John 15:1-17
World Communion Sunday
On this World Communion Sunday we celebrate connection—with Christ, with neighbor,
with creation. Jesus said, “Abide in me as I abide in you” (Jn. 15:4).
Today, we are conscious of our connection to the global church. To be part of the church of Jesus Christ
means we are all connected, whether we like it or not. We’re in this
together. And we need each other to be faithful to Christ. We can’t “do”
church or “be” church on our own. We can’t be faithful to Christ on our
own. We need each other.
When describing the Christian life, Latin American liberation
theologians often talk about convivencia. Con-viva.
With life. Convivencia means,
literally, “living-with.”[1] Convivence is what
sustains us individually and together, as a community. We are living with one
another and living with the Lord.
Before Jesus died, he gave his followers an image to hold on to,
especially when things get rough. He gave
them the image of vines and branches. It’s a powerfully dynamic symbol. Jesus
invites us to abide in him, as branch to vine, because he wants to abide in
us. “Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit; apart from
me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). He is the life force, the love that
energizes the growth and brings about the yield, the fruit. And the
relationship itself is fructifying.
In August, Mark and I were on vacation in California. We spent a lot time in and near vineyards, visiting
wineries in Napa Valley and in the Foothills of the Sierra Nevada, and we were
invited to attend the Blessing of the Grapes ceremony hosted by the Livermore
Valley Winegrower’s Association, an annual event held the beginning of harvest
season. They already had their clergy
line-up for the event, but I was added to the program. There was one rabbi, one priest, and two Presbyterian ministers. It was a lot of fun. I’ve never done anything like this
before. Even the local NBC affiliate
showed up. The blessing was held at
Murietta’s Well, a beautiful winery in the Livermore Valley, followed by a
marvelous luncheon. We each shared a
little about the importance of grapes and vine in our respective traditions.
I spoke about my experience walking on the Camino de Santiago in
Spain, two years ago around this time. In the Rioja region, the Camino cuts
around and sometimes straight through acres upon acres of
vineyards. On Sunday, September 25, I left Logroño when it was still dark. The city
was recovering from its annual Rioja Festival, a weekend revel to the grape,
worthy of Dionysius or Bacchus. On the way, I walked through and along and
around many vineyards, as far as the eye could see. As I walked,
this text in John came to mind. Up close to the vines, I could see the
green, leafy branches were full of deep, purple grapes. The branches led to old, knotty vines that thickened
at the base where they sunk down deep into the soil. I went to
worship that morning, but not in a church.
I worshipped and prayed and sang my way along the way, out there among
the vines and branches. “I am the vine and you are the
branches.” I plucked off several grapes to eat; they were juicy and
sweet. I could feel the vitality of life all around me. As I
walked, I reflected on the nature of the vine. I considered the power of the
vine—the source of life, the source of vitality for the branches. I considered
the energy, all the life flowing through the vineyards, moving from the roots
and stretching out along the branches and eventually bearing
fruit. Then I considered all the wine these grapes would eventually
produce, barrels and barrels. It felt as if wine was flowing all
around me. I was swimming in it.
The Greek verb meno, translated, “abide,” also means
“to remain” or “remain on,” “hold,” “attach, “keep.” It’s found in 16 of
21 chapters in John’s Gospel, used more than forty times. Abide.
Remain. Stay. Connect. Jesus says earlier in John, “Those who eat my flesh and
drink my blood abide in me, and I in them” (Jn. 6:56). Jesus uses a
relational figure of speech and gives it to the disciples—gives to us—to
encourage them, encourage us, to stay close to the vine. He wants us to stay
near the Source of Life. Stay. Remain connected. Rest. Abide.
When Jesus says, “I am the true vine,” he is essentially saying,
“I carry the roots.”[2] He provides access to something deeper, deep
in the soil. He conveys through his roots the stuff of life, which
generates growth. Through him the branches are generated, branches that
intertwine and reach out in every direction. We are the branches, tangled
together, connected to each other and to the root. A branch can’t
survive cut from the vine; a branch can’t access the roots except through the
vine. A branch can’t go it alone, without withering and dying. And
a branch can’t choose to not be a branch, it can’t sever itself from the vine,
because the branch is an outgrowth of the vine. A branch cannot even
hope to bear fruit apart from the vine—only when the branch is in service to
the vine, in relation to the vine, when life pours through it and branches out,
only then does it yield fruit. The
branch exists to bear fruit, to produce a yield, but it can’t do so apart from
the vine.
In the novel Howards Ends (1910), E.
M. Forster (1879-1970) writes of the protagonist Margaret Schlegel, her
life-philosophy was simple. “Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon.
Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human
love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer.” Only connect.
Forster was skeptical and, at times, hostile toward Christianity (for good
reasons). Yet, here he certainly captures what’s at the heart of the Christian
life: only connect.
What became clear (or clearer) in that moment of grace, walking
through the vineyards that Sunday in Spain, and again in California, is that
every blessed thing is pulsating with life and that life is pouring through the
vine and bringing life to the branches (to you and to me), and we get to be
part of it all. We get to be part of it all!
And when I was in California for the blessing of the grapes, I realized
that the vineyards bless us. Vineyards,
grapes, wine tap into a deep desire in the human soul, they speak to our deep
longing to be rooted in and connected to something bigger than ourselves. They bind us all together. And this gives life. This life flows through
the church, here, and there, and everywhere. Through Christ, the Vine, we are
connected to every branch; every branch is connected back to the Vine. This is
why, for all of its faults, the church of Jesus Christ invaluable today.
Perhaps this is why I love World Communion Sunday, and find myself so grateful
for the joy and privilege of meeting and visiting with Christians all around
the world, with sisters and brother sin Christ. I need to be connected to the
global church. The global church has
much to teach North American Christians how to be better followers of Christ. Yes,
we are part of a large family. We’re all related. we’re all connected.
And there's no better symbol of our connection than Communion. So
let us come to the Table of the Lord, remembering again what is always true:
In Christ there is no east or west,
in him no south or north,
but one great fellowship of love
throughout the whole wide earth.[3]
[1] Cited in David Congdon, The God Who
Saves: A Dogmatic Sketch (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2016), 42.
[2] Jaime Clark-Soles, Reading John for Dear
Life: A Spiritual Walk with the Fourth Gospel (Louisville: Westminster
John Knox Press, 2016), 101.
[3] From the
hymn “In Christ There is No East or West,” written in 1908, by John Arthur
Dunkerley (1852-1941), otherwise known as John Oxenham.
