Beware the Home Run Sermon

When we abide as branches on the vine we bear good fruit.

Every once in a while when I open up www.lectionarypage.net to look at the coming Sunday’s lessons, I find myself instinctively doing a quiet fist pump at my computer. On those days when I am so excited by the upcoming texts it is usually disaster waiting to happen. My colleague Evan D. Garner and I sometimes discuss this hubris of the preacher. If the one in the pulpit is so sure of herself or himself, then she or he presumably has relied too much on her or his strength and not on the Lord’s. So, as I get excited about the bounty that is this Sunday’s lessons, I pray that I may allow the Spirit to work through me for God’s glory—instead of misguidedly believing I will march into the pulpit with a home run sermon.

There is of course some good reason to be excited about the readings for the 5th Sunday of Easter. We begin with Philip’s encounter with Candace’s eunuch from Ethiopia. A chariot ride bible study ended with Philip baptizing the eunuch through the power of the Spirit. Then, Philip vanished by the abilities of that same Spirit. God’s Holy Word, Holy Baptism, and the Holy Spirit—what’s not to love about that story?

Sometimes preachers like me completely overlook the wisdom and beauty of the Psalm appointed for Sunday morning. The portion of the Psalter (Psalm 22:24-30) we will read points to the transformative power of God’s resurrecting love that Jesus made known. However, that power always exists. And, it always existed. Those who sleep in the earth bow to the earth, even those in the dust know of God’s power—even before they are resurrected at the eschaton—the end of days. This part of the Psalter touches on what the reading from John’s First Letter gives to us also.

In Sunday’s reading from 1 John we discover one of the most beautiful portions of the New Testament—God is love. Having just celebrated at a friend’s wedding, I have that context for this reading stuck in my mind. Still, this truth that we are God’s beloved does not simply apply to those making life-long vows. No, in truth God’s seeing us as beloved applies to all of God’s children. Like the Psalmist, John trusted that we belong and abide in God. John amplified that belief through the perfecting of love that Jesus exemplified for us. In other words, Jesus showed us what perfect—as in fulfilling—love looks like.

Finally, the reading from the Good News of Christ Jesus according to John provides a capstone for this theme of abiding in God through God’s fruitful love. The analogy of a vine extending to branches gives to us an image of what that love will do in our lives. Jesus is our vine and we are his branches. When we abide in God’s life-giving love our lives will overrun with a tangible, tasty, sweet, healthy, and fragrant fruit.

As this week continues, instead of relying upon ourselves to bear fruit, I pray that we—especially preachers—may allow the vine to manifest in our hearts, our lives, our actions, our thoughts, and our words. May we abide in God’s love. May we know that God’s fulfilling love sustains all things. May we be God’s beloved branches bearing God’s fruit in this world.