Entwined

Fifth Sunday of Easter
Sunday, April 28, 2024
The United Church of Santa Fe

[Complete Texts in Greek, English (NRSV) (First Nations Version) are found following the Sermon.]

+ In nomine Domini. Amen.

Each Winter while I was growing up on our farm in Pennsylvania, my Grandfather would choose a cold sunny morning and invite me to come along while he pruned our many arbors of grapevines. It had to be done in Winter because the vines had become dormant. It had to be Sunny because that made us both happy in the careful work of pruning.

“Watch closely,” he would say. “We prune only what was the new growth last Summer. And we always prune ‘to the second eye.’”

The “second eye” meant that you left two knobs or buds on the vine that was growing from the stem, cutting above that second eye and taking the rest of the vine away, placing it with all the other pruned vines which were then either re-cycled into making a wreath for Christmas or put on the compost heap or sometimes used to start a fire in the wood stove.

By next spring almost magically the grapevine would begin to grow putting out new growth from what had been cut away and at the end of summer producing beautiful bunches of delicious Concord or Catawba grapes (the grapes we grew on our farm).

The story we read this morning from the Gospel of John was composed toward the end of the 1^st Century, nearly 70 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus.

The “composers” took the remembered words of Jesus to his followers and re-cast those stories in such a way that these words would help inform and define the early communities of these followers, communities we call the early churches.

And of course they wrote these stories in the Greek language, the language of all of the Gospels.

In this particular story we have this morning from the Gospel of John (what is frequently entitled “I am the Vine, you are the Branches”) — in this story there are some remarkable Greek words that almost leap out of the text.

For example in the very first verse, ‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower.’

The Greek word for vine-grower is γεωργός. It is the word for farmer or grower or someone who is agrarian. If your name is Gregory, then please know that your name comes from this beautiful Greek word, and just so you have an immediate connection with this 1^st Century tale of Jesus, your name appears in this Gospel!

Another Greek word that we find in these verses is καθαίρει. Our English word catharsis comes from it. In Greek it means to cleanse or cut-away or prune. It is what my Grandfather was doing to the Grapevines, he was performing catharsis.

Generally we use it when we say something is being purged, or purified. The unwanted or bad things are removed, taken away. It is a cleansing of all that so that life may go on.

One more Greek word that appears many times in these verses (ten to be exact) is μείνατε. It means to stay, remain, tarry, wait, be faithful, to have constancy of presence with someone. Mostly we translate it abide.

Abide, a rather archaic word we do not use very much, except when we say something like, “just bide your time” meaning “be patient!” It’s mostly a church-word that comes to mind in that beautiful hymn by the 19^th Century Irish Poet and Priest, Henry Francis Lyte: Abide with me, fast falls the eventide.

If you turn to the New Testament translation called First Nations Version¹ (which I highly recommend to you), the word μείνατε becomes “stay joined” — as when Jesus says to his followers: you must stay joined to me in the same way a branch is joined to the vine.

The great scholar Norman Beck is one of the greatest translators I have ever read. He is now 91 years old, and this very day is celebrating his retirement as Professor of Theology and Classical Languages for the last 49 years at Texas Lutheran University in Sequin.

[When we were in Texas a few weeks ago for The Eclipse, I happened to see Carl Hughes who is the Department Chair of Theology, Philosophy and Classical Languages at TLU. He remembered my adoration of Professor Beck and on the spot offered me a VIP ticket to attend today’s event! I explained that I was preaching and presiding here this morning and that came first :-)]

If you read Beck’s translation of the Gospel of John, and these verses, he puts it that we are “entwined” with Jesus, and entwined with one another.

Entwined. Isn’t that what these 1^st Century followers were trying to say about Jesus and themselves and the fledgling church? Just that very thing: we are like branches on a vine, entwined with Jesus and with one another. God is the Farmer, who prunes everything so we will grow — but grow together.

If you read the Women’s Bible Commentary² (another book I highly recommend to you), the authors commenting on these verses make the point that contrary to our contemporary and Western view of things, in this story the model is community. There are no free-agents, there is no individual emphasis on success.

Taken against today’s news, this Gospel is the very opposite story of politics where greed and avarice try to reign.

The story is a non-hierarchical one; no branch has pride or place over another — the vine and the branches and the root are one living thing. All share the same. The future is entrusted not to the branches, but to the One who prunes and tends, the Vine-Grower, the Farmer, and that is God. The branches are not in control, only God is.

+++

On the 21^st of May in 1972 along with 12 other Lutheran Seminarians, at Augustus Lutheran Church in Trappe Pennsylvania, I was Ordained a Pastor of the Lutheran Church. The Pastor we had chosen to preach our Ordination Sermon was The Rev. John Cochran (of blessed memory). He, also a graduate of the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, was at the time Pastor of Immanuel Center City Parish in Philadelphia.

John stood up in the pulpit and looked down at us with kindness and wisdom and after a very long pause he said, “There are two ways to come to this Ministry. One way is this [he held up his right arm and made a fist] — seeking power and authority, and yes there is still authority and power in the office of the Pastor.”

“But,” he continued, “that is not the way to come to this Ministry. You must come like this [and he held both his arms wide open and welcoming] — this is the way to come, to see what God will place into those open arms and hands.”

