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CONNECTED FOR LIFE

John 15:1-8

Electronically speaking, we are more connected than ever. The technology of our age has enabled us to make connections with one another in ways we never imagined just a few years ago.

In fact, if you wonder just how "wired" you are, consider these signs: you know you're wired if you've ever tried to enter your password on the microwave.

You know you're wired if you have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3. You know you're wired if you E-mail your son in his room to tell him that dinner is ready, and he E-mails you back asking, "What's for dinner?"

You know you're wired if you chat several times a day with a stranger from South Africa, but you haven't spoken to your next-door neighbor yet this year.

You know you're wired if you're reading this sermon on the World Wide Web.

You know you're wired if you pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home. What a world!

And yet we know very well that in spite of all our wired connections, we are having trouble staying meaningfully connected to each other.

We understand something about what Mamie Adams was talking about. She always went to a branch post office in her town because the postal employees there were friendly. She went there to buy stamps just before Christmas one year and the lines were particularly long. Someone pointed out that there was no need to wait in line because there was a stamp machine in the lobby. "I know," said Mamie, "but the machine won't ask me about my arthritis." People are hungry today for almost any kind of personal connection.

Some of the tragic stories of our time have to do with people looking for that connection need to be met in ways that are destructive. I'm constantly amazed at how many folks talk about "meeting someone" on the Internet.

I'm aware of couples that have separated and eventually divorced because of an "affair" that developed between one spouse and someone out in cyberworld. The emotions were just as deep as if there had been physical connection.

The late Wilt Chamberlain had great numbers as an NBA star, but the number he will probably be remembered for most is 20,000. That's how many women the never-married chamberlain claimed in his autobiography to have slept with.

What few may remember though, according to Chicago columnist Clarence Page, is that Chamberlain "went on to write that he would have traded all 20,000 for the one woman he wanted to stay with for keeps."

We were created with a deep need for meaningful connection. Yet in spite of all of our mechanisms and all of our opportunities that are supposed to facilitate relationship-building, we are profoundly disconnected. This has created an aloneness that is different from just being lonely. Aloneness is an experience of the soul: you are surrounded by people but unable to connect with them.

So there seems to be, today, an almost desperate search for intimacy. Many of the so-called buster generation are searching for the family they never had. For this generation, family is more frequently defined as those who will love them--not those who produced them. There's a reason that Friends is one of the most popular television shows. This generation knows quite personally that very often, friends are more "family" than parents or siblings.

This vital connection is at the heart of what Jesus was talking about in the interesting passage we heard together this morning--the vine and the branches. He's talking about what it takes to be vitally connected to God and consequently to each other in ways that bring life and health.

God created us with a need for connection. The primary need is of course for connection to Him. We can never be fully at rest until we find the connection back to God for which our hearts long.

Jesus puts it in very simple terms. He uses a word picture that anybody can relate to. He says it's like a vine and the branches of the vine. If the branches stay vitally connected to the vine, they live and bear fruit. If the branches are not vitally connected to the vine, they cannot fulfill their intended function and eventually die and are cut off from the source. It's a simple lesson. We see it in nature all the time.

But there are some particulars of this lesson that we need to get, if we're really going to understand what Jesus is inviting us to here. For example, He says, "I am the true Vine." The true Vine. That suggests there are other possibilities--vines that offer themselves as a source for life but are not able ultimately to produce.

It seems especially true in a world like ours. So many options. Nearly limitless choices to make, many of which claim to be the source of true happiness and fulfillment. Modern spirituality has become a buffet of choices where we are invited to go through and pick and choose according to our own preferences.

But Jesus does not invite to a connection that is of our own making. He does not say here, "Find the connection to God that is within each of us." He does not say, "Get connected to your spirit." He knows that nothing like that can really satisfy our desire for connection. No, Jesus says, "I am the true Vine. If you really want to be plugged in to the source of life and if you really want to find vital connection, it's through Me--and no one else." And that may be one of the offensive aspects of Jesus to contemporary minds.
No matter what Newsweek may proclaim, there are not, according to Jesus, many paths to God. He is the Way, Truth, and Life--no one comes to the Father except through Him. Jesus is the true Vine. We need to get that first. If we don't, we can expend lots of effort trying to find our heart connection but it will be futile work until we are connected to Christ, the Maker of our hearts.

