Fifth Sunday of Easter – morning
Sunday 29th April 2018
Easter 5 – morning
Acts 8. 26-40
John 15. 1-8
Revd Preb Maureen Hobbs
Only Connect.
How many of you are addicted – as I confess I am – to this rather mystifying quiz show?
If you have never seen it, the contestants have to find a link that connects a series of so called ‘clues’ – which often seem to be so opaque as to be impossible and nonsensical. But those who succeed – I suspect they would all be brilliant at the most cryptic of crosswords, – seem to be able to come up with answers that at first seem as baffling as the question, and then have you going, “Oh! Yes, I see!”
And the satisfaction, when you too manage to spot the connection before the answer is given!
I wonder how many of Jesus’ disciples spotted the connection when he started going on about vines and branches? And were able immediately to spot the connection with Moses’ conversation with God in the Old Testament? When Moses asks God to speak his name, so that he, Moses, can go back to the people and tell them who it is has been speaking from the burning bush, God says “Tell them ‘I am’ has sent you”. So whenever Jesus said ‘I am’ – and he says it quite a lot in John’s Gospel, he was claiming to be one with God, our Saviour.
So what’s the connection? What is it that keeps you coming back here? I’d like to think it was the quality of the sermons! Or is it the coffee? – well that has improved! Or maybe it’s the music and singing?
Or maybe it is because here you feel a connection? Something that connects you to other people in this community?
Something that connects you – however tentatively or strongly – to God? And that connection, that whisper – so elusive, we can never be sure it is there, and yet so persistent that we can never totally ignore it. That whisper of God is what we term the Holy Spirit. Always working, always stirring us up and calming us down. Only Connect.
That is what Philip knew something about. A whisper of a message that reached him. A feeling that he should take himself off on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza. And there he found someone anxious to make a connection. A foreign official. One who – tradition would have told him, had no chance to enter the kingdom of heaven. Not only a foreigner but a eunuch too! Damaged goods. One who was not of the chosen race and no longer a true reflection of the image of God. And yet Philip makes the connection. Philip sees a wayward shoot desperate to receive sustenance from the rootstock. He sees a human being first and reaches out to graft him onto the true vine. He listens to the Whisper of God – the Holy Spirit and acts on what he hears.
The connection is made, the graft takes, the Ethiopian is baptised into God’s family – into God’s kingdom.
This week has shown us graphically what happens when human beings connect with one another. Love and support outpoured at two funerals in this place – especially on Friday, although there were plenty here on Thursday too.
And are we listening?
Are we making the connection?
Are we listening to the hurting and the lonely and the despairing?
Are we listening to the families and the elderly and the children?
Are we listening to those who come not really knowing what happens here, or why there is a picture behind me of a king on a throne?
Are we listening to those who come with tears in their eyes to lay flowers on a grave?
Are we listening to those who shout too loudly about their atheism?
Are we listening to those who always watch Songs of Praise?
And where are they?
Inside church, hanging on by a thread, hoping against hope that if they stay here long enough, something will rub off?
Outside church – anywhere but in church – pushing prams, supermarket trolleys, pushing their luck?
Well, maybe we will find some of them in the village hall this afternoon? Happy to connect with us, but not sure about the commitment of entering this building….
The branches of a vine ramble all over the place. They go in one direction, and if that doesn’t work, they find another way to reach the light. That is how we Christians are. We are all different, and free to discover the version of Christianity which is most helpful to us. High-church ritual, low-church happy-clappy, social service, silence – we can try all of them from time to time and all have something to recommend them. It doesn’t matter, so long as we stay rooted and grafted in prayer to the vine which is Jesus.
Only Connect.
Amen.