Fifth Sunday of Easter
May 2 2021
When Saul arrived in Jerusalem he tried to join the disciples,
but they were all afraid of him,
not believing that he was a disciple.
Then Barnabas took charge of him and brought him to the apostles,
and he reported to them how he had seen the Lord,
and that he had spoken to him,
and how in Damascus he had spoken out boldly in the name of Jesus.
He moved about freely with them in Jerusalem,
and spoke out boldly in the name of the Lord.
He also spoke and debated with the Hellenists,
but they tried to kill him.
And when the brothers learned of this,
they took him down to Caesarea
and sent him on his way to Tarsus.
The church throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria was at peace.
It was being built up and walked in the fear of the Lord,
and with the consolation of the Holy Spirit it grew in numbers.
Children, let us love not in word or speech
but in deed and truth.
Now this is how we shall know that we belong to the truth
and reassure our hearts before him
in whatever our hearts condemn,
for God is greater than our hearts and knows everything.
Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us,
we have confidence in God
and receive from him whatever we ask,
because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.
And his commandment is this:
we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ,
and love one another just as he commanded us.
Those who keep his commandments remain in him, and he in them,
and the way we know that he remains in us
is from the Spirit he gave us.
Jesus said to his disciples:
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower.
He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit,
and every one that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit.
You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you.
Remain in me, as I remain in you.
Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own
unless it remains on the vine,
so neither can you unless you remain in me.
I am the vine, you are the branches.
Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit,
because without me you can do nothing.
Anyone who does not remain in me
will be thrown out like a branch and wither;
people will gather them and throw them into a fire
and they will be burned.
If you remain in me and my words remain in you,
ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you.
By this is my Father glorified,
that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”
Notes for reflection
The image of a grapevine loaded with luscious grapes is a very attractive and familiar one. We can sense the flow of life-sap through trunk and branches, But John starts by pointing out that only pruning has made this possible; branches cut off, the rest pruned back to make for maximum fruit.
Then he points out that the Father has the secateurs in hand and he is the one who will cut off any free-loaders. This cuts both ways: John does not say, impersonally, that the vine will be pruned, but positively that the Father does the pruning will cut back unwanted growth. But the job is to be left to the one who knows what he is doing. Beware the enthusiastic man who thinks he knows how to prune a vine. And the vine is the community of Christians.
Each community and every member is personally responsible for staying in Christ or not staying. But we can deceive ourselves. It's possible to not remain in Christ, to be a fruitless branch on the vine, even while we think everything is fine. Two situations come to mind where we might discover we've not remained in Christ. The first, a danger for thinkers inclined to revising things: while a great deal of clarity has resulted from clearing out old myths and worn-out ideas about Jesus, it would be possible to get so engrossed in making it all relevant in today's world that we actually empty the reality of content and meaning. It is hard to see that a Jesus without a unique connection to God is the genuine article. By omission we end up virtually denying the essential Divine Anointing on which depends his significance in human history. The Gospels and Epistles express this connection in a variety of symbols but give no definitive or technical explanation of it. That it is a real and totally special relationship is undeniable.
The other is a danger especially for those who don't think about things deeply enough. Many of us have gone through a stage of being enthusiastic about an apostolate or a devotion, study, liturgy or helping care for needy people. with our whole world focused on this at the time. We've wondered how anyone could function without it. People with other priorities we've even seen as 'the enemy', lumping them together in camps - 'with us or against us'. In our enthusiasm for this narrow interest it's possible to lose touch with Jesus who remains open to the weeds in the wheatfield and deadwood on the vine, leaving all that to the Father to take care of in his good time.
*****
"Remain in me!" John follows up on this in his first letter (2nd Reading). The tone is very intimate. He addresses the letter to "my little children". The intention is "so that you will not sin" but the main accent is on comforting them: "My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father..." (1 Jn 2:1)
In ch 3 he confronts an issue that irks us all. How to manage a troubled anxious conscience. This is not about the decision-making stage before action, but about the overall assessment our conscience makes afterwards or about painful memories that come to mind unbidden of things we've done over the years. Some people say they have no regrets. This sounds nice but it's hard to believe. Perhaps we should have regrets. Anyway, John is concerned to help us if our conscience is troubling us.
Children, let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth. Now this is how we shall know that we belong to the truth and reassure our hearts before him in whatever our hearts condemn, for God is greater than our hearts and knows everything.
It is useful to start by reading a free-flowing translation from The Message:
My dear children, let's not just talk about love; let's practice real love. This is the only way we'll know we're living truly, living in God's reality. It's also the way to shut down debilitating self-criticism, even when there is something to it. For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves. (1)
This gives some idea of how to make sense of an argument that seems to be a vicious circle. In most translations it seems to say that we can trust God if our conscience is clear. Well, of course we can; we've nothing to fear. So what? But John is surely making an important point here: that we can trust God even when our conscience is troubled because God is greater than our conscience and knows our weakness; i.e., God will make allowance for weakness, circumstances, limited knowledge, and give us leeway that we would never give ourselves, for God knows us better than we know ourselves.
*****
In the next lines one word stands out: 'confidence'
Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence in God and receive from him whatever we ask, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.
"We can have confidence in God": I've always felt the phrase sits uncomfortably in the context. It all seems too good to be true, or on the other hand self-evident.
Again Eugene Peterson helps:
And friends, once that's taken care of and we're no longer accusing or condemning ourselves, we're bold and free before God! We're able to stretch our hands out and receive what we asked for because we're doing what he said, doing what pleases him.(The Message)
"Bold and free before God". Nearly everyone translates this simply as "have confidence in God", which would refer to basic trust. But the word is parresia which is all about a boldness in trust. Far more than ordinary trust, this is the boldness of the child who belongs in the family and is sure when she stretches out her hand to dad he will give her what she asks for. She does not negotiate with her father as outsiders must do. She asks and he gives.
So John is saying: Once our self-doubt is taken care of we can/should approach our Father with the bold confidence that we have as one of the family. Leave the negotiating, the idea of making a deal, at the door. Come in. It is your right. Simply ask and your request will be listened to. The Father will not turn his back and walk away from his child.
*****
Finally, a closer look at 'what pleases him':
And his commandment is this: we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he commanded us. Those who keep his commandments remain in him, and he in them, and the way we know that he remains in us is from the Spirit he gave us.
Or alternatively:
Again, this is God's command: to believe in his personally named Son, Jesus Christ. He told us to love each other, in line with the original command. As we keep his commands, we live deeply and surely in him, and he lives in us. And this is how we experience his deep and abiding presence in us: by the Spirit he gave us. (The Message)
The word "commandment" can sometimes trip us up. I get sick of commandments. Then I found that the Greek entole is about the end or purpose, so that we could also speak of "following God's directives" We follow God's instructions willingly because we know they will lead us to our goal. A directive is more palatable than an order. (2)
John says the first instruction is to believe in the name of the Son, Jesus Christ. To "believe in his name" is to accept the unique authority he has by virtue of the anointing he received. We've already looked at this above.
"and to love one another just as he instructed us to do." Jesus put all the meaning of his life into this one key directive: that we love one another in the way he has loved us, i.e., in giving oneself not in a limited sense, balancing off profit and cost, asking is it worth spending effort on this individual, but giving without limitation and beyond the call of duty, breaking conventional common standards of caring, even to the point of putting your life at risk.
It takes a life-time of practice to know what we can do and to accept what we can't, so there's no need here for a word of moderation. Each morning we boldly ask that we will do what we can for the other one today. Then we can trust the experience of his deep and abiding presence in us by the Spirit he gives us.