5/3/2015 – Fifth Sunday of the Easter Season – Acts 9: 26-31, John 15:1-8

       It is hard to believe that we are more than half way through the Easter season now, as today we celebrate the 5^th Sunday of Easter.  In three weeks, on May 24, we will commemorate the end of the Easter season with our celebration of Pentecost.  The readings we have throughout the Easter season help us reflect upon the presence of the resurrected Lord that is with us and the impact in has on our lives, and our readings certainly do that for us today. As I thought about our Gospel today, about Jesus being the vine that connects us together as his disciples in the new life we have in him, I thought I would share two objects that spoke to me about today’s reading. The first is this branch that comes from Pope Francis’ home country of Argentina.  One of my parishioners from Yazoo City brought me this back from a visit to her daughter, who is working for an oil company in Buenos Aires. It looks like an ordinary branch on the one side, but then you flip it over, you see that it is carved into a crucifix from its natural shape as a branch, that it is Jesus on the cross.  I thought of this branch when I read today's Gospel.  The other item I want to show you is this walking stick.  I used to minister to the prisoners at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Pearl, Mississippi when I served as a priest in Yazoo City and in Jackson.  That facility had prisoners who were being processed into the prison system prior to being shipped out to other correctional facilities. About 5 years ago, I met a man who had just been sentenced to a 30 year term.  I only met him one time before he was shipped out to the prison on the Gulf Coast.  We started a correspondence through letter, which we have continued to this day.  About three years ago, I wrote to him about the pilgrimage I was going to take to Spain on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela.  About three weeks later, I received a package that his wife had sent. Contained in the package was this walking stick.  He had carved this walking stick himself from a holly tree on his property.  He used the stick to go hiking with his son.  He wanted me to have this stick for my hikes and for my pilgrimage.  Like the way we are connected with Jesus through as a vine is connected to the different branches, I feel connected to this man and feel that I am his priest even though I am not able to visit him face-to-face.  

       Our connectedness with Jesus in his explanation of the vines and the branches speaks to us today, just as does the reading about the evangelization of the Early Church from the Acts of the Apostles.  In the stories of the Early Church in the Easter season readings, we hear about the first evangelization that took place after Christ’s death and resurrection. Why was this evangelization so successful?  Why did the Church have converts from the different corners of the Roman Empire?  Paul and Barnabas and that original group of disciples were on fire with the word of God permeating their lives.  They were filled with energy and enthusiasm.  They want to share their faith with others.  They wanted to proclaim the Good News to all the world.  They would not let any obstacles or challenges stand in their way.  Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis see us called to a new evangelization that is in the spirit of Paul and the members of the Early Church, a new evangelization that will energize our own faith and to those to whom we bring the Gospel message. Benedict and Francis have made this message of the new evangelization an important part of their preaching Christ’s message to the world.  Pope Francis has proclaimed that the spread of the Gospel is not guaranteed  by the number of persons, or by the prestige of the institution, or by the quantity of available resources. According to Pope Francis, what counts is that we be permeated by the love of Christ, that we let ourselves be led by the Holy Spirit and that we graft our own lives onto the tree of life, onto the cross of Jesus.  We are called to be a part of the vine and the branches that connect us to Jesus as his faithful disciples. 
      As a part of vine and branch that connects us to Christ, we are called to love God, love neighbor, to be disciples, and to make disciples.  There is a book entitled Rebuilt that we have been reading as a parish staff and a parish council.  I will talk more about this book in the coming weeks.  It talks about Nativity parish in suburban Baltimore, about the process this parish went through as a way to reenergize and revitalize its community of faith. The subtitle of the book is Awakening the Faithful, Reaching the Lost, and Making Church matter.  I encourage you to read this book over the summer, as it will get you thinking about the ways we want to revitalize and reenergize our own parish of St James here in Tupelo.

        In this book Rebuilt, the authors see the movement of the Kingdom of God as a movement of love. Ultimately, as modern-day Christians, we are to help restore God’s reign of love.  We won’t see God's reign – we will miss it – unless we serve one another.  Pope Benedict XVI, in his encyclical DEUS CARITAS EST (God is Love) states: Only if I serve my neighbor can my eyes to opened to what God does for me and how he loves me. Pope Benedict mentions that the saints, such as Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, constantly renewed their capacity to love their neighbor through their encounter with the Lord in Eucharist.  Conversely, this Eucharistic encounter took on more realism and depth through the way they served their neighbor. Thus, love of God and love of neighbor are inseparable in our Christian faith.  Our Christian service is about more than carrying about another’s need.  It is about recognizing the image of God in others through our service, about allowing our service to open our eyes to God and to fall more deeply in love with him.

Mission work is the practice of love by the Church as a community of love.

    These thoughts from the book Rebuilt come to my mind as we hand out our Time and Talent survey today.  For the last two Sundays, we have handed out sheets with the descriptions of our different ministries and out-reach programs here at St James.  We want to encourage everyone to really get involved here at St James and to find ways to live out our faith.  Please mark on the Time and Talent form those ministries and out-reach programs you would like to get involved in.  And in the next month, someone will contact you.  Thank you.