In him my soul shall live…
How connected are we to God?
In his Last Supper discourse to the disciples in John’s Gospel, a bit of which we hear this Sunday, Jesus describes our relationship
with him, and through him with God, using the image of the vine and the
branches: I am the true vine, he says, and
my Father is the vine grower… You are the branches. It is God’s love that prunes the vine, cutting away whatever we cling to that will not
bear fruit in our lives, so that we can believe and trust and find consolation
in God’s love. Once pruned, so long as
we remain connected to the one thing we truly need – that love – we can live in
Jesus and he in us, and through that love we can also be connected to all each
other.
For as the First Letter of John reminds us, if we are
beloved by God, then we should relate in love with one another: let us
love not in word or speech but in deed and truth. It’s not enough to talk about love; we need
to live it because we believe in the power of God’s love come to earth in the
form of Jesus. Only then can we remain in Christ. And it’s not easy; even the first Christians
had trouble with the concept. After
Saul’s radical conversion experience, as told in Acts, he tries to join the apostles
in Jerusalem, but most will have nothing to do with him until Barnabas reaches
out and creates the much-needed connection.
Only then is true trust possible; only then can the work of the early
Christian mission continue.
Some scholars suggest that the word religion comes from the
Latin verb religare, which means to bind fast. Perhaps this is what is
meant in Psalm 22 – in him my soul shall
live: that in the context of our relationship with God and with God’s Son, we
are all bound fast together, one body, vine and branches. For in the end, isn’t connection more or less
what Christianity is basically about?
This post is based on Fr. Pat's Scripture class.
Image source: Wordle
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