Fifth Sunday of Easter, Cycle B, May 3, 2015
Acts 8:26-40, Psalm 22:25-31, 1 John 4:7-21, John 15:1-8
Grace to you and peace from Jesus Christ who holds us and gives us life and remains in us. Amen.
Have you ever lost something in your life? Something like keys, a wallet, glasses, a mobile phone, bags, ear rings, contact lens, and even a laptop… Have you ever opened a refrigerator and forgot why you opened it and then you remember why you opened it only after you have already closed the door and come back to the room? I’ve done that plenty of times. How many of you locked the car doors leaving the car key in the car? And how many of you thought that you lost your phone but you were complaining about it on the phone to your friend? If you are parents, how many of you lost your child in a grocery store? Even in the Bible, Mary and Joseph forgot to bring little Jesus from the temple after Passover feast in the Gospel Luke. They left the Son of God behind in the temple and they were heading toward their home town for a day! This reminded me of us leaving Jesus behind in the church after Sunday worship and forgetting about Jesus until we come back to the church next Sunday. If Jesus’ earthly parents could forget him; we can forget Jesus more often in our busy life.
In the Gospel Luke again, we can see a good example of forgetting what is more important in our life. Jesus visited Lazarus’ house. Martha, his sister, was upset, because Mary, her sister, didn’t help her for the preparation. So she came to Jesus and said, “Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” Then, what did he say to her? “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” Jesus didn’t rebuke Martha but invited her to choose a better way, that is, being with Jesus. Of course, when we have guests at our house, we should get ready and treat them well. For Martha, it was probably a very, very big deal for her to be able to serve Jesus at their house. But Martha forgot what Jesus really wanted from her. She forgot and was losing the chance to build a close relationship with Jesus, because she was too busy inside her.
To whom do you relate more with? Martha? Mary? We say that we are here to serve others and help others. We serve God in various positions in the church. We tithe and we give offerings. We observe the Ten Commandments and we keep lots of do’s and don’ts from the Bible. I am not saying that this is bad. This is very good, but do we really know why we are doing all these? Have you ever questioned yourself why we are here and what we are doing here? If we don’t have a firm reason to whatever we are doing, we will eventually burnout. To answer the why question, Jesus gives as a beautiful metaphor in today’s Gospel reading.
Today’s Gospel reading is about “connection.” Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. No branches can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.” This is the key point in our Christian life, “being connected to God,” “remaining in the connection”. Jesus Christ is the vine. Vine gives life to the branches. It provides water and nutrition to the branches. It helps the branches to bear fruits. If a branch is disconnected from the vine, it withers and become useless and will be thrown away and burned. Using this image, Jesus Christ is emphasizing the connection with God. We live in such a busy world and we often let ourselves remain in the business of our life. Our brain floods with overflowing information and we forget so many important things. But as followers of Jesus, as people who come to church and confess that we love Jesus, shouldn’t we at least never forget God while we are forgetting many things in our life? Shouldn’t we strive every moment of the day to remind ourselves of our ultimate goal, which is living in God, living for God, doing whatever in God and only for God?
In verse 4, Jesus says, “Remain in me, and I will remain in you.” Then, how can we remain in God? How do we know that we are living in God? The answer is simple but hard. It is “love.” In 1 John chapter 4:16, “We know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God and God in him.” Jesus constantly taught his disciples to love God and love each other for 3 years. Jesus showed himself to his disciples as a good model of how to love and worship God and serve others.
Just like 1 John says, the first thing we need to remember is how Jesus loves us. We need to stir up our memories of how God loved us in our life and how God protected us and lifted us up in the midst of pain, sorrow, and loneliness. We should always remember how much God is pleased with us and loves us with great joy, and how much God wants us to remain in happiness and peace in every part of our life.
I still remember the time when I was a teenager. I had some kind of an anger management disorder. Don’t worry, I don’t have it anymore, hopefully, but at that time, if I got upset with something or someone, I didn’t know what to do with my anger and I threw objects and hit the wall with my knuckle and kicked the wall with my feet. Only when I felt pain in my knuckle and my feet, my anger calmed down a little. One day, I was so upset again with something and I was lying on my bed, praying to God with lots of tears. I just poured out my feelings of anger, sadness…all kinds of bad feelings toward God. Just like children expressing their feelings and grumbles and complains at their parents, I grumbled and complained at God about the many negative things and happenings around me. About 30 minutes later, I suddenly felt peace inside of my mind. Suddenly, the sorrow and anger disappeared. It was a weird and unusual experience for me. My crying face turned to a smiley face within a second. I knew that God touched my broken heart and healed my wounded spirit. I felt the presence of God and I felt God’s abundant love and finally, I ended up with praise and thanksgiving. I often try to recall the memory of encountering God’s love and the moment of complete peace. I have these kinds of good memories about God’s love in my life. So whenever I recall these memories, I become confident and I am no longer worrying about anything. I strongly believe that God loves me and God accepts me even though I am not qualified to be loved.
