Several years ago in one corner of our backyard, a flowering vine started to creep over our wall from a neighbor’s yard. We decided to let it grow since it hid the drab grey block wall surrounding all the open land from the front of the house to the back. In the five years since, 70 percent of the wall is covered and has greatly enhanced the wall and yard’s look.
My reason for writing about this is that it gives me a physical reminder to better understand today’s Gospel about the metaphor of God the Father, Jesus His Son and we his disciples as being spiritually intertwined. All three of us have the same life blood running through our veins so to speak.
It makes more sense to St. John’s First Letter when he writes: “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.” The commandments of which he is writing are to “believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as He commanded us.”
St. Paul obviously understood this, or otherwise why would he change from persecuting Jews who turned Christian to becoming a disciple, himself, who spoke out boldly as Barnabas tells the Apostles? Especially, since by doing so he risked his own life.
Jesus, in St. John’s Gospel, is telling us that the spiritual connection we have is not just something we attest to verbally but as St. John writes: “in deed and truth.” We are expected to take a stand about our faith as did Paul, no matter what the consequences. When we are active in our faith, we bear the fruit for which God created us. Our love is shown in action.
True love means we keep our promises to those when we reach out. It is a choice we make each day of our life. That’s what Jesus did for us when he suffered and died on the cross for our sins and was raised from the dead so we could have eternal salvation. We need to acknowledge this gift by being proactive, present and persuasive.
The proactive part is what is referred to as pruning in our Gospel today. As we go out among God’s creation, we must listen to make sure we understand their needs as it interacts with God’s ways. We should make sure we don’t get caught up in what we think is best for them because we believe we “know better.” Unless we have walked in a person’s shoes, we don’t know. Therefore, we need to be open and rid ourselves of our preconceived ideas of what is best.
Being present to others is where the truth becomes real. When we look into a person’s eyes, and they look back, both of us know if there is sincerity to what is happening or if it is just lip service. Honesty is the only policy we should have when offering assistance. Anything else is an untruth.
Persuasive is not about selling a person on love, but it is to be bold as St. Paul was when he taught about who Jesus is in our lives. The persuasion is sharing our own stories of how Jesus makes a difference in our life and how our connection has changed us for the better (that pruning again).
By our Baptism, we promise to love God with our heart, mind, soul and strength and to love all He creates as Jesus loves us. To do that, we need to be proactive, live up to our promises and allow God to prune us of our sin nature. By doing this, God will remain with us and provide us with whatever we ask in His name so that people we touch will know the joy of God’s love that comes to us through Jesus and His Church.
Reading 1: Acts 9: 26-31
Reading 2: First John 3: 18-24
Gospel: John 15: 1-8
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