is it anymore fantastic than what the Bible says about the Spirit? The fact is that the Spirit is speaking to you and working your life. But are you open enough to discover and experience it?

            Amen.

Who Is Jesus; The Good Shepherd -- John 10:11-18, Rev. Connie Frierson, 5-5-13

John 10:11-18 ‘I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.’ Who Is Jesus; The Good Shepherd -- John 10:11-18, Rev. Connie Frierson, 5-5-13 We are continuing with our series on “Who is Jesus.” All of these sermons are based on the Gospel of John. An interesting thing about John is that this gospel uses seven dramatic “I am” statements. As in I am the Bread of Life, I am the gate, I am the Light of the World, I am the Way, the truth and the Light, I am the Resurrection and the Life, I am the vine, and today’s passage, I am the Good Shepherd. These declarations aren’t actual parables nor are they an allegory but they have similarities to both. Jesus was using what scholars call “symbolic discourse.” It is a mix of symbolism and straightforward talk. But we miss the message if we don’t get the symbol. If we miss the symbol and the message we can be a little lost on what Jesus was saying about how God wants to live with us and in us. So I started to think about how we miss this Shepherding business. We don’t understand sheep and so we don’t understand the Good Shepherd. So where does all this misunderstanding start? I think it starts with beef, beef and childhood. I am truly a product of my childhood. That childhood included lots of TV westerns. I thought Hoss and Little Joe from Bonanza were my big brothers. My cousin, Sally, and I pretended to rope and drive herds of cattle like on Rawhide. Though our playground was a Holstein dairy farm, we were really ranchers at heart. We knew cows. In fact at the age of eleven, I won a major award. At the Dairymen’s Association meeting at the Halstead farm, I won the cow-judging contest. I had watched the judging of 4-H shows since I was little and I could tell a good udder from a bad one. I could look serious and contemplate a cow’s shoulder and flank and how they stood on their legs. Yup. I walked away from that meeting with a little tack box with cow brushes and a gift certificate to the local Dairy Queen. I knew cows. But didn’t have much regard for sheep. I had inherited the cattlemen’s prejudice. While you out there may not be able to tell a heifer from a steer, I bet you know even less about sheep. So when Jesus says, “I am the Good Shepherd.” Do any of us know what that means? Despite our cultural shortcomings we do know some things. All the shepherds I ever met were wearing their bathrobes and a kitchen towel over their heads held in place by shoelaces. We know those Christmas shepherds. They were watching their flocks by night and ‘Lo the Angel of the Lord and a Heavenly Host’ announce the birth of baby Jesus. We know Psalm 23. In fact if I read the words most every one of you would be able to say this Psalm with me. The phrases of comfort and promise are written in our hearts and minds. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. So often we hear this wonderful psalm, but we engage the God of the 23rd Psalm at a child’s eye level. A child’s level can be wonderful. But it can also fall short of the deepest understanding. If we are to understand Jesus as our shepherd maybe we should think of how we understood this as a child and then think of how we can go deeper. As a child here is what I thought I heard. I figured “laying down in green pastures,” meant I had to take a nap. But it was outside so that was cool. I didn’t realize it meant God supplies every good thing we need to live. The “still waters” sounded like a good swimming hole. I preferred my pools clorinated but I was willing to go with still waters if Jesus wanted me to. I didn’t live in the desert so I didn’t think of how life-giving water was. I didn't think of that other promise of Jesus to provide living water. The “valley of the shadow of death” was pretty scary, kind of like cutting through the North Union churchyard when you’re late for dinner and it is getting dark. So I thought it might be good to have the Lord with me. But I didn’t realize that all of the dark spots of life could have God with me too. Nor did I realize how much I would need God presence in that very same cemetery as I buried my father and then my mother and then my husband. Now that “rod and staff” business didn’t appeal at all. I figured it was some religious talk to say I should take my lumps and like it. Rod and staff sounded like a spanking to me. I had no concept of how the shepherd’s crook was a way to rescue the sheep. Or that the staff wasn’t for beating sheep it was for protecting them from wolves. Guess what I got from Psalm 23 was that the Good Shepherd comforts and takes care of us poor dumb sheep. But as a child and later as an adult, I didn’t like to think of myself as a sheep. I was a cowgirl