Fifth Sunday of Easter Year B

FIFTH SUNDAY IN EASTERTIDE B

May 10th,2009

In last Sunday’s Gospel Jesus showed us the beautiful image of our union with Him saying that He was the Good Shepherd, and we are His sheep who belong to His flock, who know His voice and follow Him. In today’s passage Jesus gives us another, equally beautiful image of our union with Him when He says: “ I am the Vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in them bears much fruit, because apart from Me you can do nothing...... I am the true Vine and My Father is the vine-grower. He removes every branch in Me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit He prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you.” (Jn. 15: 1-8) Jesus gives us a lot to think about in that short passage. First of all, what a wonderful truth it is that Jesus shares His own life with us, in the same way that a vine shares its life with its branches. Apart from the vine, the branches wither and die, they cannot exist on their own. We also wither and die apart from Jesus. Secondly, Jesus tells us that God, our loving Father, prunes the vine to make it bear even more fruit. God encourages us to follow Jesus, to do our very best to live our lives in union with Jesus, and together with Jesus to reach out to serve others.

We are one with the Risen Lord Jesus, just as the branch is one with the Vine. What a beautiful reality that is. We live in Jesus, our spiritual lives are nourished by Him, we totally depend on Him for what we need to live as faithful sons and daughters of God, just as the branch of a vine totally depend on the vine both for its life and for the fruit it produces. When Jesus says in today’s Gospel passage that we are to bear much fruit, He means that we are to live the New Life which He has won for us, and which He shares with us, the New Life which was His after He died and rose again on Easter. If, in fact, we are not living our Christian lives fully, as Jesus intends we should, then we are not capable of bearing all the good fruit we should be producing. If we are detached, even partially, from Jesus, if we are no longer in contact with Him, then like dead branches on the vine, we are incapable of producing anything worthwhile to make this world a better place, and to help others as Jesus expects us to do. Like dead, withered branches, if we live apart from Jesus, our spiritual lives are dead..

Jesus also tells us, in today’s Gospel passage, that even healthy branches need pruning from time to time so that they can produce even more and better fruit. He tells us that God, our loving Father, will work on us, prune us, so to speak, so that we become more alive in Jesus and more productive of good works. Jesus has invited us to be His faithful disciples, to live His Risen Life in union with Him, but He also wants us to share that New Life, and the Good News of His mercy and love with others, so that they too can encounter Him.. Like branches firmly attached to the vine, Jesus wants us to have a strong spiritual link to Himself, and to live our lives fully aware of His presence with us. He want us to place our trust in Him, not in anyone or anything else, to depend on Him for all that we need to live holy and happy lives on this earth. Jesus is our strength. He is our hope, He is the source of the power we need to serve Him as we serve one another. To live in union with Jesus means to live under His Rule, to acknowledge that He is Our Lord and has authority over our lives. It means that we are striving to follow His example of doing the Father’s Will at all times. To live in union with Jesus is to live our lives trying to love others just as He has loved us. In doing that we bear much fruit in our day-to-day lives as His disciples. Remember what was said of the first Christians living in Antioch: “See how they love one another.” People should be able to say that of us as well today.

God measures the success of our human lives on this earth, not in terms of how much money we have acquired, or how much power over others we may have, or what political heights we may have attainted, but rather God will consider our lives a success based on whether or not we are following Jesus, and keeping His commandment to love one another.. In His Parable about the Last Judgment, Jesus says that only those who are trying to love and serve Him in others will experience “eternal life” in the kingdom of God. When we obey Jesus as our Lord and Saviour, when we are sincerely trying to keep the great commandment to love God and to love others - then we are producing the fruit God expects of us; we are spiritually healthy, and firmly attached to the Vine which is Jesus.

The more we seek to imitate Jesus, t he more we will, in fact, become like Him in our daily lives. If we are trying to think the way He thinks, then gradually we will grow into having a mind-set like His, and it will be our prevailing way of thinking. For example, if our thoughts are mostly negative, then they will be considered by others as negative persons, always finding fault with something or someone, always complaining about something or someone, usually not very happy with life. On the other hand, if we cultivates positive thoughts, then we will be seen as being positive persons, living mostly lives of peace and joy, which naturally attract others. The more we work at becoming like Jesus in our thoughts and behaviour, the more we will succeed, and others will be able to see Jesus in us. Here is a little verse that I think illustrates this:

“A little seed lay on the ground and soon began to sprout. Now which of all the flowers around, it thought, shall I come out?

(The seed could be heard saying: “I don’t care to be a rose, a rose has thorns.

I don’t care to be a lily, a lily is too colorless. I don’t care to be a violet, a violet is too small, and it grows to close to the ground.)

And so it criticized each flower, that supercilious seed

until it woke one summer hour and found itself a weed.”

Once upon a time there was a little boy who, in an outburst of temper, shouted to his mother: “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.” Then, fearing punishment, he ran up into the hillside where he shouted into the valley: “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.” Back from the valley came the echo: “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.” This startled the boy, and he ran back to the house and told his mother that a mean voice was coming out of the valley shouting : “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.”. So his mother took him to the hillside and told him to shout: “I love you, I love you, I love you.” When he did, the boy heard the voice from the valley respond: “I love you, I love you, I love you.” The lesson of that story is that what we give is what we get, or what we sow is what we reap. The fruit we bear will be returned to us in abundance. However, in order to experience the joy of a good, abundant life in Jesus, we need to put into practice what He teaches us. We need to live life in union with Jesus, and be truly grateful to God for His steadfast and abundant love. Daily let us give thanks to the Lord for He is good, His love is everlasting.