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).