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The other night, there was a special on television called Michael J. Fox – Adventures of an Incurable Optimist. Michael J. Fox is an actor who suffers from Parkinson's disease. In the special, he travels all over the world to try to understand what makes people optimistic. One of the places he traveled to is a small country in the Himalayan mountains called Bhutan. Bhutan is interesting because it's considered by people who study these things as the happiest country in the world. It's a tiny country, of course, but it takes the happiness of its citizens very seriously. They even track national quality of life through a measurement they call Gross National Happiness, or GNH. As you might imagine, there is a very strong correlation between the happiness of a person, and the number and strength of relationships that person enjoys. Being part of a family, a village, a religious community, a social organization, all contribute to the connectedness people have with one another, and all tend to increase the nation of Bhutan's GNH.

In today's lesson from the Gospel of John, Jesus describes the ideal Christian community by using an image of a grapevine. The scene is set during Jesus' final night with his disciples. After the foot washing and last supper that we remembered on Maundy Thursday, he explains to his closest and dearest friends how they shall live after he's gone. And what does he tell them?

I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.

Jesus uses lots of rural images in his parables; last week we had sheep, this week we have a grapevine. So I wondered, why did Jesus choose the image of a grapevine in telling this parable? Why not an olive tree or a fig tree, both of which are very common in the Middle East? So I sent my loving wife (and mother of my children) out yesterday to get a grapevine so we could look at it.

Now the first thing you might notice is that a grapevine doesn't look anything like any other kind of fruit tree. Olives and figs grow on trees. Trees have big strong trunks, then they might have a few sturdy branches, and then other branches that come off of those, and finally you get to the leaves and the fruit. On a tree, it's pretty easy to see that the trunk is the oldest part, then the primary branches came next, then the secondary ones, and so on. But that's not how a grapevine looks. Grapevines look more like kudzu – if Jesus had been born here in Columbia, the scriptures might have been different. On a grapevine, all of the branches look pretty much the same – you really can't tell by looking at it where one branch ends and another begins. There isn't really much difference between the first branch and the newest branch, because they all come off of a single vine. So the first thing you notice might be its interconnectedness.

And the second thing you might notice is that each branch has leaves and can produce fruit. It's not just that the oldest branches produce, or the youngest branches. All of the branches produce fruit, enabling the entire plant to grow. True, some are a bit more mature than others. But even the youngest and newest branches will produce some fruit.

Now there's one important thing to remember about living life as a grapevine – the entire point is to grow more grapes! And so it's up to the vine grower to make sure that the vine produces. And what does he do branches that don't produce? He prunes them, so that the rest of the plant can bear more fruit. Now this is the hard part of the lesson, because nobody wants to be pruned. But Jesus promises that those who live with Christ, just as Christ lives with us, will grow much fruit. And just what kind of fruit will we produce? As we heard in the Epistle:

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.

Pure love is the product of God's vineyard. Love is the fruit we produce when we live in God and God lives in us. Pure love is the product of our mutual loving between God and us, and amongst ourselves.

This is the image of community that Jesus gives his disciples, his friends, just before he leaves them. It is an image of the community he calls us to life here at St. Simon and St. Jude – a community in which Jesus is the head, and the rest of us are equals. And image of interconnected branches; just as there's no such thing as an individual branch on a grapevine, there's no such thing as an individual Christian. We either live in community, or die. It is an image of community where regardless of how long you have been a member, your gifts – your fruits – are welcomed and valued for the benefit of the entire community. It is an image of community where 8 year olds, and 38 year olds, and 68 year olds all bear fruit together, because we are all part of the whole. And it is an image of community where love grows because God lives in each of us. It is the mutuality of our love – we in him, and he in us – which is the key to our interconnectedness, and which allows us to grow and bear even more fruit. Christ is the vine, and we are the branches. We who live in him, and he in us, bear pure love.

I'd like to close with a personal story. Some of you may be surprised to learn that they don't teach us very much about grapevines in seminary. Fortunately, I already had quite a bit of experience with grapevines from my childhood, because my mother had a grapevine in the backyard. She and her sisters all had grapevines because their mother had a grapevine. Now these weren't like the grapevines you see if you go to Napa Valley wine country – those vines are cultivated and tended to produce grapes for making wine. But we didn't want the grapes – we wanted the leaves! Because from the leaves you can make an amazing Middle Eastern delicacy – waraq 'inab or stuffed grape leaves. It is a food that is made from grape leaves, rice, a little lamb. And although you can buy grape leaves in a grocery store today, when I was a boy you had to grow the vines yourself. Or if you don't grow them, you traveled out into the countryside looking for grape leaves to harvest. My mother would pick only the smallest and most tender leaves. Then she'd take less than a teaspoon of rice and meat and place it on the leaf, and roll it up into a tiny cigar, no bigger than her little finger. It took her hours to roll enough grape leaves to make a single meal. And when she brought it to the table, they would vanish in a matter of minutes because they were so delicious. It is amazing how good grape leaves can taste stuffed with rice and lamb, salt and pepper, a little lemon and one other ingredient: 100% pure love. And I have to tell you, and my mother who listens over the internet, what an honor it is to be able to stand here and preach on grapevines and pure love on Mother's Day.

Thanks be to God.