York Minster

That your joy may be complete

Date: 10th May 2009
Preacher: The Reverend Canon Dr Jonathan Draper

It is not always clear to me what goes on in the heads of those who put together the lectionary, our three year cycle of readings, not just for Sundays, but for every day and every service of the year.  Having a lectionary is a good thing.  Through it we read most of the Bible in public worship over the course of the cycle; through it we are challenged by those parts of the Bible that we may not find most congenial; and through it we are prevented from merely choosing the readings we like or which support our point of view.  I really do believe that a having a set lectionary is a good thing. 

But I do feel a need to quibble with it from time to time.  The reading from the Acts of the Apostles we have this morning is a complete story which makes sense as a stand alone portion of scripture.  And while there still remains the important work of setting this portion of scripture in its wider context and trying to understand the role it is playing in the larger narrative of Acts, it is at least a coherent whole.  Our gospel reading is not.  In it we have 8 verses plucked out of the middle of a very long passage in which Jesus is teaching his disciples for the last time.  They have shared the last supper, Jesus has washed their feet, Judas has left to betray him, and this passage of teaching is a kind of still point in the story, the eye of the storm that is about to break.  It also changes after several chapters of John’s narrative into Jesus’ great prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, where he prays for the unity of those who follow him and that they will understand and live by the same kind of love for each other that he has shared with God.  The few verses we have this morning are taken from this long passage of teaching and prayer set between fellowship around the table of the last supper and Jesus’ betrayal and abandonment.  The part of that longer story which we have as our reading this morning, also comes at an interesting point in the story.  While they are still sitting at the table, Jesus has been teaching, and has promised them that the Holy Spirit will come to them to continue to teach them after he has gone, and in the light of this he offers them his peace.  He is trying to help them to see that what is about to happen, happens because he is the active agent.  He knows that what he has done in his ministry is leading him inexorably towards death, and he wants his disciples to know that he goes there willingly, of his own accord, and that no one is forcing this on him: he is giving up himself.  And when he tells them this, which they can barely comprehend, he then says, ‘come on, let’s go’, and he leads them out of the upper room and on towards the Garden of Gethsemane.

Now Jesus seems to me to be the kind of teacher who is able to use whatever is to hand to make his point, and I have this vision of him walking with his disciples through or alongside a vineyard as they make their way to the garden at the foot of the Mount of Olives, and using this vineyard to illustrate the kind of intimate relationship with God that he has and that he wants his followers to have.  But above all things it is clear from this illustration that Jesus wants this relationship to God to be fruitful; fruitful in the sense of producing a life lived to the full in the service of God and each other, a life given, as Jesus’ was, to the liberation of the oppressed and the proclamation of God’s love, and above all a life in which their joy may be full and complete.  Except that our reading ends before Jesus gets to say that, and this is my quibble with the lectionary: it’s somehow typical that we get a chunk of the exhortation without the full reason for it.  And given the kinds of joyless ways in which the Christian faith has been understood, interpreted and lived over the centuries, even to this day, I think it’s very important to know that Jesus wants us to be fruitful in our lives and in our relationship to God so that our lives may be full of joy, joy that is full, that is complete, that is deep down and satisfying.  Abide, he says, in my love, and your joy will be complete; though he doesn’t get to say it in our reading. 

The setting of our gospel reading is very suggestive: the garden at the foot of the Mount of Olives.  The Mount of Olives plays an important role in the religious and symbolic life of Israel and, of course, of Jesus.  The Mount of Olives is where David stops and weeps over Jerusalem and his fate as he flees to escape from the murderous intentions of his rebellious son Absalom; it is the place where God’s glory stands in the Book of the prophet Ezekiel; and according to the Acts of the Apostles, it is the location of the ascension of Jesus, which we will celebrate soon, and the place of his return.  The Mount of Olives was, and still is, also a place of Jewish pilgrimage, especially after the destruction of the Temple, for from it you can see the whole of the Temple Mount; it also a remains an important place of burial where many of the most significant Rabbis over the centuries are buried.  So it is not accidental that the Mount of Olives is a place where Jesus goes, as he sees himself standing in that long tradition of prophets seeking to bring the people of God back to their spiritual roots.  So Jesus also weeps here over Jerusalem as he moves towards his end; here he is the glory of God standing over and against Jerusalem calling the people back to God; and, of course, it was a place to which he made pilgrimage, and where he prayed, as he exercised his ministry and maintained his friendships.  The Mount of Olives was the natural place from which to allow the events of Jesus’ death to unfold.

The image of the vineyard that Jesus uses as he makes his way with his disciples to the Garden, holds some really important pointers for understanding our relationship to him and to each other, though he is not alone, of course, in the Bible is using this image.  The people of God in the OT are often spoken of as God’s vine or vineyard which he has brought out of Egypt and planted in Palestine; more than once God complains through the prophets that the good vines God has planted have produced bad fruit; but the vine was a symbol for the fullness of life and prosperity that God wills for his people; and in a slight twist on the same theme, Paul compares the gentiles coming to Christ to wild branches that are grafted on to the root of the olive tree of God’s people.

There is something profound about this image, and something much more satisfying about it than the usual images of sheep and shepherds.  The branches share an organic relationship to one another and to the roots through which they gain their nourishment and strength: apart from the root, they will wither and die; strongly attached to the root, they can flourish and be fruitful.  And being fruitful is the key: God expects his people to bear the fruit of righteousness and justice in and for the sake of the world, and God expects his people to provide for the joy of the world through the fruit of their lives.

We mustn’t get too hung up on the image and push it to absurd extremes: other images are needed as well.  The image of the church being the Body of Christ, developed by St Paul, for instance, has a more sophisticated understanding of the need for there to be diversity in the Christian fellowship even as we look to Christ as our head, and we must keep that need for diversity always in view, especially when it is under pressure.  But the profound point that Jesus makes – that apart from him we can do nothing – remains.  We are to abide in him, we are to draw our nourishment and strength from him as our root and our source; we are to share the same concerns, the same methods, the same compassion, courage and love: apart from him we can do nothing.

Jesus calls us to this life of rootedness in him, of course, so that we can bear the fruit of a godly life. But we must also never forget that we are called to this life of organic dependence on him and each other so that we might know and experience complete joy.  The joy not only of knowing that we do the right things – which is a particularly joyless form of joy which verges, in fact, on smugness – but real, simple and proper joy, a state of enjoyment, of taking pleasure in the life we live because God’s abundant generosity stands at its root. Perhaps, at the next revision, the compilers of our lectionary will have noticed this too.

Amen.