riding the open range by myself, finding adventure and overcoming obstacles my own ingenuity. No real American likes to think of themselves as sheep. But I was thinking of this all wrong. I was thinking with the hubris of a cattle rancher. I was overestimating my abilities and underestimating sheep. I figured every time the bible said we were like sheep. God was calling us dumb. We may not want to name our local sports teams after sheep. But ancient Israel often saw themselves as sheep and God as shepherd. Perhaps they saw themselves with more humility and honesty than we see ourselves. Even more important they didn’t feel shame at being like sheep. Sheep need three things 1) Protection, 2) A flock and 3) A shepherd. Sheep need protection. They have no offensive mechanism and they have no defensive mechanism. Sheep would be bad at war. So we don’t value sheep. But in God’s eyes being bad at war is not a bad thing. Sheep aren’t made for war because the shepherd will defend us. Nothing could be more natural to the Middle Eastern mind that an acceptance that sheep need protection. There is no shame. It is simply a matter of nature and trust. Sheep also need each other. The flock isn’t just a collection of individuals. Sheep are social animals and they require community. This is so true of human beings as well. God made us to be in relationship. The heroic, loner, superman is a modern construction, not biblical. We are not bad because we need each other. That is the way we were created. Lastly and most profoundly, sheep need the guidance of a shepherd. Needing guidance was considered self-evident and natural. Receiving guidance from God and the Good shepherd is righteous, having a right and natural relationship with God. In fact in Middle-Eastern society declaring yourself not in need of guidance would be crazy talk. Given these essentials sheep can do amazing things. They can produce milk and meat and wool on marginal pasture and steep slopes. Sheep are a measure of wealth. Sheep are valuable and by comparing us to sheep God is saying we are valuable. No matter how vulnerable, how in need of the necessities of life, how in need of community and guidance we are valuable. To God there is no worthless sheep. By declaring himself the good shepherd, Jesus was trying to describe a love relationship. But too often we are stuck with the cattle model. Sheep don’t act like cattle. For instance if you herd cattle you drive them from behind whooping and hollering and cracking whips. If you try this with sheep, they just circle around you. You can’t drive sheep. You have to lead them. Sheep won’t go anywhere unless they know someone is out front who knows the way. Isn’t this describe our relationship with God more accurately. Often old time religion has tried to drive and crack whips to herd people to God. But that has never worked in the long run. The relationship between God and humanity must be based on trust and relationship, care not coercion, love, not fear. In the passage today Jesus is not berating the crowd by calling them sheep. Jesus is pointing out one fabulous attribute of sheep. They recognize the Shepherd’s voice. In the Middle East today, just like in Abraham’s day if you meet go to an oasis many different Bedouin flocks will come and mingle at the water. The shepherds don’t try to split them up or keep them apart. They calmly mingle. But when the Bedouin shepherd decides to leave he merely has a distinctive call or whistle. And his flock will follow. The sheep know the shepherd’s voice. This knowing is an ongoing relationship of trust. This “knowing” isn’t the result of vast esoteric or secret knowledge. This knowing is the result of hours of familiarity, a history of safe passage and supplying everything we need. This knowing recognizes the inner call of the shepherd. This knowing the Shepherd’s voice is what we all are listening for. Jesus doesn’t just say I am the Good Shepherd. He gives the job description. The people in Jesus day would hear the echo of Psalm 23 in their heads. They knew how the shepherd leads and supplies pasture and water and protection. But Jesus adds the essential element of the Good Shepherd, “He lays down his life for the sheep.” When Jesus says he is the Good Shepherd, the word he uses is kalos. This means not just a good vs. bad shepherd. It means the model, the best, the supreme, and the ideal. The contrast of the hireling who runs from danger is a warning and a foil for what Jesus is doing. This is wear the metaphor becomes mixed with prophecy and fact. For in this passage Jesus is no longer using an extended metaphor. Jesus is taking this abstract idea of the Good Shepherd and bringing it into a gritty material world and events in the immediate future. Jesus is has jumped the fence from the pretty picture of sweet grass and clear water to a real fight for our lives. Our response is to jump into that same real salvation and rescue and healing or to wander away. Amen.

