Fifth Easter
John 15:1-8; Acts 8:26-40; I John 4:7-21
"I am the vine, you are the branches."
Our Gospel lesson for today is based on an agrarian metaphor that is relatively easily lost on our suburban minds. We get the basics as illustrated in the children's sermon but the vine image feels pretty removed from us except for the fruit of the vine that we may enjoy. But the truth of this Gospel sneaks up on us in our contemporary world. The vine connects the branches, connects us all in ways unexpected.
The concept is sometimes referred to as "six degrees of separation". The basically simple theory first advanced in a 1929 short story and later tested by sociologists in the second half of the last century, is that anyone on earth can be connected to any other person on the planet through a chain of acquaintances that has no more than five intermediaries. The concept is based on the idea that the number of acquaintances grows exponentially with the number of links in the chain, and so only a small number of links is required for the set of acquaintances to become the whole human population. The idea is that there are at most only six degrees of separation between us all. I know someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows the person driving the car we just saw go by. This is actually nothing all that amazing to any of us who grew up in a small town where the odds were not only that you were separated from the driver of the car by only two or three degrees but more likely you were somehow related to the driver of the car because he was married to the second sister of your grandmother's aunt's sister-in-law.
As children we were always cautioned against doing anything we didn't want our parents to know about since there was a very good likelihood that the man trimming that bush over there would be having dinner with his wife who would be seeing my mother later at a meeting at the church and if he saw us doing anything we shouldn't be doing, it was almost certain he would mention it to his wife who was sure to speak to my mother.
"I am the vine, you are the branches."
The 1993 movie Six Degrees of Separation explored this premise set forth in a speech by one of the film's characters who at one point says: "I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation between us and everyone else on this planet. The President of the United States, a gondolier in Venice, just fill in the names. I find that extremely comforting, that we're so close, but I also find it like Chinese water torture that we're so close because you have to find the right six people to make the connection. It's not just big names -- it's anyone. A native in a rain forest, a Tiero del Fuegan, an Eskimo. I am bound -- you are bound-- to everyone on this planet by a trail of six people. It's a profound thought -- everyone is a new door, opening into other worlds."
- character Ouisa Kittredge
The trivia game that resulted from this screen play came to be known as Six Degrees of Kevin with the goal of connecting the actor Kevin Bacon to every other movie actor that ever lived. The University of Virginia created a data base web site to facilitate the game. Revealing both the power and absurdity of our modern world, through the technological wonder of the Oracle of Bacon you can name any film actor and the data base connects them to Kevin Bacon. I tried it. As you might expect, most modern actors are easily connected. For example Academy Award winning actress Reese Witherspoon was in the 2002 movie the Importance of Being Earnest with Colin Firth and Colin Firth was in the 2005 film Where the Truth Lies with Kevin Bacon. What is more interesting is taking a classic actor like Orson Welles and finding that Welles was in the 1979 Muppet Movie with Steve Martin who was in the 2001 movie Novocaine with Kevin Bacon. I tried Doris Day who was in the 1959 movie It Happened to Jane with Jack Lemmon who was in the 1991 movie JFK with Kevin Bacon. I even tried the silent film star Charlie Chaplin who was in the 1940 film The Great Dictator with Don Brodie who was in the 1986 film Murphy's Law with David Hayman who was in the 2005 film Where the Truth Lies with, of course, Kevin Bacon.
The computer data base has established that there are some separations that run to seven and eight degrees but they are amazingly few and far between. This connectedness of film actors has led geneticists to consider the connectedness of all humanity by calculating the generational separations likely between any two individuals.
While I am still amazed at how my mother or sister can link me biologically to almost everyone in Freeborn county up in Minnesota (back to that grandmother's aunt's sister-in-law connection that is all too real in a rural community), genealogically the distance between almost everyone on the planet is calculated at about 30-32 generations or 1,200 years. That means that there is a statistically high probability that the West African Loso chief in Tchebébé, Togo is genetically linked over the centuries to the blonde haired, blue eyed Peace Corps Volunteer working with him. The person sitting in front or behind you this morning is literally a brother or sister of yours only a few generations removed.
I am the vine, you are the branches.
