God’s Embrace
John 15:1-8
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. 2 He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. 3 You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. 4 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. 5 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. 6 Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.
When I was a child I thought of God as this old, powerful guy, who created the heavens and earth. He looked down from his heavenly throne and watched everything people did, including me! In a sense it was like the song we sing to the kids at Christmastime. “You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout I’m telling you why… Or, He's making a list, he's checking it twice, He’s gonna find out who's naughty or nice… God, the Father was distant. He was like a punitive parent who was always watching to see when I’d mess up. And then, look out! He might lower the boom on me. For you see, I did not have a warm, fuzzy feeling about God. Furthermore, God had rules to follow. By the time I was seven I had memorized the 10 Commandments and Luther’s explanations of them. My first-grade Sunday school teacher had given me a hard-covered, blue Catechism published by Concordia she tracked what we learned.
On the other hand, my cousin, who was not brought up Lutheran always would say, “God is Love.” God is love? From where did she get that idea? She got it from 1 John, our second lesson! My question was: What does that mean, God is love? In fact I would often ponder about the word love. What IS love? It wasn’t until I was a young adult that I had a discussion with my Aunt Stephanie about God’s love. She said to me,“Kathy, don’t you understand? God is Love! You are God’s beloved child!” Wow!! I am God’s beloved child? I had never thought about my relationship to God in that way. Up until then, my concept of love was more intellectual than altruistic. My mother was not one who was particularly demonstrative. She has become much more so in her later years. But my Aunt Stephanie was much more affectionate and when she hugged me, I felt the experience of being loved. Or shall we say, I became aware of God’s loving embrace!
One of the things I’ve really missed in this time of Covid is that we have not been able to hug one another. When we hug someone, we are expressing, at some level, a love for that person. When we hug in church it’s an embrace of philia love—the love of deep friendship.
In our lessons today Jesus and John speak of agape love—God’s unconditional love for his beloved children—no strings attached! And they both speak of God’s loving embrace. In our gospel lesson, Jesus says to his disciples, “I am the true vine, my Father is the vine-grower and you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.” Jesus goes on to say, “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. As the Father has loved (agape loved) me, so I have loved (agape loved) you; abide in my agape love.” What I hear Jesus saying is, remain in God’s life-giving, loving embrace. Love others, as you are loved by God.
So, if God is the vine-grower, the source of all love, and Jesus is the vine the bearer of all life-giving love; then we are the branches, that are part of Jesus’ loving embrace. As we remain in Jesus’ loving embrace our branches produce fruit. God, the good vine-grower, transforms us by cutting away our dead unloving branches so that the loving ones can bear more fruit. As part of the vine, we produce the fruit of love and God calls us to embrace others with love and grace. In so doing, God is glorified. Put simply, the true vine, the vine-grower, the branches, and the fruit—all exist to be and share the life and love that flows from God into the world.
But whom shall we love? Our first lesson from Acts speaks of an Ethopian eunuch who is a God-fearer. In other words, he wasn’t Jewish, he couldn’t be Jewish because he was a eunuch. In ancient society, castrated men were not considered fully male nor were they female. So he was excluded from Israel’s religion. But, he believed in the God of Israel and as he is sitting in his chariot, studying the prophet Isaiah, Philip approaches him. He hears the man reading aloud and Philips asks him if he understands what he is reading. The eunuch says, “Not really. I need some help.” Philip gets into the chariot beside him as they are riding along, he explains that the passage he is reading is about the suffering servant, who is Jesus.
Now the eunuch, who has been successful in society, but NOT accepted by society, identifies with the servant because he has been despised, rejected, a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity. Philip proclaims the good news to him saying that Jesus bears our sins, heals our wounds, and his bruises bring us wholeness. Jesus embodies the word of God. As they continue to travel along they come to some water and the eunuch gets an idea. He sees a possibility. He says to Philip, “What is to prevent me from being baptized?” What do you think Philip says? “Nothing! Nothing is to prevent you from being baptized.” God welcomes all who come to him with open arms. So, Philip baptizes the eunuch.
As with the eunuch, in baptism God takes ahold of us and we belong to something greater than ourselves. The Holy Spirit alights upon us and draws us into an incredible embrace of care and love. We become his beloved children. So, the eunuch experiences the life-giving, loving embrace of God and he goes on his way rejoicing.
Getting back to the question, “But whom shall we love? I was listening to a sermon this past week and the preacher told of an experience he had. He noticed a building that looked like a church. It was brick, with a peaked roof like a church, and there was a large parking lot beside it. But it didn’t have a sign on the front lawn identifying it as a church nor did it have any information on its door indicating how the building was being used. So, he walked down the block to a neighboring church where he knew the pastor. He said, “That building down the street…what is that? His friend replied, “It’s a church.” The preacher asked his friend, “Why they don’t have sign identifying it as a church?” His friend said, “They don’t want any visitors.”
“They don’t want any visitors? Why don’t they want any visitors?” he asked him. He replied, “They don’t want anyone who looks different or believes differently than they do.”
So the question to us is…when the pandemic is over and we begin to get more visitors, will we welcome them with God’s loving embrace no matter who they are, what they look like, or what they believe? Can we meet them where they are as Philip did to the Ethiopian eunuch? I believe that, as God’s beloved community, as Jesus’ disciples we have the ability and the openness to break down the barriers that prevent God’s grace from reaching those we do not know.
Now, about. God’s embrace, Psalm 22 concludes with words of praise, hope, and a description of God’s embrace. It says, “the poor shalt eat and be satisfied. All the ends of the earth shall turn to the Lord. All the families of the nation shall worship him. Dominion belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nation’s.” In other words, all will be enveloped in God’s loving embrace.
And finally, Anne Edison-Albright sums our lessons up beautifully. She says, “ God is faithful and just. And God’s love abides. God’s abiding love in Christ is like the water seen out of a chariot window on the wilderness road between Jerusalem and Gaza.” She continues, “It is like the patient fussiness of a gardener or a vine-grower picking beetles off of leaves, pruning, watering when it’s needed, and checking the sky for signs of rain. God’s abiding love provides. It is a nourishing gift.”
As the years have gone by, my image of God has matured and it is dramatically different than when I was a child. I no longer see God as a punitive tyrant. Rather I see a loving God who is a dynamic being active in my life; a creator who is constantly fashioning and renewing the world, a sustainer who calls me and all people to God’s self and his loving embrace.
And what I believe these lessons are saying is that, in the end, all who believe will be enfolded in God’s loving embrace.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.