And then he went on as he made the deaf-sign for Jesus [touching the palm of each hand with the finger of the other hand, denoting the print of the nails], “Just remember,” he said, “what happened to the One we follow. This ministry is the most serious commitment. This ministry is joined to him and to all the followers. It is loving and compassionate and joyful and sometimes sorrowful, but it is joined to him and to each other. It is how the Church becomes the Church for the world. Never forget that.”

I never have. Nor, I hope, will you. We, the followers of Jesus, equal with one another, entwined with Jesus and with one another, tended by the Holy One who prunes and cleanses us so that we will grow and bear fruit — this is who we are as the Church. It is how we are the Church.

We live in Jesus as it were and Jesus in us. We live in each other and all the others live in us. We become a living loving vine of hope, tolerance, inclusiveness, forgiveness, patience, which remains, abides for the love and healing of the world.

It is our ministry. With Jesus we share it together. He is the vine, we are the branches.

And let us say, Amen.

Deo Gratias (+)

The Rev. Benjamin Larzelere III
Retired

1First Nations Version: An Indigenous Translation of the New Testament. Intervarsity Press, Illinois. 2021. Page198.

2Women’s Bible Commentary [Expanded Edition with Apocrypha]. Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe, Editors. Westminster John Knox Press, Kentucky. 1998. Page 391-392.

GREEK/NRSV/FIRST NATIONS

John 15.1-11

1 Ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ἄμπελος ἡ ἀληθινή, καὶ ὁ πατήρ μου ὁ γεωργός ἐστιν.2 πᾶν κλῆμα ἐν ἐμοὶ μὴ φέρον καρπόν, αἴρει αὐτό, καὶ πᾶν τὸ καρπὸν φέρον καθαίρει αὐτὸ ἵνα καρπὸν πλείονα φέρῃ.3 ἤδη ὑμεῖς καθαροί ἐστε διὰ τὸν λόγον ὃν λελάληκα ὑμῖν·4 μείνατε ἐν ἐμοί, κἀγὼ ἐν ὑμῖν. καθὼς τὸ κλῆμα οὐ δύναται καρπὸν φέρειν ἀφ’ ἑαυτοῦ ἐὰν μὴ μένῃ ἐν τῇ ἀμπέλῳ, οὕτως οὐδὲ ὑμεῖς ἐὰν μὴ ἐν ἐμοὶ μένητε.5 ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ἄμπελος, ὑμεῖς τὰ κλήματα. ὁ μένων ἐν ἐμοὶ κἀγὼ ἐν αὐτῷ οὗτος φέρει καρπὸν πολύν, ὅτι χωρὶς ἐμοῦ οὐ δύνασθε ποιεῖν οὐδέν.6 ἐὰν μή τις μένῃ ἐν ἐμοί, ἐβλήθη ἔξω ὡς τὸ κλῆμα καὶ ἐξηράνθη, καὶ συνάγουσιν αὐτὰ καὶ εἰς τὸ πῦρ βάλλουσιν καὶ καίεται.7 ἐὰν μείνητε ἐν ἐμοὶ καὶ τὰ ῥήματά μου ἐν ὑμῖν μείνῃ, ὃ ἐὰν θέλητε αἰτήσασθε καὶ γενήσεται ὑμῖν.8 ἐν τούτῳ ἐδοξάσθη ὁ πατήρ μου, ἵνα καρπὸν πολὺν φέρητε καὶ γένησθε ἐμοὶ μαθηταί.9 καθὼς ἠγάπησέν με ὁ πατήρ, κἀγὼ ὑμᾶς ἠγάπησα· μείνατε ἐν τῇ ἀγάπῃ τῇ ἐμῇ.10 ἐὰν τὰς ἐντολάς μου τηρήσητε, μενεῖτε ἐν τῇ ἀγάπῃ μου, καθὼς ἐγὼ τὰς ἐντολὰς τοῦ πατρός μου τετήρηκα καὶ μένω αὐτοῦ ἐν τῇ ἀγάπῃ.11 Ταῦτα λελάληκα ὑμῖν ἵνα ἡ χαρὰ ἡ ἐμὴ ἐν ὑμῖν ᾖ καὶ ἡ χαρὰ ὑμῶν πληρωθῇ.

‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. 2He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. 3You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. 4Abide 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. 5I 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. 6Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. 9As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 10If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. (NRSV)

1“I am the true grapevine. My Father is the Vine Keeper. 2He cuts off the branches in me that have no fruit. He carefully trims back the branches with fruit, so they will grow more fruit.

3“My teachings have purified you, 4but you must stay joined to me in the same way a branch is joined to the vine. A branch cannot grow fruit unless it is joined to the vine. It is the same with you and me.

5“I am the vine and you are the branches. The ones who stay joined to me will grow much fruit, for without me nothing grows. 6The ones who do not stay joined to me are broken off and dry up, and then they are gathered up and used to make a fire.

7“If you are joined to me and my words remain in you, you can ask me for anything and it will be done. 8When you grow a harvest of fruit, this will show that you are walking my road. You will then bring great honor to my Father.

THE ROAD OF LOVE

9“In the same way the Father loves me, I have loved you. Never stop walking this road of love. 10By doing what the Father has told me, I have remained in his love. 11As you walk in my ways, my love will remain in you. I am saying this so your hearts will be filled with the same joy I have. (FIRST NATIONS VERSION)