Below, for your consideration and reflection, is the sermon from Bethel's May 8, 2005 Sunday worship service.

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We are born needing to connect. Babies come out of the womb somehow knowing how to grip your finger, your hair, your sweater, with the strength of a tiger, letting you know that the real squeeze is about to begin, the one that will capture your heart for all your natural life. When things go well, the mother and father strike up an immediate connection with their child; and within weeks, the baby is smiling when they smile, laughing when they laugh.

And it’s not just babies who need to connect. It’s a fundamental need we all have. When you see teenagers who feel abandoned, or adults who struggle with an identity crisis, or the elderly who lead lonely lives of quiet desperation, good chance what is really needed is a good old-fashioned sense of connection with someone who cares. And it is not always a family member who can best make that connection. That’s often where the church comes in. Today, we celebrate the ways mothers and grandmothers and all the mother figures in our lives and in the church, have nurtured the love of God within us, taught us and shown how to connect with God and each other. It takes time and effort to connect. Yet, it might very well be the most basic thing we do to communicate the gospel to others.

We are all “people who need people,” to borrow words from the once popular song by Barbara Streisand. To the extent that our branches bear fruit as Christ tells us, we, that is, the Church, are to exemplify the importance of connections. Our fruitful connections reveal the love of God.

John’s Gospel speaks memorable words about connections: about vines and branches, about the importance of abiding in Christ, having the kind of relationship of trust, love, knowledge and oneness with him that characterizes his relationship with God. The vine is a kind of umbilical cord to the branches

Yet, fundamental to the right kind of growth for the vine and the branches is the vinedresser who prunes. It is not an easy thing to be a branch and to feel the knife of the vinedresser, shaping you in a new way. According to the passage, both dead branches and live branches are severely cut. In the one case, to be tossed away; in the other, for the purpose of increased productivity.

Sometimes, the church is not fruitful as we should be. Sometimes, churches violate the boundaries of members, ostracize those who criticize, or shame those who disagree about theology, programs, or policies. Sometimes, church can feel like your garden at home: a place where bugs attack, weeds choke life, and gardeners fail to nurture and water the plants.

But when a church is faithful to this image of Jesus, everyone feels indispensable to the corporate life: no one gets taken for granted; outcasts are welcomed; the hungry are fed; forgiveness is freely offered and received, differences are accepted in the name of a greater unity. The connections we have with Christ and with each other assure that the young don’t get too lost and the old are not easily forgotten. There is good will and good humor. There is generosity and inclusiveness. As the branches and the vines grow up and grow out, common worship and common experience recycle the carbon dioxide and toxins of our culture and turn them into the pure oxygen of holiness.

When branches are faithful and fruitful, the words of Peter come true: “All of you, have unity of spirit, sympathy, love for one another, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse; but, on the contrary, repay with a blessing. It is for this you were called – that you might inherit a blessing.”

I’d like to suggest to you today that one of God’s great blessings is to share in the common life of a congregation, a place where the collective fruit borne by the branch is greater than the sum of its individual parts, the place where the vinedresser can most effectively perform the ministry of pruning.

There’s nothing else quite like the congregation – a voluntary organization that collects a diverse people around a common purpose and mission. Not a civic club; not a professional organization; not a school, not a sorority, not a fraternity. When you consider the spiritual benefits, not to mention the friendships and social good accomplished through life together in the congregation, it is hard to imagine how there could ever be empty pews or budget shortfalls, or even an inactive roll.

The challenge, of course, is to get that message across to others.

The branches, we, the ones who bear the fruit of the vine, have much to show this world.

First, we can be a model for affirming unity in the midst of difference. This global village in which we now live engenders familiarity of information knowledge as never before, but this knowledge that we have at the touch of a keyboard also sharpens our awareness of differences. The world needs congregations as visible exemplars of people with differences who choose to remain together to point towards a higher purpose and a greater unity.

Martin Luther King, Jr. once shared this little story: “Some years ago a famous novelist died. Among his papers was found a list of suggested plots for future stories, the most prominently underscored being this one: ‘A widely separated family inherits a house in which they have to live together.’ This is the great new problem of [humankind]. WE have inherited a large house, a great ‘world house’ in which we have to live together – black and white, Easterner and Westerner, Gentile and Jew, Catholic and Protestant, Moslem and Hindu – a family unduly separated in ideas, culture and interest, who, because we can never again live apart, must learn somehow to live with each other in peace.” (quoted in Practicing our Faith, p. 122)

One measure of the very different expectations people of faith hold with regard to their congregations is in the sheer numbers of them. There are an estimated 350,000 congregations in North America. Gil Rendle, a leading consultant on matters related to congregations who is affiliated with the Alban Institute in Washington, DC, says that “the fact that there can be dozens of congregations of the same denomination in a given city or region underscores the subtlety of the differences being negotiated as people actively shop for and choose which of the many available congregations speaks most clearly to their questions and needs.”

To the extent that congregations can bear the fruit of a Christ-like acceptance of others and a willingness to bear the fruit of love in all our relationships, can express genuine sympathy for others, and can practice humility in our thought patterns and value judgments, then we have great potential to be a channel for God’s blessings being poured out upon this world.

