“FIRST IMPRESSIONS”

FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER (B)
APRIL 28, 2024

Acts 9: 26-31; Psalm 22;
I John 3: 18-24; John 15: 1-8

by Jude Siciliano, OP

Dear Preachers:

My grandparents were landowners. You have to understand that in Brooklyn, to be called a “landowner” was stretching the term a bit. In truth, they had a backyard. In the center of the yard was a cement slab “patio” and around it grandpa grew vegetables and fruits. He had 3 fruit trees – two fig and one peach. The fig trees were better suited to a more Mediterranean climate and so, to protect them through the harsh northeastern winters, he would tie up the branches close to the tree trunks and wrap the tightly bound fig trees in black tar paper, with the hope that the black would absorb at least some heat from the winter sun. Through the winters we could see those two fig trees in the backyard. They looked like thick wrapped carpets, surrounded by the barren, sometimes snow-covered garden, waiting out the winters.

But after an especially frigid winter one of the fig trees almost died. Grandpa decided he would prefer two peach and only one fig tree. “Less wrapping and unwrapping,” he said. So, he cut the fig tree down to its trunk, took a branch from the peach tree and grafted it to the fig tree’s trunk. He “bandaged” the spot where the two were joined and told us we had to wait to see if the graft took. If it didn’t, the peach branch would show the signs of a failed graft – it would die. If the graft did work, we kids wondered, would we get figs or peaches from the tree? The graft did work and the next summer we saw the first fruits from the grafted tree – peaches. The trunk provided the life and the grafted branch kept its individuality and produced delicious peaches. But without the life from the root stock, the branch would have died and we would be without grandma’s peach jam and cobblers. If, in the grafting process, there was any “pain” to the two trees, it was transitory and was meant for a fruit-yielding purpose.

We are like that branch attached to the root stock. Using similar agricultural image, the vine, Jesus says we have to remain with him if we are to live and bear fruit. Through Baptism we have been “grafted” to Jesus; from him we draw our life. A peach tree branch yielded a peach tree. If my grandfather had used a plum branch, guess what kind of tree he would have gotten when he grafted it to the stock. My grandmother would have made plum, instead of peach, jam from the fruit. We are grafted to Jesus, the true vine and still, we keep our individuality and unique gifts for: music, storytelling, cooking, writing, organizing, nurturing, convincing, etc.

We are each different, but we are all drawing life from Christ as we live our Christian vocations in the world. No two of us are identical Christian twins; we are all unique. But the source of our life, Jesus tells us, is the same, “Remain in me, as I remain in you....” If one of us kids had pulled the grafted branch from its root base, besides being recipients of my grandfather’s ire, we would have been left holding a mere and useless stick, with no future peach pies or cobblers for us. Each of us, joined to Christ, can yield much fruit, not only for ourselves, but for those who look to us for help, encouragement and forgiveness.

Each time we gather here for worship we express our desire to stay united to Christ and to one another. We do that in our liturgical celebration by hearing the Word, when it is proclaimed, in silent listening; responding with prayers stirred up by what we have heard and then, as a community, by receiving the Eucharist. We do similarly at other sacramental celebrations.

As we watched my grandfather at work we knew he had good intentions, and all of us would be the recipients of his labor and our waiting. Still, the cutting part looked painful to the two trees. Is there pain for us too when we are pruned by God? What kind of pain? Doesn’t a kind of cutting or pruning take place here at our Eucharist when we hear the Word proclaimed in our assemblies? Jesus says we are “pruned because of the word that I spoke to you.” God’s Word constantly speaks to us and hearing that Word is a way for us to “remain on the vine.” We are listeners who need to keep our ears tuned to that Word because it reminds us of God’s on-going love and readiness to forgive.

If God has any “pruning” to do so that we can become more fruitful disciples of Jesus, it can happen when we are attentive to the Word. What we hear may enable us to realize how often we have missed or ignored God’s outreach to us. It is something like the pain and embarrassment we feel when a friend has tried to do something nice for us and we missed the kindness, took it for granted or misinterpreted it. Such moments can be very painful indeed and can remind us not to let it happen again, lest we lose or damage our friendship. That’s similar to the “pruning” God is constantly doing through the Word. Hearing that Word we can recognize and respond with more awareness to God’s loving gestures towards us. We gather each week to stay connected to the vine and to one another, the branches. We also pray and resolve here today to be more attentive and responsive listeners.

How else can we hear Jesus’ word and thus “remain” in him? Besides liturgical celebrations, there are many ways to place ourselves in a listening mode; open to the possibility of hearing God’s Word. Some immediately come to mind: parish scripture prayer groups and bible study classes; private prayer, scripture reading and meditation; reading past and present spiritual writers, etc.

But God speaks in other, perhaps less “formal” or obvious ways through: conversations with family and friends; counselors and self-help groups; casual conversations with people whose paths we cross daily, etc. We remember too Jesus telling us that he could be found among the poor and outcasts. When we are with them, we also strive to be listeners. Besides one-on-one encounters with people in need, what about those reports that come our way through print and internet media about social problems in our community, nation and around the world? Can the media also be an instrument Jesus uses to speak his words to us and help us “remain” in him and “bear much fruit?”

In the opening to our second reading, John spells out to us the fruit we will bear in union with Jesus, “Children, let us love not in word or speech, but in deed and truth.”

Click here for a link to this Sunday’s readings:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/042824.cfm