Who Is Jesus? The Bread of Life – John 6:25-40, Rev. Connie Frierson, 4-21-13

John 6:25-40 When they found him on the other side of the lake, they said to him, ‘Rabbi, when did you come here?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.’ Then they said to him, ‘What must we do to perform the works of God?’ Jesus answered them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.’ So they said to him, ‘What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, “He gave them bread from heaven to eat.” ’ Then Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.’ They said to him, ‘Sir, give us this bread always.’ Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away; for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.’ Who is Jesus? The Bread of Life I have a routine that I go through with the boys about twice a week. See if this seems familiar to you. I am stumped about what to make for dinner. And then I ask the question, “So what are you hungry for?” Now by the time I ask this question I am already out of ideas. And the boys know this. I have made the everyday entrée’s of tacos and roasted chicken and broiled salmon and chili. I have a pantry full of staples but none of it seems to fit. I’m asking for a lifeline here and, as my boys are not menu planners, they usually respond with something like, “Uh. Hmm. I don’t know.” If I ask the question “What are you hungry for” They might answer honestly and say, “Let’s have Cinnamon buns or cake and ice cream or Nanny’s Spaghetti and Meatballs that need to simmer for six hours.” But by the time I ask the question it is already too late to meet the heartfelt need. Heck, I might as well just skip the searching all together and go directly to ordering pizza. But then I started turning in my mind this question, “What are you hungry for.” Gosh that question, “What are you hungry for?” is as profound as it is practical. We are asking who Jesus is in this sermon series. Jesus is the one who let’s us ask this profound question “what are we hungry for.” and gives us the answer that nourishes. Jesus is profound and practical. Jesus is the master of taking the concrete and helping us to see the spirit, taking our fleshy, physical selves and helping us to answer the cry of the soul. In our passage today we have one of the answers; Jesus says he is the bread of life. But perhaps in our land of plenty we don’t understand quite what Jesus is saying. So let’s look at what the people of Jesus time ate and then we may have some insight into this Bread of Life. The world of ancient Palestine was a bread culture. If Jesus had been speaking to an Asian culture perhaps he might have said, “I am the rice bowl of life.” And in paraphrases of missionaries to Asian cultures that his how this passage might be adapted. But in a bread culture Jesus spoke to a thought pattern and a heritage that valued bread above all else. Bread was the most important part of the meal. In our culture, when we go to a restaurant we generally focus on what kind of entrée we’re going to order, The basket of bread on the table is usually secondary. In Jesus’ day, meat was a side dish, often meat that was sauced so bread was dipped but bread was never overshadowed like our modern entrée. If we look at our own culture we might say we are a beef culture or maybe a snack culture, or even worse a Twinkie culture. But we once were a bread culture and have old memories so we understand in part, but not the whole loaf. Here are some of the images that this Bread of Life metaphor would have conjured. When Jesus says that he is the bread of life, he is saying that he is the most important part of life. Jesus is saying, “I am central. I am necessary. I am so basic and foundational to life that you have an urgent need of me. But there is more. Everyone had access to bread. Poorer people used barley to make bread while the wealthier used wheat, but most everyone had the means to make or buy bread. By using this metaphor, Jesus is saying that He is available to everyone. Jesus did not say, “I am the Filet Mignon of Life. I am the champaigne of life. I am only for the wealthy or for those who have their life in order or only for the successful, or the religious. Jesus said, “I am the bread of life and I am for everyone. In the Middle East, hospitality was taken very seriously. And bread was the means of fellowship. When you broke bread with someone, you were friends for life. You created obligations by sitting down together. To break bread together meant there is peace between us and I will care for you. As a host at a dinner, you pledged to protect, defend and care for your guest. Jesus likewise offers a friendship, care and concern by sharing in this bread of life that will never end. Bread symbolizes God’s presence. Bethlehem means the “house of Bread,” and the temple was continually filled with the show bread. This can be interpreted as “show up bread” or in Hebrew terms, “face bread.” This bread was a heavenly symbol of God himself, and a reminder to his people that every time they eat bread, they should think of him. Interestingly, if a person would see a scrap of bread on the road, he would pick it up and put it on a tree branch for the birds to eat. Bread was never to be trampled under foot in the common dust because it carries with it an element of mystery and sacredness. This is the culture that Jesus was talking to a culture that sees bread as necessary, for everyone, the main thing, a way to intimate friendship and above all sacred. When Jesus says he is the bread of life he is saying, the presence of God is in me and I am for you, with you, intimate with you and sacred. But the people of Jesus day were just as focused on just the material world as we are. Despite this culture that has all these fabulous associations with bread, the crowds that followed Jesus were still focused just on the physical. And they had good reason to be focused on bread. Earlier in this very chapter Jesus fed the 5,000. Jesus took a little boy’s lunch, 5 barley loaves and 2 sardines and multiplying it so much there were 12 baskets left over. The crowd is now following closely looking for breakfast, for a miracle, for another miraculous sign. But Jesus is trying to take their preoccupation with the physical and lift it into something more profound. Jesus is trying to move us from our preoccupations to look to him as the answer to the supreme hunger. What is this supreme hunger? St. Augustine said that every person has a God-shaped hole in his soul. We can attempt to fill that cavity with a host of other things, but finally nothing satiates our hunger for significance, peace and comfort except Jesus. We all try to make the physical answer the big needs of the heart. So we look for externals to feed our internals. But money can buy you a house, but not a home; money can buy you an education, but not wisdom; money can buy you a bed, but not restful sleep; money can buy you influence, but not respect; it can buy you medicine, but not health; a spouse, but not love; quiet, but not tranquility The answer to supreme hunger is right under our noses, as ordinary on the outside as bread but as vital as the breath of life. In his best selling book called, “Into Thin Air,” Jon Krakauer relates the hazards that plagued some climbers as they attempted to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Andy Harris, one of the expedition leaders stayed at the peak too long and on his descent, he became in dire need of oxygen. Harris radioed the base camp and told them about his predicament. He mentioned that he had come across a cache of oxygen canisters left by the other climbers but they were all empty. The climbers who already passed the canisters on their own descent knew they were not empty, but full. They pleaded with him on the radio to make use of them but it was to no avail. Harris was starved for oxygen but he continued to argue that the canisters were empty. The problem was that the lack of what he needed had so disoriented his mind that though he was surrounded by something that would give him life, he continued to complain of its absence. This is so like our own situation. We are starved for God, but our God starvation disorders our spirit so that we refuse to believe God can be found. We have a yearning for the Bread of Life. But sometimes we just settle for just bread. In his book entitled “God’s Psychiatry”, Charles Allen tells this story. As World War II was drawing to a close, the Allied armies gathered up many hungry orphans. They were placed in camps where they were well fed. Despite excellent care, they slept poorly. They were nervous and afraid. Finally, a psychologist came up with the solution. Each child was given a piece of bread to hold after he was put to bed. This particular piece of bread was just to be held—not eaten. The piece of bread produced wonderful results. The children went to bed knowing instinctively they would have food to eat the next day. That guarantee gave the children a restful and contented sleep. We hold things too to help us sleep. Remember that question, “What are you hungry for?” If you asked me I might answer, “I am hungry for homemade bread, like my mom made. Most weeks as I was growing up, my mother would make bread. I can remember hundred’s of moments when I sat at the counter and watched mom’s strong blunt hands knead the bread. This bread was ever present in my early years. It might not be the best bread. It wasn’t whole wheat. It didn’t have wheat germ added. It certainly was not fashionable artisan bread. But it meant love and security and dear memories to me. So in the years following my mom’s death, I made this bread almost weekly. I was like those orphan children holding the bread to help me sleep. But as time went on and my faith grew I was able to let go of making that bread. I could let go because I experience the bread of life. I experience God’s love and care for me. The Bread of Life healed me of that grief. I was able to entrust my mom to God. I was able to entrust my own life to God. And then I didn’t need to make that bread anymore, unless it was just for memories sake. God really does want us to be able to eat our fill, to fill our stomachs and not be hungry. But Jesus wants us to move beyond, our preoccupations with the physical, or with whatever trick we have jerry-rigged to make our life work. God wants more for us than even we want for us. So the Bread of Heaven has come down for us. “Taste and see that the LORD is good,” Amen.