Second, we, congregations, need to make even greater efforts in the spiritual practice of hospitality, to learn that guests who come into our midst might very well come bearing surprising gifts, maybe even the very presence of the Holy One. In the religious traditions shaped by the Bible, offering hospitality is a moral imperative. Our patriarch Abraham showed hospitality to the divine visitors who came bearing the news of our matriarch Sarah’s forthcoming pregnancy; the Israelites wandering in the wilderness were told to treat the resident aliens in their midst with kindness and generosity; Jesus himself embodied the transformative practice of going against the religious standards of the day to welcome Judaism’s notorious sinners and outcasts into his presence; and we know what Jesus had to say about visiting strangers in prison, feeding the hungry stranger, or clothing the stranger without clothes.

As Thomas Ogletree writes in his book Hospitality to the Stranger, “to offer hospitality to a stranger is to welcome something new, unfamiliar, and unknown into our life world . . . Strangers have stories to tell which we have never heard before, stories which can redirect our seeing and stimulate our imaginations. The stories invite us to view the world from a novel perspective.” (quoted in Practicing our Faith, 35).

When we speak of strangers or outsiders to congregations, we likely have nonmembers in mind. This is obviously an important group to reach, but when we focus only on this population, we overlook a large source of untapped energy and ideas. Virtually every church I know has as a significant percentage of inactive and underutilized members, people who have already made a commitment to Christ but have not yet found a place within the congregation to fulfill this pledge. Some are new, yet have not felt integrated into the life of the congregation; some attend and give financial support, but don’t participate in planning and doing ministry in the church’s name; Some are attempting to deal with wounds suffered in a former or even in a present congregation.

The good news is that, though we all need to be pruned in some way, we all are equally invited to unite with the fruitful branch nourished and given life by the vine.

Imagine, just for a moment, that you are walking along a wooded path. You are enjoying the journey and feeling confident about your progress. Then you find your way blocked by a large wooden fence. You notice a gate, but when you try to open it you discover it’s locked. You can hear people talking on the other side of the fence. In fact, you hear someone saying, “Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me” (John 15:4). Even though you keep knocking on the gate and calling to be let in, no one seems to hear. The obstacle remains in front of you. It keeps you from where you thought your journey was leading you. It divides you from others who have found their way to the other side of the fence.

Now, imagine this congregation. Can you picture anyone who may be standing at a locked gate, knocking and calling out? Can you see other obstacles that block the path of individuals here?

And now, imagine yourself taking a key and unfastening the locked gate. Imagine yourself welcoming people through that gate. Imagine yourself offering your hand to help people who are struggling to step over or around other obstacles. Imagine yourself walking as a companion with those people – as together you travel your journey” (Congregations, Fall 2004).

Is ours a fruitful branch?

Even in our proudest moments, we know that congregations are far from perfect.

But we also must know that the vine and its branches speak of the love of God, a God whose love is present in and through all of our connections. Being a member of a congregation doesn’t give us an exclusive sense of the love of God, but I wonder how, without a congregational family, how anyone comes to know this Holy One who dwells in our midst.

As all are connected to this vine, this Holy One runs through our blood like sap, nurturing us, sustaining us with community, giving our new and old branches more fruit than we could ever believe possible. And in a world that is hungry and thirsty, what could be better than to be a branch on this vine?

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen!

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O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son. Look with compassion on the whole human family. Take away the arrogance and hatred that infect our hearts. Break down the walls that separate us. Unite us in bonds of love, and through our struggle and confusion, work to accomplish your purposes on earth; that in your good time, all nations and all peoples may serve you in harmony and peace.

We praise you for all those special women whom you have called forth to exemplify the faith to us. Especially we remember today those who have fought the good fight and finished the race, and we thank you that even now, those dear to us have joined that great cloud of witnesses who cheer us on in all of our efforts to be faithful and fruitful as participants in the body of Christ.

If there is any need for healing in relationships, we pray that you would cause such healing to begin today, especially if there is estrangement or anger or hurt within your people here. As we honor mothers this day, may we more especially honor the privilege of being set into Christian families, and even more, to hear Christ’s call to open wide our doors so that the spirit of the living God might be breathed into the whole creation. In the busyness of our lives, cause us to make room for you and for doing those things that make for justice and peace and loving our neighbor as we love ourselves.

Pour out your love upon all congregations and upon all of this world in pain and suffering. Hear our prayers for the diseased and the homeless, those in broken families and those without family at all, those whose lives are weighed down by grudges and hatred, and those who scramble to have sufficient food and shelter. We pray for prisoners and their families, and we pray for people whose lives have been destroyed or forever changed by warfare or by natural disaster or by evil not of their own making. Bring peace, we pray to the nations, especially in Iraq, Afghanistan, in lands torn apart by tribal warfare in Africa, in the lands of Latin America nearly destroyed by drug trafficking, and in those border places where refugees seeking a better life face grave threats in pursuit of freedom and hope for their families.

Hear our prayers for the sick among us. We thank you for healing experienced by Tim and by Madge, and we pray for . . . .

Hear our prayers, O Lord, incline your ear to us, and grant us your peace. Hear us as we pray . . . .

[Lord's Prayer]