Staying Connected

For starters this morning, who can tell me the name of the system which converts sound, usually the human voice, to electrical impulses of various frequencies and then back to tones that sound much like the original voice? Yes. It’s the telephone. In 1831, Englishman Michael Faraday proved that vibrations of metal could be converted to electrical impulses. This was the technological basis of the telephone, but no one actually used this system to transmit sound for several more decades. The first practical telephone was actually invented by two men in the United States who had been working independently of each other. One was Elisha Gray and the other Alexander Graham Bell. Incredibly, both men filed for a patent on their designs at the New York patent office on the same day, February 14, 1876, with Bell beating Gray by only two hours!

According to the famous story, the first fully intelligible telephone call occurred on March 6, 1876, when Bell, in one room, called to his assistant in another room. "Come here, Watson, I want you." Watson heard the request through a receiver connected to the transmitter that Bell had designed, and what followed after that was a history of the founding of the Bell Telephone Company (later AT&T), which grew to be the largest telephone company in the world.

Some of us here this morning can remember using those old phones with the rotary dial or, perhaps, some even remember using the old hand crank phones, those large wooden contraptions that hung on the wall. Now we have cell phones which fit easily in a purse or shirt pocket. We can take them with us wherever we go. We use them for email, messenger, photos, games, and yes, even phones that we talk on. On your way home, or at the store, or on the lake, or almost anyplace you can imagine, you will likely encounter someone using a cell phone. It’s interesting to notice how many people are talking on those things, all because we feel this great need to stay connected. Being connected is important. It’s important in life itself, in all kinds of ways.

Next Sunday is Mothers’ Day. It is a day about connections. During those months before you and I were born, there was that cord, that umbilical cord which connected you to your mother. You don’t remember that, but it was a matter of great importance for you. Your very life depended on that connection. Through it you received the nourishment and all that was needed for you to thrive. On the day of your birth that cord was severed, but you were still connected to your mother, your father, to the person or persons who cared for you, provided what was needed; not only food for the body, but love, and protection, and guidance and so much more.

Today and next week we remember and celebrate our human connections. We thank God for our Mothers and for all they have been for us. Especially today we can be thankful for mothers who were concerned about our most important connection of all; our connection to our Lord and Maker, our Savior.

We are thankful for Christian Mothers and Fathers who brought us to the Baptismal font to be connected to the Lord, to be made members of God’s family. We are thankful for Christian parents, grandparents, and others who were concerned about maintaining that connection as they told us the stories of Jesus and his love, as they taught and demonstrated what it meant to be children of the Lord. Teaching us not only in church, but at all times.

Jesus used the analogy of branches on a vine. Branches have to stay connected to their source of life, or they will die. Jesus used this basic fact to make a point for us.

As followers of Jesus, we have to stay connected to our source of strength and power, or we wither away spiritually. We are to “abide in Christ,” to stay connected to God and to the community of faith. Our very lives depend on being connected to the true vine, Jesus. Jesus is the vine and we are the branches, and we bear fruit as we abide in him.

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When I was younger I remember being almost frustrated with this text. In verse 4 we hear Jesus say, “No branch can bear fruit apart from me.” And I remember wrestling with that text because I wanted to be able to produce fruit with my own talents and skills. Did I really rely on some Holy Spirit umbilical cord in order to produce something good? Weren’t there are all sorts of things that I did that were amazing unto themselves?

As I’ve gotten a bit older, and had a whole lot more mistakes, I now see this news about fruit made through connection with the body of Christ to be good news… relief even. You see it’s not that I must be perfect or that it is through my efforts and my efforts alone that the world will suddenly change for the better. It is not up to me to try to fix everything.

Instead, Jesus tells us that we are branches of the vine. We receive nutrients from the Spirit. And as we receive those nutrients we bear fruit. And the curious thing is that it’s not a conscious decision for a branch to bear fruit. Rather, if the branch has a good connection to the vine, it almost cannot help but produce fruit so long as that branch is alive. Those extra nutrients drawn up from the root have no where to go but out into the fruit.

And eventually the fruit falls from the branch, dropping to the earth or taken by some hungry thing… and with that fruit is the possibility of new life elsewhere. With that fruit is the possibility of a new root, spread in another place… a new root created that I will perhaps never know about. And that fruit that bears new life… all I did to help create that fruit was to stay connected to Christ. To abide in him. To live as a branch connected.

