Fifth Sunday of Easter: You Are Mine
As you likely know, in this year in our lectionary, in which we hear primarily from the Gospel of Mark, we also have a handful of Sundays in which we hear from the Gospel of John, such as today. St. John’s powerful presentation of Jesus is deep, but let’s be honest, not necessarily personal. In part, it’s due to John’s narrative style, but also it’s because he wanted to focus on particular aspects about Jesus that he regarded as most important. So, we’re left with a presentation of Jesus that admittedly, can feel very stoic and unemotive.
As some of you know, this past week I was in Indiana, visiting family and spending time primarily with my sister, Amy, who’s undergoing some health struggles. A lot of our time together was spent binge-watching the first season of the Chosen series. Amy had never seen it, and for those of you who are unaware, it’s a dramatic series on the life of Jesus and his Apostles. Some of you were part of the discussion group for season one, led by our Pastoral Assistant, Alex Nelson.
No presentation of Jesus is ever going to be complete, and furthermore, no presentation is going to speak with equal effectiveness for each person. For any shortcomings the Chosen series has in showing us what Jesus may well have been like, it shows him to be strong, serious and focused, but also gentle, joyful and warm. We see in him a sense of humor and a keen ability to relate to people in a most personal way. In it, we see how in his encounter with individual people, it was as though they were of utmost importance to him.
It caused me to think about how Jesus feels about us as individual people. I think that gets lost on us. Maybe it’s because we reduce Jesus to this corporate figure who ‘belongs’ to everyone who ever lived, that I can’t conceive of how I even show up on his radar. Maybe it’s because we haven’t yet figured out how to be in relationship with someone who requires being present and communicating in a different way.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus says, “I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing”. It’s an image that speaks of a very necessary and intimate connection, a relationship between Jesus and his followers.
So, what’s your relationship like with Jesus? How do you draw close? For sure, we could say that we do so through the sacraments. We could say that we do so in our service to those in need. We could say we do so in the care and love we receive from others in our moments of need. But how do you experience him personally, as just you in your quiet moments alone? Does he speak to you?
In the first episode of the Chosen series, there’s a woman who is tormented, helpless and falling apart. It’s clear that her life is marked by having cheapened herself and having been wounded by others. In fear, and running from everything and everyone, she finds herself suddenly pursued by a stranger, Jesus. For all the ways she simply wants to run from him, her ears, hear something she clearly has not heard in so many years: her name, Mary. In the momentary struggle of trying to figure out who is this man before her and what his intentions are, part of her, stilling wanting to run, as he speaks to her, words of Isaiah the prophet that her father had taught her when she was a child to help her feel secure: “Mary, ‘thus says the LORD, who created you…Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name…you are mine’” (Isaiah 43:1).
Aside from asking ourselves, “Do I even realize that I belong to him? How do I know it? How do I feel and experience it?”—so much of it has to do with private prayer and encountering him there. Our prayer must include some time when we seek him and allow ourselves to be found. It has to involve being vulnerable, letting down our defenses, and for sure, slowing down our breathing and our consciousness, and focusing.
Sometimes it means simply asking, “Are you here with me, Lord?” and almost inevitably realizing that indeed he is. And just as Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God surely looked intently at Mary of Magdala, at Zaccheus the tax collector (Lk 10), at the Samaritan woman at the well (Jn 4), and at the repentant Peter, as he asked him, “Peter, do you love me?” (Jn 21). It’s in there, in his purposeful gaze, that we—no you, come to find yourself indeed as part of him, a branch on the vine, that indeed, you are his.