That's the Spirit... of God

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John 14:15-31

May 19, 2013

 ‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

 ‘I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.’ Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, ‘Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?’ Jesus answered him, ‘Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me.

 ‘I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. You heard me say to you, “I am going away, and I am coming to you.” If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe. I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over me; but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us be on our way.

            Do you know the old philosophical question, “if a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” It’s the kind of stupid question we pondered in college, late at night, after a party, when we were feeling kind of philosophical. By the way, the answer to that question is “no,” it doesn’t make a sound. If there are no eardrums to receive the push of air molecules and interpret it as sound, there is no sound; only the percussive movement of air.

           

            There is a spiritual corollary to this question: If the Holy Spirit speaks or acts in our lives, and we don’t hear or notice, does it really speak or act? The answer to that question is “yes.” In fact, generally this is how the Holy Spirit works—without anyone listening or noticing. We often determine God’s presence and action based on whether we see or feel what God is doing. If we don’t feel or see anything, we basically assume it’s because God is too busy elsewhere exploding a star, forming a moon, or dealing with Middle East violence to pay attention to us. What we don’t realize is that most often God’s Spirit acts in ways we never sense or see, and that God is never too busy.

            I learned a lot about how the Spirit works in a series of life events that eventually led to my becoming a pastor. I know I’ve told this story before, but I experienced the Spirit’s way of working back when I was in my early 20s.

            At the time I was working as a therapist in a psychiatric hospital with children and teens. It was a very difficult place to work because of the drama of working with suicidal, violent, and/or schizophrenic kids. I loved the work, but it slowly drained me, mainly because I was working shifts of 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., or 3 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. Both shifts made it difficult to have time with friends, or even to meet new friends, other than those I was working with in the psychiatric hospital. Also, we had had a series of violent male patients who had started riots, and a few who were targeting me for harm. Going into work each day not knowing if I was going to get attacked was hard psychologically.

            In the midst of all this I broke up with my girlfriend of four years, who I had assumed I would eventually marry, so I felt isolated. It all came to a head on my 24^th birthday. I had applied to a number of Ph.D. programs in clinical psychology. When I got home that day I opened my mail and read my last rejection letter from a program I was convinced I was going to accept me. They said that because I had taken two classes at the University of Pittsburgh several summers before, and because they hadn’t received a transcript from Pitt, they couldn’t consider my application. What a Happy Birthday present!

            Feeling sorry for myself, I was cleaning the bathroom when the phone rang. I stood up quickly and hit my head on a cabinet corner, leaving a gash in my head. Blood trickled down my forehead as I answered. It was my father, wishing me a happy birthday. I burst out crying, telling him how unhappy I was, and that I didn’t know what to do with my future. I didn’t want to work as a counselor anymore, I had been rejected by all the Ph.D. counseling programs, I had no money, and I felt trapped. He went on to tell me that he might have an answer. He had met the president of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary a few days before, and was told about a program they had. He said, “Don’t laugh at me, Graham, but he said they have a program where you can get a master of social work (a counseling degree) from the University of Pittsburgh at the same time as a master of divinity degree from the seminary.” I laughed. I then said, “Dad, could you actually see me as a pastor?”  He said, “Graham, I’ve always seen you as a pastor.”  I was stunned, but laughed again, replying, “But I haven’t been to church in eight years. I’ve never even joined the church. How could you think that I would become a pastor?  It won’t happen in a million years.” 

