One of my friends over at
the seminary has a five year old daughter named Norah. This past
week, Norah had a bit of a cold, and wasn't feeling very well. When I
walked over to their house, Norah was sitting on the porch with her
mother, cuddled up in her arms, as her mother was reading a book for
her. Even though Norah said had she wasn't hungry, her mother had
brought out some snacks for her to eat so that she would feel better.
As she continued reading, Norah wrapped her arms around mother's neck
and dug her head into her shoulder.
When a child gets sick,
what they really want is just to be with their mom or dad. The
comforting scratch on the back or head gives them the assurance that
only comes from such a close and caring relationship. Even when I got
a pretty bad stomach bug last summer, I was laying in my apartment
thinking of how I really wished I had a friend to be with me, to help
me through my pain. Why do you think this is? Where does this need
come from to have others there when we're in pain? It points to a
greater truth about all of us: not only are we made to be in
relationship, but we need the love that comes from being in
relationship when we are at our weakest point.
While I think we can all
agree on this, what I want us to consider today is this: We all need
God because even right now we are already at our weakest point. We
are right now suffering from sickness and hurt. Jesus came to heal
that sickness, and what we can learn from this passage in the Gospel
of John about the True Vine is not just about how we can be and do
better, but why we need him if we want to be able to do anything at
all.
Jesus says, “I am the
true vine and my Father is the vinedresser.” He says, “I am the
vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it
is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”
Sometimes, we read this passage to mean that we need to do good
things, and that those good things come from Jesus. We think about it
selfishly, as if Jesus is giving us the secret formula for being a
good person. This makes us think the way we show our trust in him is
by doing more for him as proof of our love. Now, I do believe that
when we have faith in Jesus, it should show itself in what we do and
how we live. But, I think there is a deeper level to this that
shouldn't be missed. If you'll remember little Norah who I told you
about earlier; she actually had a ballet recital later on the day
when I went over to visit them. Norah had been looking forward to
this recital for months, and would have been devastated if she were
unable to go and perform. Her mother wanted her to go to the recital,
but wanted to make sure Norah would be healthy enough to do so first.
There was no way that without her mother's help she would have been
healthy enough to perform. Her mother gave her what she needed to
heal, but also kept Norah from doing things that would actually make
her sickness worse.
I think what we need to
realize before we consider what sorts of things we can do for Jesus
is that first and foremost: We don't abide in Jesus so we can do
more, we abide in Jesus because without him we can do nothing. We are
sick children in need of the love of our heavenly Father. It's
helpful to think of sin as a sickness. Being in sin is not the way
we're meant to live. The sinful life is not the healthy life. We were
made to be holy; we were set apart by God among his creation to be
made in his own image. We see Paul proclaim in Acts 17 that “[God]
himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything,” and
that we are “God's offspring” because he created us in his image.
This truth should be evident to us because as Paul says, “he is
actually not far from each one of us.”
A branch isn't separate
from a vine and a young child doesn't ever actually leave their
parent's house. All we as branches and children can do is disobey.
It's by our disobedience to God that sin enters into the world. We
were made to be the image of God, but sin distorts that image into
something nearly unrecognizable. Where there is meant to be love, we
have bickering and division. Where there is meant to be charity, we
have selfishness and greed. Where there is meant to be righteousness,
we have corruption and deceit. And this is in all of us. It's easy to
point to those around us and say “at least I don't do such and such
a sin!” But, we need to realize that it is all of us who are sick,
not in degrees as if sin had a scale for us to measure ourselves on,
but we are all terminally ill with sin.
This is why we read Jesus
saying “if anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a
branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the
fire, and burned.” Sin blocks us off from God. It is a disease
which knows its own cure. And the only way it can continue to spread
and destroy is by keeping the branches away from their source of
life. When a vine is planted, it gives water to all of it's branches,
but when something blocks a branch's veins, it cannot give water to
the branch. Sin clogs our veins like a blood clot, keeping us from
the living water of the Holy Spirit which brings life. And so the
only thing left to do with a dead branch is to throw it away. Jesus
doesn't want us thrown away, so he calls us to abide in him so that
he can give us what we need to live. If we don't abide in him and
receive what he has to give us, we will die because of sin. Again, we
don't abide in Jesus to do more, but we abide in Jesus because we are
sick and helpless and without him we can do nothing.
