Andrew J. O'Brien - "Our Union with the Lord in the Community of the Church" (May 16, 1976)
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
(soft piano music) | 0:05 | |
(congregation singing) | 5:32 | |
- | And let us confess our sins publicly and in unison. | 8:27 |
All mighty God, we tell you the truth. | 8:33 | |
We have a hard time believing in rebirth. | 8:38 | |
We act childish rather than childlike, | 8:42 | |
and we are anxious and won't let go. | 8:46 | |
We are afraid yet more afraid still to anyone know. | 8:50 | |
We are busy at our own small concerns. | 8:57 | |
We think we can manage somehow. | 9:01 | |
And that's not all, | 9:06 | |
if we have a hard time believing in our own redemption. | 9:08 | |
You can imagine how little faith we have | 9:13 | |
and the possibility of the world's redemption. | 9:17 | |
If we have such a hard time trusting ourselves, | 9:21 | |
you can imagine how difficult it is for us | 9:26 | |
to trust the community of all believers. | 9:30 | |
So it seems to us that we need you to break us open, | 9:34 | |
crack our shells, tend our tender shoots, | 9:40 | |
forgive us and take us back, | 9:45 | |
birth us again into the kingdom of heaven. | 9:49 | |
Amen. | 9:53 | |
Now let us pause for a moment | 9:56 | |
and confess our sins privately in silence. | 9:58 | |
Be of good cheer. | 10:32 | |
God is a loving God. | 10:35 | |
He is a forgiving God | 10:39 | |
and he is a just God. | 10:42 | |
His concern is our welfare | 10:47 | |
and our well being. | 10:50 | |
For as the hymnists put it, | 10:54 | |
his eye is on the sparrow, | 10:57 | |
and I know he watches me. | 11:01 | |
(soft piano music) | 11:11 | |
(congregation singing) | 11:41 | |
Let us prepare to hear the reading of the scripture | 14:10 | |
taken from 1 John 3:18-24. | 14:14 | |
Little children, let us not love in word or speech, | 14:23 | |
but in deed and truth. | 14:28 | |
By this we shall know that we are of the truth | 14:31 | |
and reassure our hearts before him | 14:35 | |
whenever our hearts condemn us | 14:38 | |
for God is greater than our hearts | 14:41 | |
and he knows everything below. | 14:43 | |
If our hearts do not condemn us, | 14:49 | |
we have confidence before God | 14:52 | |
and we receive from him whatever we ask, | 14:55 | |
because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. | 14:59 | |
And this is his commandment | 15:04 | |
that we should believe in the name of his son, Jesus Christ, | 15:08 | |
and love one another, just as he has commanded us. | 15:12 | |
All who keep his commandments abide in him and he in them. | 15:19 | |
And by this, we know that he abides in us | 15:27 | |
by the spirit which he has given us. | 15:31 | |
And now let us stand and hear the proclamation | 15:35 | |
of our savior, Jesus Christ, | 15:38 | |
as it is found in the gospel of John 15:1-8. | 15:40 | |
I am the true vine and my father is the vine dresser. | 15:50 | |
Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away. | 15:56 | |
And every branch that does bear fruit, | 16:00 | |
he prunes that it may bear more fruit. | 16:03 | |
You are already made clean by the word, | 16:06 | |
which I have spoken to you. | 16:09 | |
Abide in me and I in you | 16:11 | |
as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, | 16:14 | |
unless it abides in the vine. | 16:17 | |
Neither can you, unless you abide in me. | 16:20 | |
I am the vine, | 16:25 | |
you are the branches. | 16:27 | |
He who abides in me and I in him, | 16:30 | |
he it is that bears much fruit. | 16:34 | |
For apart from me, you can do nothing. | 16:37 | |
If a man does not abide in me, | 16:41 | |
he is cast forth as a branch and with us | 16:44 | |
and the branches are gathered, | 16:48 | |
thrown into the fire and burned. | 16:49 | |
If you abide in me and my words abide in you, | 16:53 | |
ask whatever you will and it shall be done for you. | 16:58 | |
By this, my father is glorified that you may bear much fruit | 17:04 | |
and so prove to be my disciples. | 17:10 | |
God bless the reading of his holy word. | 17:14 | |
(soft piano music) | 17:18 | |
(congregation singing) | 17:28 | |
Let us confirm our faith. | 18:02 | |
We are not alone, we live in God's world. | 18:05 | |
We believe in God who has created and is creating, | 18:11 | |
