Midweek Musings for Sunday, May 3, 2015

Fifth Sunday of Easter

This week's reflection comes from Rev. Dan Rumfelt
Chaplain Lutheran Social Services

Southwest Conference Dean

Reflecting and Dwelling in the Word

Prayer of the Day

O God, you give us your Son as the vine apart from whom we cannot live. Nourish our life in his resurrection, that we may bear the fruit of love and know the fullness of your joy, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God now and forever. Amen.

Gospel: John 15:1-8 Jesus the True Vine

"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.

Reflection

Jesus shares the image of the vine and the branches with the disciples on the night before his death. "I am the vine, you are the branches." The image invites them a future of ongoing relationship and mission to God's glory.

Listening to Jesus that night they might imagine new missionary journeys ahead in the company of Jesus and one another. They might imagine new responsibilities to play as they mature and learn from Jesus: each of them a branch, pruned and shaped by God to grow into even greater fruitfulness. After supper they walk together to Gethsemane, to the garden. Under the olive trees, with vineyards nearby they doze, breathing in the pleasant aroma of ripening fruit on the evening breeze and they dream.

Suddenly the night erupts into betrayal, the smell of panic. They flee. They all flee. By the next evening all that remains is death, the sharp smell of blood: the vine uprooted, hammered to a cross, discarded. And on what branch will the bud ripen into fruit when the root itself is dead? "The branch cannot bear fruit by itself."

So how could Jesus have dared to speak of the vine, the ripe future when he knew within hours he would be torn from this life? Jesus spoke because he trusted. Not even a cross could uproot him from God. So Jesus spoke faithfully of a vine that would give life to us all and bear us all into fruitfulness. The Father planted something new the night Jesus was taken from the cross and buried. The Father planted Resurrection.

On the third day the true vinewould arise beyond the reach of death. Disciples gathered in fear would soon rejoice in life. Rooted anew into the living Christ, their voices would open with the sweet ripening fruit of the Gospel. In our own mouths how sweet is the Gospel fruit we have tasted of that vine. And drawing life from the true vine, how lovely in turn is the fruit we bear that the Gospel may ripen in new generations. We are rooted into his death. We are rooted into his Resurrection. Thanks and glory be to God.

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