Open our hearts and lives to your Word, that we may proclaim you as the Lord of all the world. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In these Sundays of Easter we are steadily making our way through the Acts of the Apostles – and what excitement and hope there is in these accounts!

Last week Peter and John are healing and proclaiming the name of Jesus – today Philip is teaching and baptizing in the power of the Spirit and the Gospel is spreading all over the world.

By the power of the Holy Spirit all things it seems are possible – Philip responds immediately to the call to go out to a wilderness road and to make an approach to a traveler from Africa of high status who is riding in a state carriage with the Queen of Ethiopia’s treasury!

A rather unlikely and unexpected encounter you might have thought – but what a powerful story for us to hear today – this meeting takes place on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza, a road linking two places now locked in hatred and warfare, and it involves a meeting between two people of different cultures and nationalities – and yet it is in this encounter that the Spirit is at work.

Straight after this story in Acts there follows yet another journey – when Saul travels from Jerusalem to Damascus, when his life is utterly transformed through his encounter with Jesus and hatred and persecution turns to love and connection.  

It’s love and connection that are the themes that run through the other readings for today.  Both John’s Gospel and the letters are full of God’s love for us – God indeed IS love and when we love one another, it proves that we are of God and know God.

How wonderful, that every act of love, every loving thought, every thing that is done for love and because of love, is all of God and shows how we are all much more part of God than we had ever realised! Where we see love, God is there – or as Victor Hugo in Les Misérables, puts it so brilliantly – to love another person is to see the face of God.

When Jesus says ‘I am the vine and you are the branches – this connection, this closeness with God – is described for us in a way we can grasp.

In last week’s Gospel, in speaking of himself as the Good Shepherd, Jesus had already described a particular kind of relationship that would have made a lot of sense to his listeners who knew just how important every single sheep in the flock was to their shepherd, and what it meant to be prepared to defend your sheep even with your own life. Now, Jesus describes an even closer relationship.

Jesus is the vine, we are the branches – we are all linked together intimately – made of the same stuff, fed through the same roots, completely dependent on each other for the flourishing of the whole plant, intertwined and interlinked.

The branches need the vine and the roots, they need the tender care and protection of the vine grower, and for there to be future vines to flourish, each branch must bear fruit.

Again, those listening to Jesus would know all this from their own experience – there will be new life only when the branches are fully joined to the main stem.

Abide in me, says Jesus, as I abide in you. This word abide, is repeated 8 times in this one passage and its also there in the letter of John.

Abide is sometimes translated ‘remain’ – and its Greek equivalent also carries a depth of meaning beyond just one word – there’s a dynamic in-dwelling, an intimate interconnectedness which the illustration of the intertwining vine captures perfectly.

The necessity for all this abiding and intertwining – is life itself! There is a bit of a stark warning that if we are not connected to the vine, then we will wither and die, there is no fruit and therefore our very purpose has been lost. This is not a punishment – it’s a simple fact of life that branches not connected to the stem will die – and people not connected to God cannot really live either.

You see it’s not about us each, individually bearing fruit, for our own pleasure and self-gratification. There must be no ‘well would you just look at how wonderful MY fruit is! Especially compared to that pathetic bunch of wizened grapes that my neighboring branch has produced!’

Life with God, abiding in his love, is primarily for the benefit of others, not for ourselves – and in this way we all benefit – we all live fuller more fruitful lives!

This is hard – its counter-intuitive and its certainly counter-cultural. But it’s the kingdom. And its simply how God, and Godself is.

God is both love and always acts lovingly towards us – loving us so much to be prepared to die for us, loving us to the end and loving us all.

In our Cathedral there is an amazing representation of today’s Gospel – on the ceiling above the Apse Chapel, behind the High Altar is a painting of Jesus the True Vine – Jesus is at the centre and the vine grows abundantly out towards the edges of the picture where among the foliage and grapes are the twelve disciples. If you haven’t seen it, do go and look. It was most likely painted in about 1500 when the New Building was completed – and then overpainted during the later remodeling of the Sanctuary in the late 1890’s

If we were to paint such a picture now – we would need to add on so many more branches, grapes and people – the Gospel has spread all over the world thanks to those first apostles, it has spread to us, and each of us are now grafted onto that vine, and each of us are to draw yet more people into that picture, to become part of the vine, filled with the life and fullness of God and living in the wonder of his love.

And remember, as Philip knew, and as we so easily forget – there is no limit to God’s love – we do not need to ration it, withhold it, keep it to ourselves or fear it will not stretch – love has no beginning or end – there is room for everyone in God’s abundant and all-transforming love. Amen.

Service: Reverend Michelle Dalliston. 28th April 2024. (St John’s Church Peterborough UK)

Readings: Acts 8.26-end; Psalm 22.25-end; 1 John 4.7-end; John 15.1-8