            I eventually moved home and underwent the darkest period of my life. I was unemployed and the unemployment rate in the Pittsburgh area was 12%. There weren’t jobs available. I interviewed for sales jobs in a lot of places, but was told that either there was a hiring freeze or a freeze on training programs. I had walked away from a career in counseling, but I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And every door in front of me seemed to slam shut.

            That February I went to a hockey game with my sister, Connie. She began to ask me why I had left the psychiatric hospital, and why I had moved home the previous May. I told her about all my experiences in the hospital, how burned-out I had gotten, and how I didn’t know anymore what I wanted to do. It was in the midst of that conversation that I realized I did want to go back to school to get my master in social work, and I felt a need to also explore seminary—if only to help me understand spiritual issues that come up in counseling. A few days later I applied to the program between Pitt and Pittsburgh Seminary, and it was as if every door started to open before me. It was amazing. I was experiencing the Spirit fully in my life.

            I learned a lot about the Spirit from that experience. I originally couldn’t hear the Spirit speaking because the Spirit’s invitation didn’t fit my expectations. I figured that if the Holy Spirit was really a good Spirit, then the Spirit would help me get what I wanted. It was my crisis that allowed me to finally listen to and hear the Spirit calling me to do what it wanted.

            This often is how it is with the Spirit. We ignore it, we go through difficulty, we open up, and then we discover Spirit has already been there. Our passage for today is a precursor to the disciples receiving the Holy Spirit. They were looking at Jesus, listening to what he was saying, but they weren’t hearing or understanding. It wasn’t until after Jesus’ crucifixion and death, and their crisis of having everything they believed in collapse around them, that they finally heard what Jesus had been saying to them about the Holy Spirit. When they were with Jesus, the Spirit—Christ’s Spirit—was speaking, but they weren’t hearing.

            I think that one of the problems with our understanding of the Holy Spirit is that we’re not sure what to make of the Spirit. The reason is that we often misunderstand how the Holy Spirit relates with God and with Jesus. The whole idea of the Trinity gets in the way of many people’s really understanding of the Spirit, God, and Jesus. Perhaps a visual might help. Look at the figure below. This is how many Christians and non-Christians understand the Trinity:

            Basically what they think is that the Father is the one who is really God. You can hear this in our prayers. Who do we normally pray to when we pray?  It’s usually God, Lord, or Father. As a result, we don’t know what to do with either Jesus or the Holy Spirit. Are they sub-gods or angel-like beings who help us? Is the Father really the CEO God, with Jesus a vice-president in charge of the department of salvation, and the Holy Spirit in charge of the department of miracles? That’s not really the idea of the Trinity at all.

            The Trinity was an understanding of God that developed out of people’s experiences of God, as well as their relationships with God. It is not a concept of three gods, but an understanding of God who we can form a relationship with each of us in three ways. It might look like this:

           

            The Trinity teaches that we can have a relationship with God as Father, or as Jesus, or as the Holy Spirit. In a way it is like a relationship you might have with me. You have a relationship with me as pastor. As a pastor you experience me in certain ways, and have certain expectations of me. But my wife, Diane, also has a relationship with me as husband. In fact, I don’t think she wants a relationship with me as pastor. I also have a relationship with my kids as Dad. They know I’m a pastor, but they really experience me as their father.

            Despite these three different kinds of relationships, I’m still the same person in all three roles. Despite your relationship with me, I’m more than just a pastor. And the more open anyone is to who I am in my fullness, the richer and deeper a relationship a person can have with me.

            This is the idea of the Trinity. When you have a relationship with God in Christ, you are also experiencing the Father and the Spirit. And when you relate with the Father, you are experiencing the Spirit and Jesus. And when you relate with the Spirit, you are experiencing the Father and Jesus. That fancy word at the center of the diagram, “perichoresis,” is a Greek theological term for the idea that in one person is all three persons. So these are not three gods in one God. They are three experiences and relationships with the One God. And the more open we are to all three, the deeper our experience of God will be. And for us Presbyterians, becoming open to the Holy Spirit can be difficult because we like our God nice, neat, and orderly.

            So what does all this mean to us today? It means that the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, is in us, around us, through us, and for us,… always ready to work in our lives. But we have to be ready to let the Spirit work in our lives. We have to be willing to listen, to open, to be ready, and to follow. Let me close with an example of the kind of thing the Spirit can do if we are open to it.