Another reason why we need to recall the memory of God’s love is to learn how to love others. In verse 2, Jesus says that “Every branch in me that bears no fruit my Father cuts away.” God wants us to bear fruits in our life. Bearing fruits is our duty as God’s children. Today’s Gospel tells us how to bear fruit which is “remaining in Jesus.” By meditating and remembering God’s love, we can learn how to love and how to humble ourselves to love others. 1 John chapter 4 verse 20 tells us about this: “If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother and sister, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother and sister, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.” We will be seen that we love God by loving others. Christians often fall into some mistakes. We think that we need to be upright before God and focus too much on God and don’t much care about others. We are used to pointing our fingers at others and judge them according to our own righteousness. We often gossip and make fun of someone if the person doesn’t fit into our moral aspects. We discriminate gender and race and the other marginalized people. We judge gay and lesbians and think that they are unforgivable sinners. We hate heretics and we think that they are going to hell. We don’t love people as we love ourselves.
We hesitate to share our time, energy and money because we are too busy and have lots of burdens on our shoulders. We often think that: I am better than you. I am morally cleaner than you. I am more righteous than you. I am smarter than you. I studied more than you. So I am not going to listen to you. And no one can judge me.
Learn from Jesus who made himself humble for our salvation. Stop pointing fingers toward others and pointing fingers toward you yourself. Reflect yourself first if you are going off the road from God and reflect on what hinders you to come close to God. And then, humbly serve others. Sacrifice your time, energy and money for others. Do not love yourself too much nor set yourself as priority.
Again, Jesus says that “My Father cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit.” This is an awakening warning for us. We need to bear fruit and keep moving forward in God. Then, here is the question. What is fruit that we need to bear? And how can we bear the fruit?
It is simple. Bearing fruit is anything that you are doing for God. Bearing fruit is that if you get upset and argue with someone, you hold your anger inside your mind and reach out your hand for reconciliation to love God. Bearing fruit can be something as simple as giving a ride for someone to love God even if you are so tired and busy. Bearing fruit is not a big improvement in your life. If you can love a little bit more than before, if you can give yourself a little bit more than yesterday, if you can be a little bit more humble than others, then God will be pleased and compliment you for your effort and love. Here is the promise of Jesus in verse 7: “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.” God knows what you are doing and what is in your heart as you do it. God listens to you. And God will work for you if you remain in God and keep God’s Word in your life. God is asking you and inviting you to be with God in this life and forever and ever.
Acts 8:26-40, Psalm 22:25-31, 1 John 4:7-21, John 15:1-8
Grace to you and peace from Jesus Christ who holds us and gives us life and remains in us. Amen.
Have you ever lost something in your life? Something like keys, a wallet, glasses, a mobile phone, bags, ear rings, contact lens, and even a laptop… Have you ever opened a refrigerator and forgot why you opened it and then you remember why you opened it only after you have already closed the door and come back to the room? I’ve done that plenty of times. How many of you locked the car doors leaving the car key in the car? And how many of you thought that you lost your phone but you were complaining about it on the phone to your friend? If you are parents, how many of you lost your child in a grocery store? Even in the Bible, Mary and Joseph forgot to bring little Jesus from the temple after Passover feast in the Gospel Luke. They left the Son of God behind in the temple and they were heading toward their home town for a day! This reminded me of us leaving Jesus behind in the church after Sunday worship and forgetting about Jesus until we come back to the church next Sunday. If Jesus’ earthly parents could forget him; we can forget Jesus more often in our busy life.
In the Gospel Luke again, we can see a good example of forgetting what is more important in our life. Jesus visited Lazarus’ house. Martha, his sister, was upset, because Mary, her sister, didn’t help her for the preparation. So she came to Jesus and said, “Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” Then, what did he say to her? “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” Jesus didn’t rebuke Martha but invited her to choose a better way, that is, being with Jesus. Of course, when we have guests at our house, we should get ready and treat them well. For Martha, it was probably a very, very big deal for her to be able to serve Jesus at their house. But Martha forgot what Jesus really wanted from her. She forgot and was losing the chance to build a close relationship with Jesus, because she was too busy inside her.
To whom do you relate more with? Martha? Mary? We say that we are here to serve others and help others. We serve God in various positions in the church. We tithe and we give offerings. We observe the Ten Commandments and we keep lots of do’s and don’ts from the Bible. I am not saying that this is bad. This is very good, but do we really know why we are doing all these? Have you ever questioned yourself why we are here and what we are doing here? If we don’t have a firm reason to whatever we are doing, we will eventually burnout. To answer the why question, Jesus gives as a beautiful metaphor in today’s Gospel reading.
