St. Mary's Episcopal Church |
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St. Mary's Episcopal Church |
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Acts 8:26-40
Psalm 22:24-30
1 John 4:7-21
John 15:1-8
The Collect of the Day
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. 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. (John 15:1-8)
Pruning the Angels
The Rev. Dr. Bill Stroop, Rector
A couple of years ago I awoke a half hour late on a day I had to catch an early flight. I jumped out of bed, dashed around, drove like a maniac, got to the airport, and realized, while redressing after the strip-down security check, that I had left my book at home. Starting a long day of traveling without a book is second only to starting the day without coffee (which was also true). So, I went to the airport bookstore and paid full retail price for a hardbound copy of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. At the time all I knew was that the book was on the New York best seller stand. Then I began reading.
What a wonderfully crafted work of fiction. Let me repeat that: The Da Vinci Code is a work of fiction. And what made it great for me was that Dan Brown took real places and things, and an appealing mythical idea, and wove them together into a fast paced, provocative novel. Perhaps it is because it is so easy to suspend one’s sense of disbelief that it is easy for so many people to think that The Da Vinci Code is a work of non fiction. The amazing capacity of the book to convince people that it is real reminds me of the effect Orsen Wells’ production of The War Of The Worlds had on America when it was aired on the radio the evening of October 30, 1938. On that night at least 1.2 million people rushed from their homes in a panic. Radio stations' and newspapers' phone lines jammed with callers seeking news or offering their services to help dispel the destructive alien forces from their country.
But The Da Vinci Code has an even more spell binding effect, and it has spawned an army of writers to – as strange as this may sound – debunk a work of fiction. Da Vinci Code Decoded, The Truth Behind the Da Vanci Code, Secrets of the Code, Breaking the Da Vinci Code, and Cracking the Da Vinci Code are a few of the books put out in the past few years. Entire forests have been cut down to satisfy America’s interest in The Code.
America will have the chance to once again experience The Da Vinci Effect when the movie version of Dan Brown’s first book, Angels and Demons, opens on May 15 this year. Once again, the symbologist turned detective, Robert Langdon (played by Tom Hanks), will lead us on an adventure to discover the existence of the secret brotherhood, the Illuminati, and their possible involvement in a plot to destroy the Vatican with an antimatter bomb.
As with The Da Vinci Code, the book Angels and Demons also involves the subject of children and blood lines. As you recall, in the The Da Vinci Code, Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a child who began a bloodline of Jesus’ descendants that continued to the present day. The fictional child conceived in Angels and Demons is intriguing, but no where as provocative as the idea of Jesus fathering a blood line.
Discovering that Jesus had children would be astounding wouldn’t it? But there is another more stunning secret that has been hiding in the Gospel of John for much longer. And, like the symbols Robert Langdon sees all over Rome, it has been in front of us all along.
Jesus had children. Lot’s of them. Look to your left and your right. Look at the back of that head in front of you. Everyone you see here – and many others as well – are children of Jesus. In fact, Jesus has had billions and billions of children by adoption.
The gospel story tells us that we are all connected to Jesus, just as Jesus is connected to God. We are all one in God. We have a direct link to Jesus through our experience of him in our lives. We are rooted in him. Although the blood line of Jesus is a mind-teasing myth, the reality is that all of us in this room are part of a long lineage of Christian people who have been participating in the life of Christ since the very earliest days of the church. In our denomination, connected as it is to the Roman Catholic tradition, we celebrate the Eucharist and walk to the altar to accept the symbolic and real presence of Christ in the gifts of bread and wine like billions of Christians have done before us, and God willing, like billions of Christians will do so after us.
In our yard at the rectory, we have a wisteria vine next to a tree. One thing about Wisteria is that it seems to do best and produce the most flowers when its tendrils wrap themselves around each other, twisting and bending and turning until they produce a thick, impenetrable mass of vines and stems and leaves. The flowers hang from the massive foliage like great clusters of grapes.