But once we are connected to Christ who is our Life-Giver, that's not the end of the story. Jesus makes a big deal in this passage about staying connected. Five or six times in what we heard, He says, "Remain in me" (v.4).* The translation I grew up on says, "Abide in me" (KJV).

It's kind of an old-fashioned word, abide. Highway motel signs don't say, "Abide with us tonight." They say, "Stay here." And that's really the sense of what Jesus is talking about. "Stay here."

It has to do with persevering, continuing, lasting, staying with it. And maybe that's why the word abide has fallen into disrepair. We live in a world of constant change. And yet Jesus says, "If you really want vital connection, if you hunger for life connection, then stay put!" Now we need to understand how that happens. How is it that one stays connected to Christ? He gives the answer in verse 3 and repeats it in verse 7. It's through His word. [read]

He's assuring these disciples that if they want to stay connected to Him, it's no big mystery--it's by living in the truth of His words about who the Father is and where life is really found.

Interesting that this passage takes us right up to the moment when Jesus is betrayed. These are His final moments. Surrounding Him now are the 12 who would, each one, fail to abide with Him.

And Jesus has some rather frightening words for those who fail to abide. Verse 2 pulls no punches. It's just right out there. [read]

This is an all-or-nothing proposition. If you stay vitally connected to Jesus by living within the truth of His word, you are alive. If you don't, you are dead. Simple as that.
By the way, it's important to note that these "barren branches" Jesus talks about are not completely outside when they become unfruitful. These branches are also connected to the Vine, but they are not connected in life-giving ways. Even though they may look attached to the Vine, they are really trying to draw nourishment from elsewhere. They may go through the motions of "church," but they are seeking their life from places other than the Vine.

Do you realize what He's saying? He's saying that hanging around the church won't get it done. Just being part of a community of faith like this won't keep you vitally connected to Christ. In fact, that may be one reason why we have so many people going from church to church, blaming the churches for not meeting their needs, when in reality they are nothing more than dried-up branches trying to hang on.

The unproductive branches of which verse 2 speaks are those people within the Christian faith community who do not bear fruit. And the fruit-bearing Jesus has in mind here is love. Just a little earlier, in chapter 13, He says [read 13:34-35].
When I realize that this fruitfulness Jesus is talking about is love, I remember that only God can do this in me. This kind of fruit-bearing cannot be of my own making. Somehow God has to make this happen or it won't happen.

Last summer, as many of you know, I had a chance to visit with Eugene Peterson. He's the translator of The Message and many other books. He served as pastor for one congregation for nearly 30 years. In the course of the day's conversation I asked him this question: "As a pastor, did you love your people?" He got very quiet. And then he began to cry. Finally, after a long silence, he said, "Yes, I really did come to love them, but not at first."

I know what he means. Today I can honestly say as your pastor that I love you. And that is God's doing, not mine. It's not that you're particularly difficult to love, by any means. It's just that, all things being equal, I might as well go back home. But God in His grace and placed a deep love in my heart for you. So that if there is any fruitfulness at all in my ministry, that is why. It's all about being connected to the Life-Giver.

Now here's the hard part. In order to see God's love as the fruit of our discipleship, it takes pruning. It doesn't come to us naturally. And this pruning deal can be ugly. Have you ever seen a tree or vine or plant that is freshly pruned? It doesn't look very good, at least to my untrained eye. But what happens later? Because of the pruning it is able to leaf out and produce fruit way beyond what it could have done without the pruning. And right there is the connection for which our hearts long. That ache for deep connection that exists within the heart of every one of us cannot be met by just any old connection.
It can only be met by vital connection to the One who does radical, life-transforming work in us. It can only be met by life-giving connection to the One who prunes and shapes through the struggles and trials of life until we conform to the image of Christ and live to the glory of God.

The teaching is really quite simple. If we stay connected to Christ, we will live productive and meaningful lives. If we try to find our source in anything or anyone but Christ, we will dry up and die.

Given that simple truth, are you connected for life? Do you have a source for living that enables you to rise above the stresses and strains of living in this world? Do you sense the very lifeblood of Jesus coursing through your veins? Or do you feel dried up? Lifeless? Dead wood that is danger of being burned up?

It doesn't have to be that way. The risen Christ is here to breathe His life into you and give you the most vital connection of all. It's a connection that will satisfy that ache deep in your heart to love and to be fully loved.

The invitation is for you. "Remain in me, and I will remain in you."
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*Unidentified Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, New International Version® (NIV®). Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotation marked KJV is from the King James Version.