Today’s Gospel reading is about “connection.” Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. No branches can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.” This is the key point in our Christian life, “being connected to God,” “remaining in the connection”. Jesus Christ is the vine. Vine gives life to the branches. It provides water and nutrition to the branches. It helps the branches to bear fruits. If a branch is disconnected from the vine, it withers and become useless and will be thrown away and burned. Using this image, Jesus Christ is emphasizing the connection with God. We live in such a busy world and we often let ourselves remain in the business of our life. Our brain floods with overflowing information and we forget so many important things. But as followers of Jesus, as people who come to church and confess that we love Jesus, shouldn’t we at least never forget God while we are forgetting many things in our life? Shouldn’t we strive every moment of the day to remind ourselves of our ultimate goal, which is living in God, living for God, doing whatever in God and only for God?
In verse 4, Jesus says, “Remain in me, and I will remain in you.” Then, how can we remain in God? How do we know that we are living in God? The answer is simple but hard. It is “love.” In 1 John chapter 4:16, “We know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God and God in him.” Jesus constantly taught his disciples to love God and love each other for 3 years. Jesus showed himself to his disciples as a good model of how to love and worship God and serve others.
Just like 1 John says, the first thing we need to remember is how Jesus loves us. We need to stir up our memories of how God loved us in our life and how God protected us and lifted us up in the midst of pain, sorrow, and loneliness. We should always remember how much God is pleased with us and loves us with great joy, and how much God wants us to remain in happiness and peace in every part of our life.
I still remember the time when I was a teenager. I had some kind of an anger management disorder. Don’t worry, I don’t have it anymore, hopefully, but at that time, if I got upset with something or someone, I didn’t know what to do with my anger and I threw objects and hit the wall with my knuckle and kicked the wall with my feet. Only when I felt pain in my knuckle and my feet, my anger calmed down a little. One day, I was so upset again with something and I was lying on my bed, praying to God with lots of tears. I just poured out my feelings of anger, sadness…all kinds of bad feelings toward God. Just like children expressing their feelings and grumbles and complains at their parents, I grumbled and complained at God about the many negative things and happenings around me. About 30 minutes later, I suddenly felt peace inside of my mind. Suddenly, the sorrow and anger disappeared. It was a weird and unusual experience for me. My crying face turned to a smiley face within a second. I knew that God touched my broken heart and healed my wounded spirit. I felt the presence of God and I felt God’s abundant love and finally, I ended up with praise and thanksgiving. I often try to recall the memory of encountering God’s love and the moment of complete peace. I have these kinds of good memories about God’s love in my life. So whenever I recall these memories, I become confident and I am no longer worrying about anything. I strongly believe that God loves me and God accepts me even though I am not qualified to be loved.
Another reason why we need to recall the memory of God’s love is to learn how to love others. In verse 2, Jesus says that “Every branch in me that bears no fruit my Father cuts away.” God wants us to bear fruits in our life. Bearing fruits is our duty as God’s children. Today’s Gospel tells us how to bear fruit which is “remaining in Jesus.” By meditating and remembering God’s love, we can learn how to love and how to humble ourselves to love others. 1 John chapter 4 verse 20 tells us about this: “If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother and sister, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother and sister, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.” We will be seen that we love God by loving others. Christians often fall into some mistakes. We think that we need to be upright before God and focus too much on God and don’t much care about others. We are used to pointing our fingers at others and judge them according to our own righteousness. We often gossip and make fun of someone if the person doesn’t fit into our moral aspects. We discriminate gender and race and the other marginalized people. We judge gay and lesbians and think that they are unforgivable sinners. We hate heretics and we think that they are going to hell. We don’t love people as we love ourselves.
We hesitate to share our time, energy and money because we are too busy and have lots of burdens on our shoulders. We often think that: I am better than you. I am morally cleaner than you. I am more righteous than you. I am smarter than you. I studied more than you. So I am not going to listen to you. And no one can judge me.
Learn from Jesus who made himself humble for our salvation. Stop pointing fingers toward others and pointing fingers toward you yourself. Reflect yourself first if you are going off the road from God and reflect on what hinders you to come close to God. And then, humbly serve others. Sacrifice your time, energy and money for others. Do not love yourself too much nor set yourself as priority.
Again, Jesus says that “My Father cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit.” This is an awakening warning for us. We need to bear fruit and keep moving forward in God. Then, here is the question. What is fruit that we need to bear? And how can we bear the fruit?
It is simple. Bearing fruit is anything that you are doing for God. Bearing fruit is that if you get upset and argue with someone, you hold your anger inside your mind and reach out your hand for reconciliation to love God. Bearing fruit can be something as simple as giving a ride for someone to love God even if you are so tired and busy. Bearing fruit is not a big improvement in your life. If you can love a little bit more than before, if you can give yourself a little bit more than yesterday, if you can be a little bit more humble than others, then God will be pleased and compliment you for your effort and love. Here is the promise of Jesus in verse 7: “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.” God knows what you are doing and what is in your heart as you do it. God listens to you. And God will work for you if you remain in God and keep God’s Word in your life. God is asking you and inviting you to be with God in this life and forever and ever.