Vine & Branches – 3 May 2015 – Fifth Sunday of Easter

Throughout the Easter season, the scripture readings proclaim the meaning of the Resurrection, turning it so that we see it in different lights, adding to its dimensions and import. Here, again, the assembly receives an image from John’s Gospel that depicts the church in an intimate relationship with the risen one. Branches cannot live without the vine.

By virtue of his baptism, the eunuch becomes a member of the body of Christ, a branch on the tree of life. In this story, we see that those touched by the word of God need not only Christ, the lamb “led to the slaughter,” but also each other. The eunuch needed Philip to help enter the water. The branches represented by Philip and eventually the Ethiopian eunuch (after his baptism), come together because God’s word drives them toward their meeting. 

John 15:1-8

A part of the last discourse of Jesus at the Last Supper, the image of the vine and the branches offers an organic understanding of the relationship between Jesus and the community of faith. In this gardening image, the Father is the vine grower and Jesus is the vine who gives life to all who hear the word and bear fruit. Branches which do not bear fruit or which wither on the vine will be pruned and thrown away.  . . . 

John likes to use wisdom imagery to talk about Jesus; so it is not surprising that he picks it up here. The vine and the branches present a somewhat different understanding of church than Paul’s “Body of Christ” (I Cor. 12:12ff.). The two stand in tension with one another and form and shape each other. – Mary Katharine Deeley

Acts 8:26-40

After Stephen’s martyrdom, the apostles were scattered throughout the area. Chapter 8 and after records their exploits in various parts of the country, eventually leading to the gentile territories. Among those who traveled in Samaria and beyond, Philip proves a powerful preacher and God guides the encounter between Philip and an Ethiopian eunuch.

The story prepares us for the mission to the gentiles by including the details of God’s intervention in this particular scene. Clearly, in Luke’s mind, God intends to spread the good news beyond the confines of Judah and Jerusalem. That the Ethiopian is a eunuch echoes Isaiah’s prophecy that eunuchs who are faithful will have a place in the LORD’s house (Is 56:4–5). Eunuchs were originally excluded from participation in the community. The passage the eunuch is reading is the famous “Suffering Servant” passage from Isaiah which, from early in the church’s history, Christians thought applied to Jesus. It gives Philip the perfect opportunity to proclaim the good news.  – Mary Katharine Deeley

Again and again, God’s word shows us an expansive and expanding community brought together by the promise of the gospel, the assurance of acceptance and forgiveness. Even persons as shunned as eunuchs (among those considered deformed and unable to enter the holy places) are welcomed. Who are the eunuchs of our age? of the ages to come? The good news calls us all to a love that shatters all closed doors.

1 John 4:7-21

Love has become a mushy concept in our culture. Love often means romantic feelings or sweet affections or pleasing interactions. 1 John reminds us about the content of Christian love. 1 John speaks of the active nature of love with its sacrificial outreaches. 1 John insists that love acts, works, and changes. Sometimes we imagine God has come into the world to help us feel all right about ourselves or to help us feel better esteemed.

Biblical reality reveals that God sends his love, his forgiveness in order to change us, in order to make us different people, transformed people. When God looks out at the world and says, “I am going to fix that,” he does that by spreading his arms out in love and forgiving us. Christian love will always have this element of sacrifice within it. – H. Gregory Waldrop

Mary Katharine Deeley is the director of Christ the Teacher Institute of the Sheil Catholic Center, the Roman Catholic campus ministry at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. She is the author of many books, a frequent speaker on diverse topics, and a pastoral advisor.

H. Gregory Waldrop was baptized in Mayfield, Kentucky in 1954 and ordained in Atwood, Tennessee in 1981. He is a United Methodist pastor serving Fountain Avenue United Methodist Church in Paducah, Kentucky.

Homily Service 39, no. 6 (2006): 12-21.

Being Found – 18 January 2015 – Second Sunday after the Epiphany

Once again, the lectionary passages are all about being known, prodded, claimed, and called by God in community with one another. God calls Samuel but only Eli recognizes the voice of God.  . . . Paul reminds us of God’s concern with the material and emotional stuff of our lives, with our bodies as temples and our choices as acts of faithfulness and love. Jesus sees, knows, and calls the unlikely, recognizing our stories even before we speak them. 

This is a good week to reflect on God as the hound of heaven and on our response to that relentless God who sniffs and barks through our world. It is a good week to consider where we are called to go and what are we called to be. Perhaps even more important is this: how we are called to help others hear the voice of God. 

At the Festival of Homiletics in Chicago several years ago Jana Childers described the experience of listening to the story of the call of Samuel as she was on the cusp of turning 40 and working with a group of youth. It suddenly dawned on her that her place was shifting in God’s story “from bright, promising young Samuel to fat old Eli.” It is a shift many of us need to make more gracefully as we age and mature, asking less about how our own adventures can be distinct and new, and more about how we can help beloved others hear God’s call and claim on their lives and future. This would also be a good Sunday to ask a congregation to find their shared place, to identify where God can use them in the work of calling disciples and painting new horizons of hope—to listen to the Elis and seek the Samuels in their midst. 

– Denise Thorpe

John 1:43-51

John’s Gospel tells us that Jesus had enigmatic words for those he called. To Nathanael, who quickly affirmed Jesus’ identity, John shows us Jesus responding with assurance that more marvels than can be imagined await us. To those who are called (including everyone), following Jesus means we will see things we could not have guessed.

“Angels ascending and descending upon the Son-of-Man”? We could talk for decades about what that means. And in that conversation we are knit together into a sisterhood and brotherhood not possible in other ways. We enter into a story that includes mighty metaphors such as “heaven opened.” The preacher can say: “What does it mean? Come and see.”

1 Samuel 3:1-10[11-20] 

Since the RCL lists verses 11–20 as an option, they should be included in the reading, or at least as part of the homily; for the subsequent verses offer an explanation for why Eli’s sons were not chosen by God to fill the prophetic role to which Samuel was called. The boy hears a voice in the middle of the night three times, and in response goes before Eli, the priest for whom Samuel is the understudy. Only after the third time of the voice calling Samuel does Eli perceive that it is none other that YAHWEH, the God of Israel calling Samuel. The old priest tells Eli to go lie down and should he hear the voice again, he should answer the Lord, “Speak, for your servant is listening.’’ 

YAHWEH calls Samuel. He hears and responds with obedience. He is the carrier of the news of change to Eli, the priest. The priestly system of sacrifice of which Eli is a part is corrupt. Eli hears the word. God brings about a new, different, ear-tingling way. 

– Eric T. Myers 

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

God’s call to any of us – whether in grade school or moving into middle age and old age – is a call to know that God's desire for us has changed us. The alteration is thorough, outside and in, top to bottom, head to toe, involving all our senses.

The preacher would do well to ask the assembly on this Sunday what this change means for each person individually and for the church as a whole. How do we – and will we – each and together manifest this God-given new life?

Denise Thorpe, a Presbyterian pastor (PCUSA), is the Project Director of the Race, Church, and Theological Practices Collaborative Inquiry Team at the Louisville Institute, Louisville, Kentucky.

Eric T. Myers serves as pastor to the Frederick Presbyterian Church, Frederick, Maryland and is a former church musician and adjunct professor of worship at Wesley Theological Seminary.

 Homily Service 42, no. 1 (2009): 97-106.