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These last two days we had a digital synod assembly. Some 90 people from across the synod representing our 53 congregations and nearly 7,000 members across Arkansas and Oklahoma gathered on Zoom. And our keynote speaker was Pastor Ruben Duran, the director of the ELCA Congregation Vitality. It’s his job and calling to help not only our 53 congregations but the over 9,000 congregations across the ELCA with all being equipped with the tools to be healthy congregations.. proclaiming the Word, engaging in ministry, and furthering the mission of Christ in the world.

And, interestingly enough, the section of scripture that he often uses to teach congregational vitality is the one we have this morning. John 15:1-8. And he encouraged us to ponder what it is as congregations and as individuals to be connected and to focus on connections.

I wanted to take a moment now to consider how we were connected together prior to me coming here 5 years ago. Before I received my paperwork 5 years ago during my senior year of Seminary to come here, I was already connected to you. I just didn’t realize it… and neither did you. I was a child of our Synod. I grew up, connected to you as a member of the ELCA… but also as a member of our own Arkansas-Oklahoma Synod. Now what does that mean?

My home congregation just celebrated 35 years of ministry. In 1986 it was a brand new congregation. It was a congregation planted here through the effort of other congregations throughout what would become the ELCA as well as our own Synod. Resources that Zion Lutheran sent into the the Synod would have helped spur on the creation of what would become my home congregation. These were resources that perhaps seemed as though they disappeared never to be seen again… fruit falling from the branch and creating life in a new and different place.

As I grew up in the church, I felt a call to become a pastor. And in 2008 I contacted the Synod Office of our own Arkansas-Oklahoma Synod, and entered into candidacy. Resources were spent by the synod to support me in that journey that took nearly 8 years from the time I entered until I graduated from seminary. I experienced support through scholarships from our Synod. I experienced support through both lay and clergy from our Synod. I experienced a constant receiving of support… almost like that umbilical cord, as the Synod worked to grow me into a potential pastor in the church.

We didn’t know about each other then, at least not personally. I’m sure I had seen Zion Lutheran on some paperwork at some point. But as I was considering these last few days about connections… I realized anew the connection that I have had with Zion where a portion of the dollars get placed into offering plates and sent into the Synod… and realizing that offerings made here through years of giving of fruit helped form me… they helped allow me to be more fully equipped into the calling that God had given me to serve.

And so the beautiful irony is the fruit which this congregation let go from the branch and rolled to the Synod… part of that helped form a leader that would later return to this same congregation. The love which had been offered, the roots which had been inspired and planted, would be returned and offered anew.

Now whether that was a good choice or not… eh. But we have deeper connections to one another through the vine of Christ than what we realize. We bear fruit in ways that we didn’t even know.

We are connected. We are cared for through those connections. We are fed through those connections with one another through the Word of God. And we are -many- branches. Occasionally we can see the tangles where we overlap with one another, but not always. Occasionally we can see the possibility for new life… we can see where our fallen fruit creates new roots… but not always.

We can trust, however, that God does indeed create in and through us. We need only remain connected as we work to lead faithful lives in the light of God’s grace to the world.

One other piece that Pastor Duran lifted up was an encouragement that we look for connections. He said in his conversations with congregations, he encourages them to shift from the question, “How much is in our wallet?” and instead move to “Who is on your corner?” In other words, who are the people or the groups in our community that we might work to be intentionally connected with. How might we seek out to be connected with them, that we might help them be connected to the life-giving vine of God’s work.

So today, I leave you with the encouragement to think about the connections that you have with Christ. To ponder on how you have seen the interweaving of the Life of Christ in your own life. To consider how the nutrients of the Word have been poured into you… and to wonder where Christ has created fruit through you.

And I will challenge you to think of where you as an individual and we as a congregation might be called to make connection around us. Where our branches might extend to, that we might bring the fruit of Christ’s promise of extraordinary grace to those around us.

May we stay connected to the vine so that the love, the goodness, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ can flow into us from the waters of our baptism to the promise of new life… that God’s good fruit might be born through us to the world. May you and I stay connected to the vine that we may be healthy, growing, and bearing good fruit. Amen.