            Do you know the name, Ken Glaub? I’d be surprised if you did. He’s a radio evangelist who has been in ministry for about 50 years. When he got started as an evangelist in the early 1970s, he sort of had a Christian Von Trapp kind of family, where they travelled around the country offering entertainment through their singing. He had been the pastor of a church in rural Kentucky, but decided to relocate to Yakima, Washington, where he set up a ministry of Christian entertainment and inspiration.

            It was not an easy ministry for him or his family as they spent countless hours traveling the nation’s highways, going from city to city, town to town. At one point, after doing an event in Indiana, he was driving the bus south of Dayton and he wondered if what he was doing really was God’s will. Was he making any difference? He was feeling so burned-out. Was this still what God wanted? He reflected on his life to this point. He had already been fairly successful as a pastor. He had formed a fairly strong radio ministry that reached all over the country. He also was dabbling in a television ministry. At the same time he was drained, despite all of his successes. “God, is this still what you want for me?” he asked. 

            His thoughts were interrupted by his son: “Dad!  Let’s get some food.  I’m hungry!  Pizza, we want pizza!” Ken said okay and started to pull off the highway. He looked for pizza signs and thought to himself, “A sign. That’s what I need, a sign. God, please give me a sign if this is what you want for me.” He was lost in his thoughts and prayers as he pulled into the parking lot of a Pizza Hut. As the people poured out of the bus and rushed into the Pizza Hut, Ken walked slowly across the parking lot, lost in his own thought. From his right, he kept hearing an irritating noise. It was a telephone ringing. A pay phone next to the building was ringing, but there was no one there to answer. 

            Feeling kind of foolish, he walked over to the phone and picked it up. “Hello?” he said, holding the phone to his ear. On the line he heard the operator say, “Long distance call for Mr. Ken Glaub. Is there a Ken Glaub there?” (this was back when operators used to help with long-distance calls). Ken was confused and replied, “I don’t understand. How can you be calling me?” The operator was insistent: “Is there a Ken Glaub there?” “But Operator,” he said, “how can someone be calling me at this number.” The operator persisted, “Are you Mr. Glaub or not? This is a long-distance call.” Finally, he said, “Yes, Operator, I’m Ken Glaub.”

            Then he heard another voice on the line, “Pastor Glaub, this is Millie, Millie from Harrisburg.”  “How did you find me at this number?” he asked. “Isn’t this your office in California?” she said. “No, my office is in Yakima, Washington, but right now I’m at a payphone outside of Dayton, Ohio. How did you get this number?”

            Millie went on to tell her story. Her life had fallen apart, and she had decided to end it all by committing suicide. As she wrote her suicide note, she started to pray:  “Oh God, if only I could talk to that Pastor Glaub I heard on the radio. I know he could help me. O Lord, what should I do?” As she prayed, some numbers came into her mind, and she wrote them down on her note. She finished the note, but then put it aside, deciding to wait a couple of days before going through with her plan. As she did, she kept thinking about those numbers. Finally, she realized that they looked like a telephone number. So, she decided to ask the operator to dial it with the hope that it was Ken Glaub’s number. 

            Stunned, Ken took a deep breath, realizing that the Holy Spirit had just touched him. He spent the next thirty minutes talking with her and giving her the names of people in her area to talk with. Finally, he hung up the telephone. He had just been given a sign from God—from God’s Spirit—telling him that he was doing the right thing. (from Chicken Soup for the Christian Soul, by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, and from Internet sources). 

            This story may sound too fantastic, but is it anymore fantastic than what the Bible says about the Spirit? The fact is that the Spirit is speaking to you and working your life. But are you open enough to discover and experience it?

            Amen.

Who Is Jesus? The Vine.

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John 15:1-11

May 12, 2013

I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

            One of the things I find really interesting about the Jesus’ teachings is how he used examples from the world around him so effectively. Jesus lived in a mostly agrarian culture, and he taught the people using nature. He talked about how the life of faith is like sowing seeds, how we are like sheep, how faith is like a mustard seed, how reaching others is like fishing, and so much more.

            Jesus was especially insightful in his use of vineyards and winemaking to teach people about the spiritual life. He used vineyards as a metaphor a number of times, and for good reason. Drinking wine was central to life in the Middle East. What most people don’t realize is that back in Jesus’ day people didn’t really drink water much, unless it came straight from a deep well. Water that sat for too long was quickly filled with parasites and germs. Instead, they drank wine—even the children.

            Their wine was different from the wine we might drink today. It was more like a wine syrup, except for special wines, such as sacramental or ceremonial wines, which were drunk for religious events and celebrations. The typical wine syrup would be mixed with water and heavily diluted. The wine they drank daily wasn’t very strong, but strong enough to kill germs. So wine was drunk throughout the day because it was considered healthier.