who has come in the truly human Jesus to reconcile | 18:16 | |
and make new | 18:21 | |
who works in us and others by the spirit, we trust him. | 18:23 | |
Who calls us to be the church to celebrate life | 18:29 | |
in its fullness, to love and serve others, | 18:34 | |
to seek justice and resist evil, | 18:38 | |
to proclaim Jesus crucified and risen, | 18:42 | |
our judge and our hope in life, in death | 18:46 | |
in life beyond death, God is with us. | 18:52 | |
We are not alone. | 18:56 | |
Thanks be to God. | 18:58 | |
The Lord be with you. | 19:01 | |
Let us pray. | 19:04 | |
Oh, gracious God, father of our Lord Jesus Christ, | 19:14 | |
father of mankind, and of old creation, | 19:23 | |
having cleanse our hearts and our souls, | 19:28 | |
we amid your presence at the throne of grace | 19:30 | |
by confessing our sins. | 19:33 | |
We now offer our thanks for your goodness and mercy. | 19:35 | |
We thank you for our creation and our preservation. | 19:41 | |
We thank you for your inestimable love | 19:46 | |
and the redemption of the world about our Lord Jesus Christ, | 19:49 | |
for the means of grace, | 19:55 | |
for the hope of glory, and for the blessings of this life. | 19:58 | |
We thank you for the despondent heart made joy. | 20:04 | |
The sadden face made to smile. | 20:09 | |
Tearful eyes made lethal, and wearied minds set at ease. | 20:14 | |
We thank you for the strength, tenderness, | 20:22 | |
and love of mothers and fathers, | 20:25 | |
and for caring and concerned that sons and daughters | 20:28 | |
who do not neglect parents growing lonely with age. | 20:33 | |
Thank you for restoring good health to the infirm. | 20:39 | |
Thank you for guiding those of us | 20:44 | |
who even as a stream chartering, | 20:46 | |
a meandering course to the seed have found their way to you. | 20:49 | |
And thank you oh, gracious God | 20:56 | |
for the work of the church and striving to aid the destitute | 20:59 | |
and the oppressed. | 21:03 | |
Now oh, heavenly father, may we stay ever mindful | 21:07 | |
that it is you who made us and sustains us | 21:12 | |
and that you are the rock upon which we build | 21:17 | |
for the future. | 21:20 | |
We ask that you will continue to endow us with your love | 21:22 | |
and capacity to forgive, | 21:26 | |
and that you will continue to bless the homeless, | 21:29 | |
those who suffer in warring nations, | 21:33 | |
those who suffer at the hands of others, | 21:37 | |
those who are lonely, ill, or lost. | 21:40 | |
And we ask that your spirit will forever remain vibrant | 21:45 | |
among your community of believers, which is the church. | 21:49 | |
With this we pray in the name of our Lord and savior, | 21:55 | |
Jesus Christ who taught us to pray. | 21:58 | |
Our father who art in heaven, | 22:03 | |
hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come. | 22:06 | |
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. | 22:11 | |
Give us this day our daily bread | 22:16 | |
and forgive us our trespasses | 22:19 | |
as we forgive those who trespass against us. | 22:22 | |
Lead us not into temptation, | 22:27 | |
but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom, | 22:30 | |
the power and the glory, forever and ever. | 22:35 | |
Amen. | 22:40 | |
- | Jesus said to his disciples, | 23:01 |
"I am the vine, you are the branches. | 23:04 | |
"He who believes in me, | 23:08 | |
"he who lives in me and I in him | 23:12 | |
"will produce abundantly, | 23:14 | |
"for a part from me, you can do nothing. | 23:17 | |
"A man who does not live in me | 23:21 | |
"is like a weathered, rejected branch, | 23:24 | |
"picked up to be thrown into the fire and burned. | 23:27 | |
"Little children, let us love in deed and in truth | 23:35 | |
"and not merely talk about it." | 23:41 | |
Whereas Paul speaks often of the body of Christ. | 23:48 | |
He the head and we the members | 23:53 | |
who have been buried and then raised with the Lord. | 23:57 | |
John's classic expression of our incorporation into Christ | 24:01 | |
is today's figure of the vine and its branches. | 24:06 | |
The Joanine school, | 24:11 | |
which produced this gospel and epistle, | 24:13 | |
stresses belief in God's son, Jesus Christ. | 24:16 | |
To have this faith is to be of the truth. | 24:22 | |
We must first dwell in the vine, | 24:26 | |
that is the risen Christ, | 24:30 | |
