Easter 6B | Christ Church, New Brunswick, NJ

Acts 8:26-40; 1 John 4:7-21; John 15:1-8

“I am the vine, you are the branches.”

During these Sundays after Easter, we hear familiar themes. Every year, the first Sunday after Easter Day we hear the story of “Doubting Thomas”. The next Sunday I’ve come to call “Jesus eats” Sunday, featuring various stories of him spending time with his disciples, and somehow, food always turns up in the story. The Road to Emmaus, Jesus making breakfast on the beach, or Jesus appearing to the disciples and asking for food – all of these stories are part of the “resurrection lore” of the gospels. Of course, as you heard last Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Easter is traditionally known as “Good Shepherd Sunday”. We heard familiar passages about the Good Shepherd, and had such lovely, beloved music.

This Sunday we hear these familiar words from Jesus’ own lips, “I am the vine, you are the branches.” This is the last of the seven “I am” sayings of Jesus found in John’s Gospel. “I am the vine, you are the branches.”

Yesterday we welcomed May, the first day of Summer in the old, pagan, nature-based calendars. Things are blooming! Pollen is covering everything! I was out around the Canterbury House doing yard work. One thing I had to see to was…you guessed it…trim back vines! If I didn’t cut them back now, they’d take over! Vines are like that! The branches have tendrils that reach out and pull the vine up and around things. It’s truly remarkable! And what’s the best way to stop a vine from growing? Don’t trim the branches. Cut the central vine at its root!

Last week I mused that most of us are only vaguely aware of what it means to be a shepherd, especially in our post-agrarian culture, but I dare say most of us are much more familiar with gardening. We know how plants grow, even if we don’t garden ourselves. Plants need water and sun and good, nutritious soil, and given favorable weather, they’ll probably grow.

“I am the vine, you are the branches,” Jesus tells his disciples, “Abide in me as I abide in you.” The imagery is clear: Jesus is our source, our root, and we grow from him. While we draw from our source, we bear fruit. When we don’t abide in him, when we don’t draw our very life from Jesus, we will wither, and we will die. Cut off from our source.

The disciples hearing his words probably had no idea how hard their lives would become once Jesus had left them. Jesus had been their source, their rabbi, their leader, but soon he would be gone. Next Thursday, the 13^th, is Ascension Day. Jesus met with his followers one last time, commanding them not to stay in the relatively safe environs of Jerusalem and Galilee. No! Go into ALL the world! That must have been an intimidating thought for them. How would they accomplish this mission? Especially without Jesus? Well, just 10 days after the Ascension, on the Day of Pentecost, God sent the Holy Spirit to guide them, but little did they know where the Spirit would guide them, and the people they would meet! Long before Dr Seuss, the Acts of the Apostles serves as an early version of “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!”

This morning we also hear the story of Philip, one of those listening in that day. An angel tells Philip to go to this wilderness road. The Spirit is with Philip and is guiding him as well. He sees a chariot. Inside the chariot is an Ethiopian government official. No doubt this was an unexpected sight. Ethiopians are, of course, Africans. And this government official would probably have been richly dressed, even on a long journey. This was an important man! He was the royal treasurer in the court of the Candace, basically the queen of Ethiopia. He most likely wouldn’t have been driving the chariot himself. No doubt he would had an assistant with him if not an entourage. For Philip, this would have been an unlikely and surprising encounter.

This Ethiopian was clearly an educated man. He was reading Isaiah. He was literate, and what’s more, he was curious! This tells us that this man practiced the Jewish faith. This actually shouldn’t be much of a surprise. There is actually a long history of Jewish Ethiopians, and clearly this man was one. We also read that he was returning from Jerusalem, where he had gone to worship. He was reading Isaiah and his curiosity was at its peak. 

But there was something else distinctive about this royal official. The text tells us this man was a eunuch. Now, royal eunuchs were common in many cultures other than Israel. They were often officials in the court of a queen or king who had been ritually castrated so that they could serve the monarch 100%. Their whole lives had been given over to this royal service.

One thing we would not know just from the text – this official, though important, would not have been allowed in the inner courts of the Temple. He would have had to remain outside with the women and gentiles. Remember that space Jesus cleared of the money changers and animal sellers? That’s where he would have had to remain, even though he was a foreign dignitary. Based on the Law, Eunuchs were considered unclean, and therefore he could not have entered the temple.

The Spirit leads Philip to speak to this foreigner, this outsider. What must have gone through Philip’s mind? Fear? No doubt.

Their conversation was a holy one. This man does not understand what he is reading, and Philip explains to him about Jesus and all that had happened to him, his crucifixion, his death, his resurrection. Philip was a witness, and this Ethiopian official comes to faith in Jesus as the Messiah.

“What is preventing me from being baptized?” he asks Philip. He doesn’t want to waste any time. He too wants to be a follower of Jesus and wants the public sign – baptism. Where he was considered an “outsider” at the Temple, now he was received fully as a member of the Church. If Philip and the other apostles didn’t know it yet, after the explosive transformation of their lives at the Day of Pentecost, these first Christians were welcoming new believers from places they couldn’t have imagined before.

And so, in this wilderness place, they find water, and this new believer is baptized. Church legend gives him a name, Simeon Bachos, and tells us that he returned to Ethiopia and told others about Jesus, including the Candace, the queen. We do not know much about him after that other than in legend, but we do know that there is a strong Christian presence in Ethiopia to this very day.

“For those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.” These words from I John should challenge us all, just as they not doubt challenged those first disciples. God was calling them to love everyone they encountered, not just the people they knew, but strangers, foreigners, even eunuchs whom they had always considered unclean.

Jesus modeled this radical love and acceptance to them already when he touched lepers and shared meals with prostitutes and tax collectors – those whom dignified religious people considered unclean. Jesus not only touched them, but he loved them as well. This was different.

These followers of Jesus were doing something new, something radical. The church, from its very beginning, was showing love to the outcast, acceptance to those who had been rejected. One of the first major disagreements among the apostles was whether or not to accept gentiles, the uncircumcised, into their midst. Jesus wasn’t there to answer these hard questions anymore, so they had to trust the Spirit to guide them. In the end, they voted to open the church to all. The church was going to be a very different place than the Temple.

“I am the vine, you are the branches.” “Abide in me as I abide in you.” “Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.” “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”

The question for us today is are we abiding in Jesus? In our day we might ask, “Do Eunuch’s lives matter?” Are we loving our brothers and sisters, even strangers so different from us that we might be uncomfortable? When God calls us to love, does that include people we may just not like all that much? Are we bearing fruit? Are we showing the nation and the world around us the truly revolutionary way of love? The way is simple, as simple as green growing things. With the right care, if we abide in the vine, we can’t help but grow. Amen.