            They also had a different attitude about drinking. They believed that wine was a gift from God to enhance relationships, but they also believed that drunkenness was a sin. To get drunk accidently was considered a shame. To get on a more regular basis was bad. To get drunk constantly was sinful and could be grounds to be ostracized by family and community. Our culture often revels in how much fun it is to get drunk. Jesus’ culture believed that drunkenness was an abuse of God’s gift. They were much more responsible in their attitude toward alcohol. So when Jesus talks about wine, he’s talking to them about something they considered a gift from God to be treated responsibly and lovingly.

            When Jesus talked wine, people listened. And when he used vineyards and vines as a metaphor, people understood.

            Personally, I find the art of winemaking to be very interesting. Diane and I first became interested in it when we went to California for our honeymoon. Neither of us had travelled much before then, so going to the West Coast was a big thing for us. We went to San Francisco, Carmel/Monterrey, Sonoma/Napa valleys, and then to Oregon and Seattle. While we were in the wine country, we learned a lot about the art of winemaking. We’ve continued to return there about every four to five years since.

            Through our continued trips to California wine country, we’ve learned a lot about vineyards—lessons that have taught me about the spiritual life, too. From these trips I realized that Jesus was onto something in terms of using vineyards and wine as a metaphor.

            One of the biggest lessons I learned, that relates to our spiritual lives, has to do with why the best wines are grown in places like Southern France, California, Australia, Chile, and Argentina. All of those wine-growing areas are similar in that they are arid areas. They get very little summer rainfall. Typically they are close enough to lakes, rivers, or oceans that thick layer of fog engulfs the vineyards each night, allowing the vines to absorb moisture. The fog doesn’t provide enough moisture, so their roots have to dig deep in search for groundwater. The roots can go as deep as 75, 100, 125, or even 150 feet down. It’s this digging deeper that gives the wines their character and complexity. It gives the grapes and the wines what the French call “terroir.” Terroir is the flavor that comes into the grapes from the soil, the rocks, the limestone, the chalk, and anything else that might be deep in the ground. Great wines become great because they face great stress, which forces them dig their roots deeper.

            The table grapes in our kitchens come from soil-rich and water-plentiful regions like Lake Erie. These grapes burst with juice and are great for eating, but lousy for wine. Too much water. Too little stress. Great wines come from regions of great stress that produce great character.

            What I learned from this spiritually is that often it is the crises and stress of life that causes us to dig deeper into faith and God. In fact, if you talk to people about when they experienced God the most deeply, they often talk about a crisis they went through when they had to surrender to God. It was then that they discovered God deeply in their lives.

            I think that the lack of stress and crisis in their lives is often what’s responsible for younger people to not feel the need for God or church in their lives. I had a professor who often said that no one really grows till they get past age forty. The reason is that it’s not until we get that old that we experience enough struggling to actually feel a need for God. We don’t feel a need to dig deeper until life events cause us to realize how shallow we are.

            Using vineyards as a metaphor, Jesus taught his disciples and us something profound about him, us, and our relationship with God. He taught three essential lessons in our passage for this morning:

1. How God’s grace works in and through us.
2. How God uses life to prune us.
3. How we find Joy in life.

1. How God’s grace works in and through us:  I have a quick quiz for you. Don’t look at the answer yet: What does a branch have to do to produce fruit?

            If you guessed that the branch needs to bud, that would be wrong. Budding just happens. The branch isn’t in control of it. If you guessed that the branch needs to get sunlight, that too is out of its control. The branch can’t force sunlight to shine on its leaves. The vine is either planted in the sun or not. If you guessed that it needs good soil, that’s not the responsibility of the branch. Only the vinegrower can determine the soil of the planting.

           

            The answer is that all the branch needs to do to produce fruit is to make sure it’s connected to the vine. As long as a branch is connected to the vine, sap flows freely through the branch and produces fruit. That’s it. Just keep connected to the vine and the branch bears fruit.

            This is one of the messages of our passage. Our main responsibility is to remain grafted to Christ, and if we do, grace will just flow naturally through our lives. When that happens, the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control) grows plentifully in and through us.

            The great 19^th century mystic, Hannah Whitall Smith, has a great metaphor for this.  She says, “The trouble with [most people’s faith] is simply this:  they are trying to grow into grace instead of in it.  They are like a rosebush planted by a gardener in the hard, stony path with a view to its growing into the flower bed, and which has of course dwindled and withered in consequence instead of flourishing and maturing... In order to grow in grace it is necessary to be planted in grace...  [When] once planted in grace, the growth of the spiritual life becomes vigorous and rapid beyond all conceiving.  For grace is a most fruitful soil, and the plants that grow therein are plants of a marvelous growth.” 

           

            Basically, she’s saying that our problem is that we are always trying to get grace to work in our lives, hoping that God will bless us if we just do the right things and act the right way. Instead, if we just make sure we are open to God’s grace, then we end up naturally doing the right things and acting the right way. It’s a reversal of the ways we typically think.