“If you keep my
commandments,” Jesus says, “you will abide in my love, just as I
have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.” We
shouldn't think about keeping the commandments as appeasing God, as
if we could do anything to make him love us more than he already
does. He gives his commandments because that's what it takes to be
healthy. Norah didn't want to eat the fruit and cereal her mother
gave her, because her sickness was telling her she wasn't hungry.
When her mother said not to run around outside, it wasn't because she
didn't want Norah to have fun, but because she needed to rest in
order to heal. It is sin which tells us we don't want God's
commandments. Sin tells us we don't hunger or thirst for
righteousness. Keeping the commandments of Christ is part of the path
to healing from the illness of sin. When we love God and our
neighbors, we are being healed of the idolatry of self that sin has
placed in our hearts. When we give to everyone who has need, we learn
to let go of our earthly treasures which will be destroyed, and to
exchange them for the treasure of heaven—the love of God and
eternal life in his kingdom. When we rest on the Sabbath day or give
up our worries about this life, we are trusting in God's provision.
Because God is the only one who can truly heal our sickness.
We need to remember that
sin is more than just not being good, or not obeying God's law. It's
like a contagious disease that infects our human nature. We can try
to beat it by ourselves, but it's so deeply ingrained in our marrow
and flowing in our bloodstream that without the help of a true
professional, we can only battle the symptoms, but we can't treat the
disease. Sin isn't only in our actions, it's in our hearts. It's in
our anger, our lust, our greed, and our pride. And fight all you
want, but you will never overcome it on your own. We need the help of
God, the help of Jesus Christ, if we ever want to be healed of the
disease of sin. This is important: If we don't rely on God to heal
us, even if we follow his commandments perfectly, we are still only
treating the symptoms and not the disease. Selfishness, greed,
deceit, lust, and all of these things are not the sickness, but they
are symptoms of the greater sickness of sin. They are meant to be
treated, but only after the main treatment has already been made.
Otherwise, they will continue to spread from their source.
So now, our question is
this: how do we receive the treatment for the disease of sin which is
blocking us off from abiding in the True Vine?
In the famous thirteenth
chapter of first Corinthians, Paul writes, “If I speak in the
tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or
a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all
mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove
mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I
have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I
gain nothing.” No matter what we do, it is nothing of we don't have
love—just like treating the symptoms is nothing if you don't have
the treatment for the disease. And according to the apostle John in
his first letter, “by this we know love, that he laid down his life
for us.” The treatment for sin is love, and we love by not only
loving one another, but by being loved by God. We love because he
first loved us. We don't measure our salvation by how much we love
God or how much we do in his name, but our salvation comes by his
love for us and by what he has already done in Jesus Christ. Our
faith is just that: Faith. We have faith in God's love for us because
he sent his only son while we were yet sinners to die for us. Even
when we waver, his love remains strong. That is the assurance of
faith, not that we love God but that he loves us and will continue to
love us, not based on what we do or how we act, but because we are
his and he has made us in his image.
When Norah finally got to
her ballet recital, she was still feeling sick. But the dance was
only about a minute long, and she was healthy enough to follow along
in the routine with the other little girls in her dance class. She
was noticeably tired, her movements were slow, and it completely
wiped her out. But after the recital, her parents ran up to her and
told her what a great job she did. Because even as she was sick and
only had the talent that a five year old can muster, her parents saw
her on stage as a beloved daughter delighting in performing for them.
God does call us to
perfection, but he also delights in every attempt we make to love
him. When we do good things or even when we gather here in worship,
we aren't pleasing God because of our talent or devotion. We are
pleasing him because he loves us the same as he always has and
because he sees us through the loving eyes of a Father. We are
nothing more than sick children doing a one-minute dance recital
slightly off beat. Yes, we are getting over our sickness, but even if
we were completely healthy, we're not even as talented as a five year
old compared to God. God isn't impressed by us, but he loves when we
follow his commandments because he sees us through his eyes of love.
His commandments are for healing and life, not so you can boast when
you follow them but so you can know God more deeply and love him more
fully. When we love one another, when we love him, he sees what we
were always intended to be: images of God. And we cannot do any of
this if we don't abide in his love which we have through the life,
death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
