Nantucket Spring

There's something hopeful about the Scotch Broom - blooming by the broken fence. Just like us  - blooming at the broken places.

Easter 7
Now what this has to do with your passages is this: life is all about the choices we make.  Where the movie suggests that we make a worldview choice favoring community, continuity and connectedness, the scriptures call upon us to choose walking in the way of the wisdom of the Lord rather than walking in the way of wickedness. Seeing that "eternal life" is about quality rather than quantity, grace instead of gratification.  Recognizing that Jesus chose Judas but Judas had free will to choose to follow or to betray.  Knowing that the disciples choose Matthias to be number 12, but that Matthias will also have freedom to choose ... just as each of us has the choice of being that 12th disciple: to follow in the master's footsteps or to fall away.  The tree that is planted by rivers of water has a much better chance at eternal life than the tree that is disconnected from the source of energy and goodness.        

And I think that's why I love the Buechner definition of Grace from Wishful Thinking (which I used at the conclusion of my confirmation course).  That goodness is like the taste of raspberries and cream, and it's offered to us all ... but we have to make the choice to accept it, like eternal life.  Here is the world.  Beautiful and terrible things will happen - side by side -- but every day we can choose to contribute our energies to the good or the bad.  Every moment we must choose which way we will walk.  We are here because the party wouldn't be complete without us ... each of our lives plays an integral part in the drama of the world ... and we can help to make it a comedy or a tragedy.  just as each of us is a unique and essential member of the body of Christ and can make him alive and effective in the world today or just a distant memory of the past.  Our choices are crucial, our acts make all the difference.

From my friend Joanne.... Easter B 6 Something about this whole concept of "I am the vine, you are the branches, so abide in me and in my words ..." is beyond OUR words.  The image is just so powerful we can only poorly prune it by pointing here or there and saying "this is what this means."  I fell in love with that little sparrow who kept looking in at me through the window from the branches of the orange blossom bush in which he was abiding.  For days, almost weeks, I wondered what God was trying to say to me through his persistent presence. First, I was afraid for him, that he would hurt himself constantly crashing into the window, in which he saw something that attracted his attention.  Then I found out it was his own reflection that he saw and was trying to chase away from his potential nesting place.  The wildlife people advised me not to worry, because he was only "bumping" and not  really "crashing" into the window ... and that he would give up this behavior when it was time to get busy building a nest and feeding babies.  But after a couple of weeks of his repeated announcements of interest in the window, I grew to welcome his faithful presence on that branch and felt we had become friends.  Now that he is gone, I really - sorely - miss him and worry if he is alright, wherever he is.  I guess that when we abide in proximity with one another, it is natural for love and concern to develop.  And I guess I think that love is a "natural" occurence anyway. David Lose suggests in the first paragraph of his weekly musing (which is all that I read from him tonight) that the passages have to do with OBEDIENCE to God's laws, a term which we have shied away from since the 60's.  My favorite quote about obedience is this:  "Freedom is complete obedience to the element for which we were designed."  Which usually, in relation to God's law or commandments, means that if we obey them, we will be free. We will be who God intended us to be.  Now when I put this idea together with abiding in the vine and branches and the command to love one another, I get the idea that THAT is our natural state ... that caring about one another and loving are the elements for which we were designed.  The vine is like the garden of Eden, where those who abide in it naturally live in love.  Just like it is natural for me to care about the sparrow and the sparrow to care about what he sees around him ... even if it is only his own reflection.  But I couldn't lose the feeling that he cared about me too, because he kept looking in my direction. Didn't you just sing "God's eye is on the sparrow"???  Well, I think that's the natural order of things that the different elements of God's creation care about one another.  Like the early command to take care of the garden and all that dwell therein. What has this got to do with Acts?  Well, maybe not much, but it seems Peter is being repeatedly exposed to different people and different elements of God's creation so that he can find out that it is more natural to learn to care about others than to be afraid of them.  That if he spends any amount of time in the same place with them, he learns that it feels natural to be together; more natural than to be apart - especially held apart by some mistaken notion of clean or unclean, right or wrong, Jew or Gentile, circumcised or not.  Once that feeling seeps into you and sweeps over you it is like being baptized by the flowing holy spirit.  The fluidity touches and connects all things, just as the sap flowing through the vine nourishes every leaf at the tip of every branch.  And so the fruitfulness flows like love and the fruit of the vine becomes wine transformed from blood and water freely circulating through the body of Christ.  It's all very natural.  we just have to open our eyes to see it and follow ouor hearts to feel it.  Freedom is complete obedience to the element for which we were designed ... loving one another.  which just so happens to be the law of God (psalm 98) and the commandment of Christ (John 15).

Finally getting started with this! More to come!