           

            The Christian writer, teacher, and found of Liberty University, Elmer Towns, tells of a time when he discovered this grace working in his life. He says that, “My wife and I went through college by faith. If we had not prayed together daily through all our difficulties, I don't know how we would have made it. I earned $1 an hour for driving a school bus, which was just enough to pay for our necessities, but there wasn't even a dime left over for a Coca-Cola.

            “One evening the only thing in the kitchen cabinet was a can of tuna, so my wife served a tuna casserole. As we clasped hands to thank God for the food, I prayed, "God, you know we are broke. You know it's two days until payday. You know we are willing to fast until we get money, but we ask you to please take care of our needs."

            “As we finished praying, the laundry man came to the door. Ruth met him to say, ‘No laundry today; we can't afford to have anything cleaned.’ But he had not come to pick up our cleaning. The laundry man explained, ‘A few months ago your landlord asked me to pass along $20 to you to pay for having thawed the pipes for him. I had forgotten about it until today.’

            “Some might say this was a coincidence, but Ruth and I say that our prayer together reminded the laundry man that he had $20 for us. He had been sent by God.” This is the kind of thing that happens when we remain grafted to the vine.

2. How God uses life to prune us: While fruit is naturally born in branches connected to the vine, any good vinegrower knows that the branches need to be pruned back. If not, too many leaves are produced, which prevents the flow of air through and around the branches. Also, branches are pruned back so that you can create a more limited number of great grapes, rather than a great number of mediocre grapes. The more a branch is pruned back over the winter, the more energy can be devoted to a smaller amount of fruit in the summer. The pruning of what’s unnecessary allows for the growth of what’s necessary.

            A similar principle of pruning is part of our lives, too. I believe that God has created life in a way that offers the conditions for us to have to decide whether or not we choose God. Life is full of difficulty, and I think that this may have a purpose. Our struggles force us to prune back our lives, or let God prune back our lives. Prunings are the difficult experiences we have in life that push us to make a decision either for or against God. These are the experiences that push us to make hard life decisions to give up ways of living that both interfere with a healthy life, and with a healthy relationship with God. The reality of becoming mature is that we often have to give up attitudes, behaviors, and habits in order to live a better life. The same is true spiritually. To form a deep relationship with God requires that we give up everything that interferes with this.

            What’s hard is that the real pruning of branches and vines, and of life, can be harsh and feel like it takes so long. For instance, do you know how long it takes for a grape vine to even be allowed to grow fruit? When a vine is planted, the farmer lets it grow the first season, and then cuts it back almost to the root. The next year it grows again, and then is cut back almost to the root. Each year, for anywhere between four and six years, the vine is cut back. It is only in year seven that it is allowed to bear fruit. By then the vine itself is large and thick. And all those prunings force the roots to dig deeper for moisture.

            The reality is that most vines don’t produce fruit good enough to turn to wine until it has been there for at least ten years. The best vines are often between 30 and 60 years old, and have gone through so much pruning that it no longer resembles a young vine. We are similar. It takes us a long time to grow spiritually mature, and often we have to be pruned back many times by God before we are ready to really produce truly great fruit in our lives.

3. How we find Joy in life: One of the problems of our culture is that we consistently confusing happiness and joy, and the result is that we think that it’s the temporary things of life that give us a sense of contentment. Real joy doesn’t from collecting stuff, buying stuff, or owning stuff, or from being entertained. It comes from a sense of connection with God that flows through everything. It comes from a deeper sense of what matters in life, and living that sense throughout our lives. Let me give you an example of what I mean?

            Would you want to be a professional athlete? Do you think being one would bring a sense of real joy to life? Most people think that if they had the opportunity to be an acclaimed professional athlete, musician, actor, or something similar, their life would be filled with joy.

            Grant Desme found real joy by giving all of that up. Do you recognize his name? He was a second-round draft choice of the Oakland A’s in the mid-2000s. In 2010, he was on the verge of stardom. In AAA baseball he had done something few in any league could do, which is to hit 30 home runs and have 30 stolen bases. He was about to make the major league team and become a star. But in 2010 he retired from baseball to become Brother Matthew at St. Michael’s Abbey in Silverado, California.

            He walked away from millions of dollars and the opportunity to live everyone’s dream. But in doing so he also found real joy. As he said, in a 2013 interview with the National Catholic Register, “I still don't miss playing professionally, but I've come to enjoy the game of baseball itself more. When I let go of it as my idol, I was enabled to enjoy it for what it's worth. When you're projecting your own designs on something and taking it more seriously than it should be, you don't get what God intended you to get out of it. When you simply accept things for what they are and don't expect more than what they can give, you experience the satisfaction you're supposed to.”

            This is the kind of joy we can have if we are willing to live life connected to the vine. You are meant to be a branch that is grafted to Christ. You are meant to flow with grace. You are meant to be filled with joy. I’d like to you reflect on your life:  what are you doing to be grafted to Christ, flow with grace, and live a joyful life?

            Amen.