Claimed, gathered and sent

This is the message I preached at St. Timothy's and St. Mark's (with one change). The text is from The Message Bible, John 15: 1-8. Have you ever been so hungry that you felt like you were about to faint? You are at a friend's house and you see that on the table in front of you is an inviting, delectable-looking bowl of fruit. It must be there to be eaten, so you grab one of your very favorite fruit--your mouth is watering, you can almost taste it-----and then, much to your disappointment, you discover that it is a piece of wax fruit, the fruit is fake. It may look good, but it is phony.            We are a church that loves to eat, aren't we? We love our  fellowship time with coffee, tea and all kinds of goodies. Food is something we know a lot about. This passage from John's gospel is not some hard to figure out parable. Vines and grapes and branches were very familiar to the disciples, just as they are to us. It was and ...

This is Sunday's gospel text from The Message: John 15:1-8   The Message (MSG) 15 1-3 “ I am the Real Vine and my Father is the Farmer. He cuts off every branch of me that doesn ’ t bear grapes. And every branch that is grape-bearing he prunes back so it will bear even more. You are already pruned back by the message I have spoken. 4 “ Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can ’ t bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can ’ t bear fruit unless you are joined with me. 5-8 “ I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you ’ re joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can ’ t produce a thing. Anyone who separates from me is deadwood, gathered up and thrown on the bonfire. But if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to a...