There is more that binds us together than most of us ever realize. Yet we focus time and again on that which separates us. The metaphor of the vine and branches calls for us to cut off that which would keep us from bearing the good fruit. Still, we know how easy it is to nurture that which causes separation. The Sundays after Easter are intended to reveal the power of the risen Christ and the beginnings of the faith community that would be called church at Pentecost. Our first lesson for today from the Acts of the Apostles presents one of the earliest examples of the new Christian faith breaking down the walls that separated peoples, cultures and nations. The story of the apostle Philip encountering the African from Ethiopia signaled the beginning of the faith spreading in yet another direction.. When the Ethiopian asks Philip, "What is to prevent me from being baptized?" the answer is obvious. There is water and the word. Baptism is God's free gift to all who would believe. Here is the connection we share with hundreds of millions around the world. Here is the connection we share with billions throughout history. A baptism that was offered to an Ethiopian was also offered to a Roman prison guard and his family in the first century.
This same baptism by water was poured out on the 4 th century emperor Constantine and the western world had a new common faith. It was water and the same triune God named at the baptism of Martin Luther at the end of the 15 th century. And with bold declaration in Norwegian and German my great grandparents were baptized which ultimately meant that on August 14 th , 1951 I was baptized.. In the water and the word there is no separation between me and the first century Ethiopian baptized by Philip making us one in Christ. This is an amazing truth. We are all one in the vine. This connectedness of humanity in many and various ways carries both promise and pain, hope and despair, life and death. The joy of our common life filled heritage also is linked to the sins of past generations. The mark of death haunts us. The well-being of people is constantly threatened by epidemics as ancient as the black plague and as modern as the Avian flu. Our connectedness spreads great ideals of freedom and democracy but it also passes on the infections that would destroy the good through economic exploitation, military occupation, abuse, slavery and terrorist regimes. There was and is so much to fear and yet there is also the promise of the resurrection and new life through the waters of baptism. The connectedness that threatens our very survival also provided for the spread of Christianity beginning in the first century after Christ's resurrection. God's Spirit moving in and through the vine. The growing vine rich with branches that became the church.
This vine had deep roots in the covenant promises of God to the people of Israel but it also gave shape to a new community that was measured not in terms of human effort but in celebration of God's gifts of grace and forgiveness. The branches do not decide to bear fruit. The branches connected to the vine cannot help but bear fruit. The Christian knows that in the waters of baptism they have been connected to the vine. When we gather at this table of grace we are nourished by that connection. The branch connected to the vine cannot help but bear fruit. Our second lesson from John's first letter reminds us that "God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God and they abide in God." The key John says, is discerning God's love among us. This is what enabled the early church to grow in the face of persecution and doubt. Where there should have been fear there was only God's love. "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear." This is what all Christians hold in common. The true faith is found not in judgments of others, not in actions that exclude or limit, but in deeds of love. The overarching theme on any Mother's Day is this truth. That the loving parent can do their child no harm. Love and life are not just connected, they are woven together. Without love the child dies. In the new life we find love. "We love because God first loved us." It is that simple.
In truth there is nothing that should separate us. Yet the world we create for ourselves is not the world God intends for us. We like to draw our lines, set our economic, social, religious and political boundaries. Too few of us have come to fully understand what it truly means to love a brother or sister. We have our fears that they will not love us back. That they intend us only harm. So we act from fear. We hold on to the fear and we cut ourselves off from the love of God that would abide in us. We do not do the acts of love but we defend our fears and the separations become divisions. We build our walls to protect us and keep what we fear out only to find that we have walled our selves in with our fears. The faith was not built on fear but the love of God and neighbor. As a people of God we know that love casts out fear but love is not just good intentions or the right words. Love is Philip entering into the Ethiopian's world, riding along in the chariot, seeing the world from the Ethiopian's perspective. Sharing the word of God and the promise of grace until in water and word they became truly brothers in Christ.
In a world that finds so much to fear, Christ calls on us to open the doors and step out into the world of God's love. Here is the word. I am the vine, you are the branches. There is only one vine. There is only one source of love revealed in Christ's resurrection.
There may be six degrees of separation between me and the driver of the car but there is announced this day no separation between God and me. "Those who abide in love abide in God and God abides in them." These are the words that defy calculation. The Ethiopian asked, "What is to prevent me from being baptized?" We ask, what is to prevent us from knowing and living in God's love?
We are connected. We are eternally linked to God. In this we are one with no degrees of separation.
Amen