Wisteria seems to know what we need to be reminded of all the time. It knows it needs a good foundation. Wisteria can grow into an unattractive mound when unsupported, but when allowed to clamber up a tree, pergola, wall, or other supporting structure, it can be spectacular. The support must be very sturdy, however, because old wisteria can grow into immensely strong and heavy wrist-thick trunks and stems that can easily crush latticework and even strangle large trees. It is an aggressive grower that can invade foundations and cause other damage if not controlled.
To achieve beauty and strength, wisteria needs pruning. The vine is healthiest and strongest when its branches and shoots grow together instead of shooting off in a thousand different directions. Wisteria flowers develop in buds near the base of the previous year’s growth, so pruning back side shoots to the basal few buds in early spring enhances the visibility and the number of the flowers. The plant does best if the side shoots are shortened in mid summer and again in the fall.
I think many of us are like wisteria in our relationship with Jesus and God. God provides the foundation for our faith and our beliefs, and our understanding of the person of Jesus provides us with our ability to become children of God and to grow and act like he did in faith and with compassion. But we modern human beings have a tendency to grow out of control, branching out into many areas, adding branches, leaves, twigs and tendrils, as we take on more responsibility at work, do more stuff around church, engage in more activities with the food pantry, volunteer more hours at the hospital or nursing home, and we get involved with more civic projects than we can manage. In time we become so busy we cannot see that we have reached so far beyond the core vine at the center that we are in danger of toppling over. We become complex, involved, and heavy, and we lose focus of what is important. We might even begin to see our own ambitions and wants as if they are truth, not realizing that we are becoming the authors of our own easily believed fiction.
This is what happens on Wisteria Lane, the appropriately named address of the five provocative and tantalizing women of Desperate Housewives. The five leading women are mothers, and they show us some examples of modern suburban motherhood, that although fictional, nonetheless reflect some potential reality..
On Wisteria Lane, no one is fulfilled, although every one strives and stretches for an elusive ideal of happiness. These women seek to seize, to discover, and to create contentment from their complicated lives that are built on shifting compromises, elusive dreams, and high expectations. And generally, they fail.
We will all fail when we grow uncontrollably or when we delude ourselves about what is important, seeing our own vain interests and earthly goals and personal pursuits as more important than the vine that supports us. Perhaps what we all need to do from time to time as individuals and as the church is to ask ourselves how we are growing. Some questions we can ask are: What do I really need? To what am I clinging too strongly? For what am I truly desperate? Am I crushing someone or something with the weight of my stuff? What will give me fulfillment? Where is inner peace? What baggage am I carrying that I can I throw away? What pain do I need to let go? What will fill the emptiness and the hole in my life?
The outcome of the pruning process is the fulfillment of the gospel. When pruned of our fears, anxieties and doubts, we will bear much fruit. And when we bear that fruit, we will become a source of nourishment – real food – for one another; as it says in the Psalm for today, “The poor shall eat and be satisfied.” Our love for one another will be purer, deeper, and godlier. Our pruned selfish agendas will lie at our feet waiting to be swept away, and we will love one another as God loves us: without condition and with complete totality. Not only will we bear fruit, we will feel the source of the love within us rising up like the sap rises in the vine.
So don’t be afraid. Take stock. And then prune away!
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Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a wilderness road.) So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over to this chariot and join it.” So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” He replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this: “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.” The eunuch asked Philip, “About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?” He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he was passing through the region, he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.
Psalm 22:24-30 Deus, Deus meus
24 My praise is of him in the great assembly; *
I will perform my vows in the presence of those who worship him.
25 The poor shall eat and be satisfied,
and those who seek the LORD shall praise him: *
"May your heart live for ever!"
27 For kingship belongs to the LORD; *
he rules over the nations.
28 To him alone all who sleep in the earth bow down in worship; *
all who go down to the dust fall before him.
29 My soul shall live for him;
my descendants shall serve him; *
they shall be known as the LORD'S for ever.
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us. Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.
Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant us so perfectly to know your Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his steps in the way that leads to eternal life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The Mission of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church is to lead people to share our love and growth in God throughout our community and with one another, through the spiritual strength we gather in our beautiful natural setting. For information about St. Mary’s Episcopal Church and its life and mission, please contact us at |
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Copyright © 2009, William G. Stroop - All Rights Reserved.
7 May 2009
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