partaking of the life that flows from Jesus through the word | 24:33 | |
and the sacraments. | 24:38 | |
Thus living in the name of the son, | 24:41 | |
living the life of prayer | 24:46 | |
and having the assurance of a forgiving conscious, | 24:49 | |
and the indwelling of the spirit. | 24:53 | |
We must proceed to show forth our Christian standing | 24:56 | |
by loving, not in word or speech, | 25:01 | |
but indeed in truth, | 25:04 | |
in loving one another, | 25:08 | |
keeping God's commandment and bearing much fruit. | 25:10 | |
In practice, these scripture readings | 25:18 | |
call us to examine today's American stress on individualism. | 25:21 | |
We are called not to dependence, | 25:26 | |
but to extend our independence to interdependence. | 25:30 | |
Interdependence must be in our personal lives | 25:37 | |
as well as our collective lives as a nation. | 25:42 | |
May this text be fulfilled today even as you listen. | 25:46 | |
This morning on the way to church, | 25:54 | |
as you came up to chapel drive, | 25:56 | |
the beauty, the grace, | 25:59 | |
the splendor of healthy trees was all around. | 26:01 | |
While you were admiring their green richness, | 26:06 | |
did your eye catch a broken shriveled branch? | 26:10 | |
The contrast can be startling. | 26:15 | |
The dead withered leaves surrounded | 26:18 | |
by so much living freshness. | 26:21 | |
Sometimes lightening severs branches, | 26:24 | |
or even a whole section of a tree from the main trunk. | 26:27 | |
This sheared section then hangs lifeless and rigid, | 26:32 | |
while the rest of the tree still dances gaily in the breeze. | 26:37 | |
Christ uses this same familiar image | 26:43 | |
in today's gospel reading. | 26:47 | |
He is illustrating for us how our life is joined with his | 26:50 | |
and his life is joined to God and to other men and women. | 26:56 | |
We understand well how life given nutrients | 27:02 | |
flow from the trunk of a tree out into the branches. | 27:05 | |
It is these gifts from the trunk | 27:10 | |
that keep the branches green and productive. | 27:12 | |
Extended, these images also describe | 27:16 | |
our relationship with Christ and our brothers and sisters. | 27:20 | |
Jesus is the source and the center of our life | 27:26 | |
and its significance. | 27:31 | |
He is our loving support. | 27:33 | |
Spiritually, we draw sustenance from him. | 27:36 | |
We are united to each other through him. | 27:41 | |
We too know that skillful pruning | 27:46 | |
makes a tree more fruitful. | 27:50 | |
Apply to our life in Christ then, | 27:53 | |
difficult things can happen to us like suffering | 27:56 | |
and other tragedies. | 28:01 | |
These force us to turn to Christ. | 28:03 | |
In prayer and trust, | 28:06 | |
we must turn to him and away from self-concerns | 28:09 | |
and exaggerated self-assurance. | 28:12 | |
Such a pruning time makes us concentrate | 28:16 | |
all the more on what is most valuable in our lives. | 28:20 | |
Our loving relationships, our interdependence. | 28:26 | |
A branch that is laden with bright green leaves, | 28:35 | |
dark thick sap and ripening fruit, | 28:39 | |
receives all this bounty | 28:43 | |
because it is joined to the trunk and the roots. | 28:44 | |
If separated from them, it quickly dies. | 28:48 | |
This life we cherish is both our own and not our own | 28:53 | |
as it is true of a branch. | 28:58 | |
We are truly of God's family, | 29:01 | |
and so we have his life. | 29:04 | |
But like a branch, | 29:07 | |
we do not carry this life of and in ourselves. | 29:09 | |
It comes to us in and through Christ. | 29:13 | |
John in the epistle reading though | 29:20 | |
is saying something further. | 29:23 | |
The fruit, | 29:27 | |
the decisive test of authenticity to union | 29:28 | |
with Jesus of Nazareth is actual love. | 29:31 | |
Love in deed and truth. | 29:36 | |
The life question that God abides in us | 29:40 | |
and we and God finally comes down to one thing, love. | 29:43 | |
We have a number of popular remarks to catch the idea | 29:52 | |
that it is not enough just to talk about something. | 29:56 | |
We must really do it. | 30:00 | |
We say, for example, | 30:02 | |
talk is cheap or actions speak louder than words. | 30:05 | |
More recently, we have coined a phrase, | 30:12 | |
