Wide and Deep
Text: John 15:1-8; Wide: Acts 8:26-40; Deep: 1 John 4:7-21
By: Rev. Terry Carty
Date: 5-6-12
Place: Kingston Springs United Methodist Church
Season: Fifth Sunday of Easter
Main Point: Wide and deep is not an either/or decision to make. It is reciprocal in nature. In order to reach widely, we must have depth. In order to have depth, we must have the challenge of reaching widely.
Children’s Time
Why is it important for branches to be attached to a vine? Why would someone clip branches from a plant? Tell about the Crepe Myrtle – when branches are trimmed back in the late winter, more new branches grow out and they grow to three time higher than the trunk.
Ask: if God is the gardener and Jesus is the vine, how can we stay connected so we will grow in our faith?
Sermon
I don’t know much about wine, but I understand the process by which it is made. A few years ago I had an opportunity to do a training retreat for youth ministers in a camp right in the middle of wine country in California. While I was there I drove past thousands of acres of grape vines and took time to stop and talk with some of the farmers. They showed me their vines and explained that the vines must be clipped for them to produce more grapes. In Jesus’ time they called it ‘cleaning’ the vine – trimming off the branches that don’t make grapes and trimming back the ones that do make grapes.
God wants us all to be healthy like a vine full of grapes. We are spiritually healthy when we live thinking about how Jesus is in us and we are in Jesus. The whole business of grape vines and clipping off the branches may mean that we need to look at our lives through God’s eyes (God the gardener) and see what things may be in the way of being with Christ. Most of the time we can be with Christ just by remembering and praying during the day. But sometimes we get so busy with sports, dance, music, and maybe even with school that we forget to bear fruit for God. That is when cutting back may be what is needed.
Our theme for today’s worship is about the gardener – God, the vine – Jesus, and the branches – us. Jesus calls us to abide in Him and he in us, just like he is in the Father and the Father is in him. That takes us to a deeper place than just being an ornamental plant. That takes us to the level of being a life-producing plant – a working plant.
I see two sub-themes in today’s scriptures as well. To abide in Christ and he in us means that our faith needs to be wide and deep.
The passage from Acts about Philip is an example of faith that is wide. Philip is sent to spread the good news of Christ to the Ethiopian who, in turn, takes the message of Christ to a whole population that had not heard about Jesus. The content of his story about
Jesus must have been compelling in order to help the Man see a new way of belief. This was a smart man who needed depth of understanding to convince him.
The passage from 1 John is deep – in fact, it is so deep that it sometimes makes your brain hurt just to think about the complexity of our spirit being co-mingled with Christ and God. When we love, that is God in us. That is deep to ponder. What implications does this have for times when we do not feel love? How are we supposed to live out a love that comes from God? What is appropriate human interaction for such a love?
Wide and deep. When We abide in Christ and Christ abides in us, it is a wide and deep. It requires contemplation to even to accept that ‘God is Love.’ Upon accepting that reality, we live differently and we spread this theology more widely like Philip did.
Wide and deep is not an either/or decision to make. It is reciprocal in nature. In order to reach widely, we must have depth. In order to have depth, we must have the challenge of reaching widely. This is like the heart muscle relaxing to fill with blood, then contracting to push the life-giving blood out to all the extremities.
I have two brother-in-laws who are currently experiencing arrhythmia – irregular heartbeats. They both report being tired all the time, even to the point of not being able work sometimes. Their quality of life is significantly diminished by this condition. One brother-in-law has had a couple of heart attacks and bypass surgery. He still has some blockage and his heart must work hard. The other brother-in-law has a strong heart but is being affected by medication for a thyroid condition.
No matter how strong their hearts are to push the blood out to their organs, there is not enough blood flow without the heart resting to refill itself. In order for the heart to do its job, it must relax and let the heart refill. Once the heart is filled, the muscle once again contracts to send the oxygenated blood to the organs.
In a similar way, without depth in our faith, our message is shallow and not convincing. We may be hesitant to share a hopeful word of faith because we may not feel like we can adequately explain it. And yet, without trying to find words and images to describe Christ as the vine, we may find ourselves to be unfulfilled branches.
Our message today is that the Christ who dwells within us requires us to live widely and deeply. Examine your connection to the vine. Is it healthy? Are you reaching deeply to appreciate the loving God pooling in you? Are you responding by giving that love life to reach out widely in the name of Christ? That is the gardener at work in you.