Jesus and the wine vine of love...

The Reverend Deon K. Johnson

Preached at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Brighton MI May 6. 2012

John 15:1-8

Jesus said, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. 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. 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. 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. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples."

Jesus in our Gospel reminds us that he is the vine and we are the branches and he invites us to abide in his love. But if you've ever seen pruned bushes, you know it's not pretty. Yesterday as part of the parish cleanup we pruned and dug and divided a bunch of the plants from the front garden. If you came by here around 11:00 it would have looked like a war zone and the plants certainly weren’t winning. Roots and rhizomes, leaves and stems were everywhere!

But as any gardener can tell you plants need a good pruning every now and then. Cutting away the dead growth -- whether of a single plant or from the whole garden -- is the only way for new life to take place. So what is Jesus really saying here? I suspect that what he means is that we need to be connected to something real, to something life sustaining or we run the risk of withering up and being pruned. What Jesus is reminding us is that we are in need of life giving love and connectedness in order to thrive. But connected to what?

One of the challenges of our modern life is that we're more connected than ever, yet more people feel increasingly isolated. We have more and more friends on Facebook, but fewer friends that we actually see and talk with in person. We are "linked in" all over the place, yet rates of reported loneliness and depression are skyrocketing. Think of all the ways we are connected, we are connected to more sources of news and information and entertainment and even to each other via email and social media, yet seem to be almost drowning in information while at the same time  starved for actual experience, particularly the experience of being in real relationships.

Jesus is saying is that by being connected to him we are also able to be connected with each other. Jesus invites us to be honest, to be real, and having confessed our hopes and fears, our dreams and disappointments, our accomplishments and failures, our blessing and our sin, to know what we are accepted, loved, and forgiven. 

The question is do we live like we have real connections? Do we accept, love, invite and forgive others as we have been? Are we willing to be pruned, to let the dead, dry, barren places of our lives be burned away,  in order to let new life and new growth flow from us?

What the world is saying in things like Facebook and LinkedIn and BranchedOut and all the other social media is that there is a yearning for connection, for realness, for relationship, for experience. And if we are honest with ourselves we will realize that the church, the Christian community was the first ever social network with Christ as the vine and us as the connected branches.  That doesn’t mean that the church isn’t messy and complicated and at times in need of a good pruning itself.

But do we live our lives as though we know that we are loved and connected through Christ with each other? Can we honestly say that showing up here in church on Sundays makes a difference in our lives, in how we treat other people, in how we go about our business Monday through Saturday?

This past week I came across a quote by Desmond Tutu (you remember him...he kissed a Seminarian around here a few years back). In a sermon Archbishop Tutu commenting on his faith and on the role of the church in the world said “We have imagined that Christianity itself is a religion of virtue. But no, Christianity is not a religion of virtue; it is a religion of grace. And there's a difference. A religion of virtue says, 'If you are good, then God will love you.' A religion of grace says, 'God loves you. Period!' God loves you despite your foibles and failures, not because you're so good but as a sinner in need of mercy. God loves you; live then as one who is beloved, who has been forgiven.”

I am convinced that Desmond Tutu has a profound connection to the Divine. He hits at the heart of who we are and what we need as followers of Christ. All we need, all we want, all we long for is love. But sometimes that love is hidden under layers and layers of the dead branches we have accumulated over the years. Sometimes we have been hurt so badly by others that it is hard to let love in or even to reach out in love.

 But the thing is we already have love, we have God’s abiding and life-giving love but more often than not we don’t realize it, more often than not we don’t share it.

What our faith requires of is that in light of God's acceptance of us, we can then turn and try to accept each other, living with the imperfections of even our best relationships because we know ourselves to be imperfect and flawed and yet also so profoundly loved.

You see Love is at the heart of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. Love is the measure of faithfulness; love is what connects us to each other if we let it. Love is the nourishment that flows through the vine that is Christ and sustains us as branches.

What we as a church, as a community, as outposts of God’s love and hope gathered together must ask ourselves is this: Can we allow Jesus to be at our center? Can we be a congregation that becomes a place where we admit who we are and allow others to do the same?

Just as we need the air to breathe, we need food and nourishment to live. We need shelter and community; we need a home. We need love and connectedness. We need the vine to remind us that we are all connected and in this together so that we can be faithful to our calling. “I am the vine, you are the branches…” Amen.  

Jesus makes us good enough!

The Rev. Deon K. Johnson

Preached at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Brighton MI April 29, 2012

John 10:11-18

Jesus said, "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away-- and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father."

West Indian Blackbelly Sheep

I have to begin with a confession.  My brother and I actually grew up with sheep. Not the cute white woolly wads of fleece that you see on TV but dark brown, non-woolly black bellied sheep native to the West Indies. They are not the sheep of TV, movies or Serta mattress commercials.  