especially intended to challenge | 30:16 | |
a talkative person into action. | 30:18 | |
Put your money where your mouth is. | 30:22 | |
All these phrases and many others | 30:26 | |
indicate that something is significant only when it is done. | 30:28 | |
Things that are simply planned or talked | 30:34 | |
just do not count until | 30:38 | |
and unless this talk is put into action. | 30:41 | |
Excessive talk like this sermon | 30:46 | |
can both absorb precious time | 30:49 | |
and create obstacles to our carrying out good intentions. | 30:52 | |
Psychologists call this type of escapist behavior, | 30:56 | |
characteristic of an oral character. | 31:01 | |
In modern language, St. John is saying, | 31:06 | |
put your good works where your mouth is. | 31:09 | |
It's not enough merely to discuss our religious commitments, | 31:14 | |
we must demonstrate them. | 31:19 | |
John here sums up as Christ did earlier, | 31:22 | |
the central idea that a truly Christian dedication | 31:27 | |
will be shown by our actions. | 31:31 | |
Our actions are the final test. | 31:35 | |
Deeds of love rather than words. | 31:39 | |
This is the branch's fruit. | 31:43 | |
What impresses one in this passage | 31:48 | |
is the way in which the Joel nine author | 31:50 | |
succeeds in holding together things | 31:53 | |
which are often separated one from another in our thinking. | 31:56 | |
Faith and works, | 32:02 | |
belief and obedience. | 32:05 | |
The prayer of union with God and love for the brethren. | 32:10 | |
It's not a matter of either or, but both and. | 32:17 | |
A problem may arise for those in the American culture | 32:27 | |
take this figure of vine and branches seriously, | 32:31 | |
although the gospels are otherwise full of examples | 32:35 | |
of God's tender care for individuals. | 32:39 | |
The parables, for example, of the prodigal son, | 32:43 | |
of the lost coin and the sheep. | 32:47 | |
The incorporation theme of this branch and vine allegory | 32:51 | |
comes dangerously close to denying | 32:55 | |
the importance of our individual selves or so it may seem. | 32:58 | |
Does not Jesus say, apart from me, you can do nothing. | 33:05 | |
Coming back from India, | 33:12 | |
I'm immediately struck by certain emphasis | 33:15 | |
in our American lifestyle. | 33:18 | |
Everyone wants to be themselves. | 33:21 | |
The clause, I'm trying to find myself | 33:24 | |
has become the goal of all ages, not merely youth, | 33:29 | |
privacy, personalism, owning my own thing. | 33:34 | |
Marriages where one partner needs out to find himself | 33:40 | |
or herself alone. | 33:44 | |
Independence. | 33:46 | |
All these describe individualism. | 33:50 | |
This is what most Americans call | 33:53 | |
the struggle for self-realization. | 33:55 | |
The punishment of it is loneliness, | 34:01 | |
isolation, emptiness, boredom. | 34:04 | |
In India, self-realization | 34:08 | |
was through annihilation of the ego. | 34:10 | |
The idea of perfection was shedding my ego. | 34:13 | |
It's passions, it's appetites, it's ambitions, | 34:18 | |
it's idiosyncrasies. | 34:21 | |
The elimination of individuality. | 34:23 | |
Returning to the states, I see the contrary. | 34:28 | |
Self-realization is through creating differences. | 34:32 | |
The unfolding of individuality. | 34:36 | |
Obviously these two attitudes of self-realization | 34:40 | |
are poles apart. | 34:43 | |
Neither is what Christ as Jesus is talking | 34:46 | |
not about a loss of self, but about complete independence | 34:51 | |
when he says, without me, you can do nothing. | 34:58 | |
Examine your lifestyle. | 35:05 | |
What do you see? | 35:07 | |
Rugged individualism where persons, God, | 35:10 | |
or our brothers and sisters enter your life | 35:14 | |
only at your invitation and terms or interdependence. | 35:17 | |
As a nation, this bicentennial anniversary | 35:27 | |
reinforces this radical individualism | 35:30 | |
under the name of independence. | 35:34 | |
Today, like the representatives of the American colonies | 35:38 | |
who met in 1776 to frame a declaration of independence | 35:41 | |
based on self-evident truths of their time. | 35:47 | |
We find the United States and the whole world again, | 35:51 | |
facing self-evident truths. | 35:54 | |
The cultures, the fortunes, | 35:59 | |
the very lives of all people today are threatened | 36:02 | |
