Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 28 April 2024.
• First Reading: Acts 8: 26-40 (Philip and the Ethiopian. Inspiration of the Holy Spirit)
• Epistle: 1 John 4: 7-21 (Let us love one another)
• Gospel: John 15: 1-8 (I am the vine, My Father is the gardener)
I have never had a garden. I grew up in a town house, tall and narrow and the back garden area was already built over. To the front was a very formal garden space, enclosed by a chain link fence and access was through a locked gate.
Gardening was not on my list of things in life to be accomplished even if my mother kept a number of potted plants. But that was it.
And yet when teaching His disciples and more generally, Jesus would often draw the idioms of plant life. Sowers and seeds, wheat and tares, the rich fool whose bumper harvest was a sign for him to take it easy and live just for himself.
And then Jesus’ own passion was bracketed by gardens: the agony of Gethsemane and of course the garden of His resurrection.
But in the gospel Jesus was probing deeper into the idiom of gardens and growth. He was talking about fruitfulness and saying that if a branch is separated from its main stem then it cannot be fruitful. It is separated from moisture and from the strength and nurture of the plant as a whole.
Left to itself, it will die.
And if this is true of gardens then how much more so is it of those who belong to Him. If we are in Him then that is where our identity lies and other aspects of life follow on – nationality, language, social and economic standing, cultural life and so on.
The central point however is Jesus: not in what He represents but in what He is. He who lives can never just be a symbol, and He who is closer to us then the breath of our own bodies can never be thought of as being remote or far away.
And so He invites us to allow ourselves to be filled and empowered by the same Holy Spirit that was in Him. He invites us to know Him as the home in which we find peace and security, purpose and identity.
Now there is a living reality in us that is not just self-imagined. We live in the normal way, but there is also another voice, that of the Spirit within us, teaching, leading, guiding, prompting.
And this is where we also find another process going on. It is not just that by abiding in Him, we live and grow, we become fruitful and gain in purpose.
We also have the means to face the things that get to us. The people who irritate, the likes and dislikes of life, the reverses and disappointments which life brings to us.
This is where we see God the Father coming to us and pruning us. He separates us from the things that may harm us – or He may separate us form things not harmful in themselves, but whose presence in our lives may obstruct fruitfulness in other areas.
Maybe that thing that we had hoped for was not wrong in itself but God has a further plan for us. And yes, being denied or separated from that hope can be grievous.
But this is where we come to look at the love of God.
We love because God started it all – we love because He loved us first. He gave His all so that we might be redeemed, and that is the nature and character of His love.
It is not about liking or having preferences. It is about setting out to put the other person first in our lives and this starts with God Himself, in Jesus.
And so we are called to love one another – not about liking or preferences but about willing the best for that other person, especially the fellow member of the Body of Christ.
Writing to the Christians in Galatia, Paul refers to the fruit of the Spirit.
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control.
These are the qualities of love which the Holy Spirit seeks to cultivate in us. It is not always easy. How often when asking for patience, are we given the opportunity to exercise it?
‘I want patience, and I want it now’ does not really work.
It does not mean that we become supine or reactive. The love of Jesus is highly pro-active.
But it is always led by the things of the spirit – and the things of the self may well have to stand back.
But then there is also that promise: ‘If you abide in Me, then I will abide in you.’ Jesus is not going away, even when things feel dark and foreboding. He is as much with us in those times of trial and temptation as in times of light and peace and joy.
The point is always to be grounded in where we belong – and that means having that first focus on Him.
For in Him we live and move and have our being.
• Photo by Maksym Kaharlytskyi on Unsplash
