Title: The Vine and the Branches
Scripture: Acts 8:26-40, John 15:1-8
5/14/06 Easter 5 Yr. B
Rev. Joy R. Haertig
Wednesday evening of this past week I had the opportunity to see Dr. Maya Angelou at the Paramount Theatre. Since high school Dr. Angelou has been one of my “shero's”, so to see her live and to share the experience with my daughter was particularly meaningful.
The theme of her talk was how we all have the opportunity to be “somebody's rainbow”, and that we all have stories about people who have been ours. People that have helped us during the darkest of times with something as simple as a warm hello or as significant as opening the door to a new opportunity.
As I listened to her I kept imaging the rainbow that has graced our sanctuary these past two months and then my mind would wander to this weeks scripture on the vine and the branches from the Gospel of John. The Gospel reading also emphasizes how important connections are for each of us. Connections are our lifeline - we were not created to grow on our own. We need to be connected to God and to one another in order to bear fruit that benefits the greater good.
Yet in our society it is easy to be focused just on the self - we are taught to network with others so we can climb the career ladder or make more money for our own security. We are encouraged to stay connected for the sake of the self, not for the sake of others.
Even when we seek out a church home we sometimes bring that attitude with us as we look at how the church can meet our personal needs or the needs of our family. While these things are certainly important, we sometimes forget to consider how we might be able to serve God through a particular church, rather than be served. We go to worship on Sunday mornings looking for a rainbow to make us feel good and forget that we might need to be a rainbow for someone else that day.
Last weekend when I was in Yakima for our annual meeting the clergy attended an all day workshop on Ethics. I ended up sitting by a clergywoman I had only met briefly at an earlier time. While we sat there she told me about some of the difficulties she had run into in our conference and her sense of discouragement. I listened and lent her as much support as I could. When I was later whining a bit about how the ethics workshop was handled she said to me - “Maybe the workshop did not meet your needs but you were here for me today and I want to thank you.” There I was focused on my own needs and missed how perhaps my job that day was to be a rainbow for someone else.
The metaphor of the vine and the branches in the Gospel of John and Dr. Angelou's stories about being rainbows for one another are a reminder that our interconnectedness is not only for our personal comfort but for service on behalf of the common good.
In the Gospel of John Jesus is quoted as saying “the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine.” Each time we share in the sacrament of baptism I am reminded of how life giving it is for a child to be raised in a faith community. This connection will hopefully foster his or her connection to the Vine and the child's awareness of their call to serve as Christ would serve.
This takes commitment on the part of the parents to sink their roots into a faith community and it takes commitment on the part of the members of the church to invest time and energy into these precious young people.
While we celebrate and affirm their uniqueness, we also want to nurture them to use that uniqueness to bear fruit on behalf of the greater good. We want them to grow up knowing that they can be a rainbow in someone else's life - that they have a greater purpose in God's beautiful world than just their own individual success.
Senior high Sunday in this congregation, though not a sacrament, is another time when we gain a sense of how significant the Vine and branches relationship really is. Senior high Sunday is the Sunday when we honor those young people in our church who will graduate from high school this year. Today we have one young woman who will share her reflections with us, Nicole Olson.
Nicole is the daughter of Rick and Cindy Olson and older sister to Ryan. Nicole came to this church with her parents when they joined in 1988 and she was just a wee one. My first memory of Nicole was when I arrived here as pastor in 1994 she was one of my very first pastoral calls! She must have been about seven or eight years old and was in Children's Hospital. I knew right away that she was a soft-spoken and loving child and it has been a joy to watch her grow into a young adult. In 2003 she was confirmed in our church and now she is about to graduate from high school.
I'd like to invite Nicole to come forward at this time.