by worldwide imbalances, | 36:06 | |
food, natural resources, | 36:09 | |
population density, monetary systems, | 36:12 | |
and the transnational threats of military armament | 36:17 | |
out of control. | 36:20 | |
Pollution of the air and the seas | 36:22 | |
call us to shift from an emphasis of independence | 36:25 | |
to interdependence. | 36:30 | |
Listening to the allegory of the vine and the branches, | 36:35 | |
how do we assess our capacity as a nation | 36:39 | |
to cope with interdependence? | 36:42 | |
Until recently, it was quite different for Americans. | 36:46 | |
We somehow didn't need to worry about interdependence | 36:51 | |
because it was mostly a one-way street. | 36:56 | |
Others needed our food, our computers, our technological, | 36:59 | |
and organizational skills, our aid, our weapons, | 37:05 | |
our protection, our advanced education, | 37:11 | |
and as we thought, our movies and television programs. | 37:16 | |
We seem to need from others | 37:22 | |
only a few of their key raw materials, | 37:24 | |
their specialty imports, | 37:27 | |
their reasonably peaceful behavior | 37:30 | |
and hardest to come by, their love. | 37:34 | |
The oil embargo brought us up short | 37:39 | |
as we focused on the fact that the imported part of the oil | 37:43 | |
we had used had risen from 15% in 1960 | 37:47 | |
to nearly 40% in 1974. | 37:53 | |
A sudden world food shortage made it clear | 37:57 | |
that the North American Granary | 38:01 | |
is more and more the central reserve for a global market. | 38:03 | |
Several post-war recessions have shown | 38:09 | |
that even the so-called independent American prosperity | 38:12 | |
is not immune to damage. | 38:16 | |
An American Christian will naturally resist | 38:22 | |
such radical individualism in their personal lives | 38:24 | |
as being at odds with any idea of the church. | 38:28 | |
We know that interdependence | 38:33 | |
or incorporation into the vine | 38:35 | |
is not the destruction of personal freedom, | 38:37 | |
but it's very perfection. | 38:41 | |
As a nation, we likewise have to grow interdependent. | 38:44 | |
Interdependence among nations | 38:52 | |
like the personal is not something to be for or against, | 38:55 | |
but a fact to be lived with now | 39:00 | |
and reckoned with in the future. | 39:04 | |
Even though we can see very great obstacles, | 39:08 | |
structural and psychological | 39:11 | |
to the spreading of global interdependence, | 39:14 | |
our unity in Christ offers a way. | 39:18 | |
All men are brothers. | 39:22 | |
We are sisters under the skin, | 39:24 | |
fellow branches of the true vine. | 39:27 | |
Also following the scriptural command. | 39:31 | |
The true substance of our declaration of interdependence | 39:35 | |
is to be found, not in words, but in actions. | 39:39 | |
The vine and the branches, Christ and others. | 39:46 | |
They and love are the works of God and humanity equally. | 39:53 | |
Our prayer is one of God's in dwelling in us. | 40:04 | |
The Lord be with you. | 40:11 | |
Lord, keep us growing, | 40:21 | |
growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord | 40:25 | |
and savior, Jesus Christ, the vine, | 40:29 | |
and we, the branches. | 40:32 | |
Growing in unity with each other, the branches. | 40:35 | |
May our interdependence show love and bring peace. | 40:40 | |
We do this always in the name of Jesus. | 40:47 | |
In the name of the father, and of the son, | 40:52 | |
of the holy spirit. | 40:55 | |
Amen. | 40:56 | |
(soft piano music) | 41:06 | |
(congregation singing) | 41:29 | |
(slow-paced piano music) | 43:25 | |
(congregation singing) | 44:27 | |
(soft piano music) | 46:53 | |
(congregation singing) | 49:03 | |
- | Dear Lord, we offer these gifts | 50:03 |
as tokens of our thanks and appreciation. | 50:07 | |
Use them, bless them, consecrate them Holy Trinity. | 50:11 | |
Amen. | 50:21 | |
(soft piano music) | 50:34 | |
(congregation singing) | 51:13 | |
- | And now may the grace of God | 55:19 |
and the sweet communion of the holy spirit. | 55:22 | |
Rest, rule, and abide with you hence forth | 55:26 | |
now and forevermore. | 55:29 | |
(congregation singing) | 55:42 | |
(bell chiming) | 56:39 | |
(soft piano music) | 56:56 |
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