They were plain, boring ole sheep that we had to take out in the morning and bring back home at night. The way we spelt sheep was C-H-O-R-E! 

The thing about the sheep that I grew up with was that they were in a word dumb! If I had a choice between the sheep, rabbits and goats that I had to take care of as a child I would go with the goats. They were at least somewhat smart. But not the sheep.

They were noisy four legged creatures that would follow you everywhere, get loose and wonder off or even worse raid the garden and eat everything green in sight, and of course I got blamed. I often wondered if the care of sheep wasn’t some unique punishment created by God specifically for my brother and I to atone for sins yet committed. 

The thing about sheep is that they have a tendency, if you’re not careful, to wonder off and get themselves hurt or worse killed. But if there is one thing that sheep know it is this: with someone to care for them there will always be enough grass and greenery to eat and that someone will always be there, loving them and taking care of them no matter how stupid they may sometimes be.  

I suspect that that is why Jesus said to his followers “I am the Good shepherd” that image of tender loving care that a shepherd has for the sheep is a timeless image. It speaks to our need to belong, to be loved and to know that someone cares deeply for us.

[Description and history of the image the image of Jesus in the catacombs from the 2^nd Century -the very first image of Jesus from the early church.]

"I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." And "I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord."

But why? Why does Jesus the good shepherd lay down his life? To tell us that we are, in fact, good enough. Jesus, especially in John's gospel, doesn't die in order to make some kind of payment to God or to satisfy God's wrath or to pay the penalty for sin. Jesus, in John's Gospel, is the Revealer, the One who comes to make the invisible God visible and the unapproachable God accessible. Jesus comes to reveal that God loves the whole world, no exceptions. Jesus comes, that is, to tell us that we are already beloved, that we are good enough, that we need no shoes or book or car or reputation or lover or high status job or big bank account or list of achievements or anything else to be deserving of God's love. That we've already got God's unconditional and unending love.

But that can be hard to believe. So many messages, so much money is devoted to trying to tell us that we are not good enough, that we are not worthy of love, that we need to earn acceptance, that we need something else, something more to be acceptable. Think of all the commercials on TV that tell us in subtle terms of course, that if we just got this one product, this one special thing, we would be perfect and all our friends, family and even our pets would love us! Get it, buy it, wear it, show it, give it, share it, spend it and you to will be good enough, but only with my product. (And of course two weeks later the come out with the platinum edition of whatever it is we just bought.)

But what  Jesus reminds us that we are good enough, that nothing in this world could make us any less in the eyes of God.  But it is hard to believe at times. Let's make no mistake about that. Which is why we should listen to even more of Jesus' message: "I lay down my life for the sheep," he says. "I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd." Jesus, in other words, didn't come just for the original group of disciples. He came also for us, and we are now invited to hear and believe this message of grace and acceptance and to share it with each other and all those we meet.

It means that in our loves we have to live like someone loves us. It means that we have to treat others as if someone loves them and loves them deeply. It means that we can't just do the motions of faith on Sundays and then live like we don't know that a Good Shepherd loves us the rest of the week.

It means reminding ourselves and others that:

"You are a beloved child of God, and you are good enough."

Lets practice that now. Turn to someone next to you and remind them. 

Feels good doesn't? We need to hear that more often. We need to tell others that more often.  That is what our faith is about, reminding ourselves that we are good enough. 

What we say in baptizing Joshua today is that he is good enough for God's love. That nothing and no one can't separate him from God not matter who he becomes in life. The challenge for us is to make sure that he knows that he is always good enough. It isn't enough for us to tell him that he is loved and cared for by the Good Shepherd we must live as if we know that we are loved and cared for as well. It means that we must work for a world where all of God's children know that they are loved and gently cared for by the creator of the vast universe.

There is a reason why the early church saw Jesus not as a king, or a ruler but as a gentle herder of sheep. They like we know that we need to be reminded that in Jesus Christ God's love is made real and tangible. That the almighty creator of the world is not some distant figure on a cloud or something far away but a real living, breathing, loving prison revealed in a man named Jesus.

In Jesus the Good Shepherd God reminds us that we are beloved and that we are good enough. May we have the courage to live our lives as though we really, truly believed it. Amen.

Our Lady meets Lady Gaga

Luke 1:26-38

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you." But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?" The angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God." Then Mary said, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." Then the angel departed from her.

How many of you have ever heard of Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta? I suspect that most of you probably never even heard the name. What if I told you that she could teach us a thing or two about Mary? Here is something written by Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta:

Click to find out...

