April 30, 2018
Paulist Fr. Rich Andre preached this homily for the 5th Sunday of Easter on May 3, 2015 at St. Austin Parish in Austin, TX. The homily is based on the day’s readings: Acts 9:26-31; Psalm 22; 1 John 3:18-24; John 15:1-8
Did you know that UT has a major in Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communications? That’s very fortunate for us today, since our gospel passage is the metaphor of the vine and the branches. Last weekend, one of the graduate students in the ALEC program explained a bit more to me about the science of growing grapes. Pruning is essential to obtaining a good harvest. Jesus says that we are like branches that have already been pruned by God.
Can you think of a time when a door closed to you, but it eventually led you to a better opportunity? Probably, before the new opportunity presented itself, you felt lost, upset, or angry. But when you look back now, it seems more like a necessary “pruning” by God to allow you to flourish.
Even when we walk in the valley of the shadow of death, God is with us, inviting us to life in abundance and resurrection. Let us be sprinkled once again with the waters of our baptism.
We have a curious way of describing the life of professional musicians. We speak as if for years of their lives, they engage in one activity, called “practice,” so that they can spend the later portion of their lives in a separate activity called “playing.” But we know that’s not how it really works. You can’t separate “practicing” as a separate activity from “playing.”
We sometimes make this same artificial distinction when it comes to Christian discipleship. We think that we’re not ready to go out and live our faith until we study the Bible, learn more about our Catholic faith, or get more settled in our current life situation. We think that we need to reach a certain level of some abstract ideal – we’ll call it “holiness” – before we can build up the kingdom. Deep down inside, we know that such logic is baloney. The basics of Christian discipleship are simple to understand: there’s no need to have a theology degree to serve the poor. Common sense tells us to recognize the dignity of every person. And the only way we get better at Christian living is to get out there and do it, just like the only way to improve your musical technique is to play your instrument.
The last line of our gospel passage drives this point home. By the fifteenth chapter of John’s gospel, the people gathered at the table with Jesus have followed him for a long time and over a lot of miles. They have shared the Passover meal, and Jesus has washed their feet. Yet Jesus tells those gathered to “bear much fruit and become my disciples.” It seems to imply that we can bear fruit even while we’re still figuring out what it means to be a disciple.
I first felt the call to consider the priesthood in May of 2001. I was shocked. The idea had never seriously entered my mind before then. But over the next few weeks, I became convinced that God was calling me to consider the priesthood. I became an affiliate with the seminary of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, joining the seminarians every Thursday for Mass, dinner, and an in-house class. In taking that step, I felt it was time to share the news with lots of friends, family, and parishioners. So, one morning in February of 2002, I was shocked when a psychologist blocked my seminary application, arguing that I was not mature enough to become a priest. I was devastated. What was I supposed to do? I still felt called to consider priesthood, but did God want me to spend the next 35 years as an engineer? What was I supposed to tell my family and friends?
Here’s a diagram that our graduate student in the UT Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communications department showed us last weekend. Presumably, the disciples at the Last Supper would have been aware how severely the vine grower needs to prune back the vine to produce great fruit.
Of course, more than thirteen years later, I can look back at that morning meeting in Dr. Pacoe’s office not as a death, but as a pruning. I now see it as one of the best things that ever happened to me. If Dr. Pacoe had approved my application, perhaps I’d have never become a Paulist priest. I wouldn’t be living and serving in Knoxville. I’d probably not have engaged in such deep spiritual introspection that has so strongly defined me. I can point to other rough periods in my life that felt like deaths that turned out to be great opportunities for growth.
Even the most passionate disciples must continue to prune, to practice, and to discern for their entire lifetimes. St. Paul is a great example. In a few short days, Paul went from persecuting Christians to preaching Christianity. But even Paul spent a lifetime becoming a better disciple. He had to establish trust with the leaders in Jerusalem. If you read between the lines of the Book of Acts, it’s clear that the apostles sent Paul back to the city of Tarsus – maybe for as long as 10 years! – to grow in his discipleship before he took his famous missionary journeys.
If we ever think we have our act completely together, that’s probably the moment when we stop bearing fruit. So how do we keep growing? Last Sunday, we brainstormed ways for our neophyte Catholics to do this. Get involved with a new ministry. Push yourself outside of your comfort zones. If you’re going away for the summer, don’t just go to Mass for the next three months; participate in some of the activities the parish has going on there. Make plans now for what you can do next fall, no matter where you’ll be. If you’ve never attended a small group with Dr. Ruth Queen Smith, promise yourself that you’ll give yourself that opportunity as soon as possible.
Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. The tighter we, the branches, cling to the vine, the more connected we will be to one another. My prayer today for all of us is the same prayer I offered to our neophyte Catholics on the last day of RCIA: “Go forth and bear fruit.”