Homily for 5 Easter B

My sisters & brothers, our Christian mission is to produce good thing for the Kingdom of God. In our reading from the book of Acts, we heard the story of Phillip and the Ethiopian; it is the beginning of his missionary journey. Though we have little documentary evidence other than this story, we do know that Christianity was established in Ethiopia very early. Our reading is in the part of Acts where Luke (the author) tells of the spread of the Good News to non Jewish people in the Middle East. Prior to this story, he tells us about carrying the gospel to Samaria. Jews rejected Samaritans because they had a different principal place of worship and scriptural tradition. Now we hear of the conversion of another outcast, a eunuch. According to the laws in Deuteronomy, a eunuch could not be admitted to the assembly of the LORD.  For people of the 1st century Ethiopia represented the extreme limits of the known world. Our second reading from the first letter of John, gives us a lesson in humility. We are not the prime movers in our relationship with God. It doesn’t start with us seeking out God. Rather it begins with God loving us and revealing His love by sending his Son into the world (and into our individual lives). We then can respond to this outpouring, so that we might have life through Christ. John then reiterates his view of the primary commandment, if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is perfected in us. To claim to love God wile hating one's brothers or sisters, is hypocrisy. If one dose not love the brother or sister they have seen, they cannot love God, whom they have not seen. In our Gospel story today, we hear a poetic reminder that we must be productive followers. The individual Christians who are ineffective risk being cut off, were as those who are productive will be aided by God's power. The vine and branches symbol of our relationship with Jesus the Christ has many important nuances. We all know that the branches are an extension of the root stock or trunk of a vine or tree. The function of the root stock is to draw water and nutrients from the soil and distribute it to feed the entire plant. Each branch uses the nutrients to produce flowers, fruit and finally the seeds. As a symbol, this talks about Jesus as having the role of giver of nourishment and his followers the role of production. We are then responsible to carry out the work of growing and producing the good things of God's Kingdom. In our century it means that we first draw spiritual strength from God. There are many way to do this: study the Word, share in the sacraments, pray privately, etc. We then use the spiritual strength we gain to extend the church's positive influence in the world. This also has several dimensions. The many things we can do to invite new people into our church: advertising, personal invitations, etc. It also involves the things we can do to extend the hand of compassion to those experiencing hardships: giving to charitable drives like St. Andrew's children's clinic, and the chaplain's foot locker - and most especially, giving of our time and skills. In this dynamic way, we keep our selves alive as productive branches of Christ our vine!