That’s right, Stefani Germanotta is none other than Lady Gaga (Here begins your requested Lady Gaga Sermon).

 Those of you who may not know who Lady Gaga is, she is the Queen of Pop. She is the most searched, most googled, and most twittered person alive. If you’re wondering what Twitter is, it has nothing to do with birds. Lady Gaga is shocking, outrageous and unpredictable….she showed up at an awards ceremony wearing a meat suit…with real meat. 

But as strange and outlandish as Lady Gaga might be she reminds us that like Mary, underneath the makeup and glitter and "outrageousness" is an ordinary person called by God to be part of something extraordinary.

Whether we like it or not we serve a shocking, outrageous and unpredictable God that goes well beyond meat suits and over the top incandescent high heels.

You see the thing about Our Lady and Lady Gaga is that God doesn’t often call the powerful and the exceptional God calls the ordinary. Mary was not chosen to be the mother of Jesus because she was special. She was chosen because she was the spitting image of ordinary; A young girl of marriageable age, living an ordinary life in an ordinary town in an ordinary country with nothing to special or exceptional about her. There were probably hundreds of other girls who could easily have taken Mary’s place.

But yet each year around this time we ponder the question; Who is Mary? Depending on your background there are a million different ways to answer that question. Mary is either to be held up as being almost divine or simply the mother of the greatest man that ever lived.  To our culture Mary is by and large a distant figure, silent, immobile, gazing at the manger; plastic. She is there untouchable. We don’t often see her as a real person; we see the image of her that we have created.

When I was growing up we had a little plastic nativity set that was carefully stored away during the year and lovingly unwrapped around Christmas. The figures were nothing special; they were made out of cheap hard plastic with paint. But to me those figures were priceless. I loved the ritual of taking those little figures out and placing them somewhere near our little plastic tree (no Douglas Firs in Barbados). But of all the figures I like Mary the best. The plastic look on her face that conveyed such love and hope and devotion for her little plastic cast son in a manger was endearing and engaging all at the same time.

I have no idea what happened to those plastic figures but they tell a story of how to connect with the Divine. That little blue and white figure of Mary, as plastic as she was made her a real person to me; She was much more than the Mary I knew from the prayers (Some of you can probably recite with me without much thought “Hail Mary full of Grace the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. Holy Mary Mother of God pray for us sinners now and in the hour of our death.)My little plastic Mary took her from the realm of being the big, awesome Mother of God and made her human for me.  She was more than the Mary of prayers.

This ordinariness is what makes the Mary’s story so extraordinary. How could someone so common give birth to a child that would change the world? How could a child that would reflect the Divine be born into such ordinary circumstances, grow up under such plain-jane parents, and do such ordinary work (carpentry)? The answer, I believe is simply this: God’s Reign, God’s presence, God’s very self does not come through extraordinary people. God’s vision stands or falls on ordinary people embracing it and living it out in their daily lives.

What was significant about both Mary and her son Jesus was the Reign of God that came into the world through them. This is why Mary’s song never once mentions Jesus. It praises God for the justice and grace, the love and peace that God is bringing into the world through her (See Luke 1:46-55). None of this is intended to deny the unique nature and mission of Jesus. It is simply a challenge for us to recognize that if Jesus’ incarnation was an extraordinary thing, that was done to us, it would have little impact on our lives now.

If Jesus came as some sort of superhero swooping in to save us, then he would have had no need to call anyone to follow him. The Gospels are nothing if not a call to ordinary people to embrace the vision of God that was present in Jesus’ life and to live it out as Jesus did in lives of compassion, grace, love and sacrifice. Scripture is filed with ordinary people going about their lives and together reflecting all the awe, and beauty and hope and joy and peace and grace of an awesome and awe-inspiring God. From Adam right down to YOU God is in the business of calling ordinary people to the work of extraordinary love.

What this means is that Mary was not a unique human being who was uniquely chosen, and who we must simply watch and celebrate. No, Mary is all of us – ordinary, loved and called. We are all visited by God. We are all overshadowed by God’s Spirit. We are all parents of God’s Reign. Which means that it is time to stop waiting for the fantastically and extraordinary to save us. Mary reminds us that it is time for us all to accept the “calledness” of our ordinariness, and begin to give birth to God’s Reign in our own small way. It is time for us all to choose, daily, to bring Christ and the Reign of God that Christ revealed, into our world.

Mary was not extraordinary. Stefani Germanotta is not extraordinary. We are not extraordinary. Beneath the myth of Mary, the makeup of Lady Gaga and the masks we create for ourselves lay the truly ordinary people that God has called by name. It is not the extraordinary people that God needs. The history of God is filled with ordinary people who recognized what God was doing and joined the movement.