One Vine

May 9, 2012

Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Easter

By Colleen O'Sullivan

Some who had come down from Judea were instructing the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the Mosaic practice, you cannot be saved.”  Because there arose no little dissension and debate by Paul and Barnabas with them, it was decided that Paul, Barnabas, and some of the others should go up to Jerusalem to the Apostles and presbyters about this question… The Apostles and the presbyters met together to see about this matter.  (Acts 15:1-2, 6)

“I am the vine, you are the branches.  Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.”  (John 15:5)

Piety

O Lord, may I always be rooted and sustained in you. 

Study

The words that immediately struck me in today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles, were “the Apostles and the presbyters met together to see about this matter.”  How refreshing the notion of people actually sitting down together to resolve a conflict.  Everywhere I turn today, I see dissension and division.  Whether it involves families, politics or the church, my ears sometimes ring with the harsh rhetoric so thoughtlessly flung about.

For the church in its earliest days, the issue was circumcision.  Should tradition win the day?  Should circumcision be required of all males, whether of Jewish descent or not?  Or, with greater numbers of Gentiles being converted every day, should the church take into account the fact that circumcision was not part of these Gentiles’ heritage? 

Today in the church we are divided on many issues – old vs. new language in the liturgy; contemporary music, chant or traditional hymns on Sunday morning; Mass in Latin vs. Mass in the vernacular, just to name a few.  The list goes on and on.  And often nowadays, the conversations take strident or ugly turns.

It’s almost as though we’d like to rewrite the Gospel and have a vine for every taste and preference.  But when we read today’s Gospel, we don’t find any pro-Latin vine vs. Mass-in-the-vernacular vine.  There’s no vine for any particular style of music.  There is only one Vine, Christ, to whom we are all attached. If we abide in Christ, and Christ abides in us, whatever our ministry, we will be fruitful in our endeavors in the Lord’s name.  The Vine is the Source of life.  Without the life-giving sustenance running from the Vine to the branches, we are nothing and can do nothing. 

Perhaps we might speak to each other with greater charity if we keep before us the vision of what unites us.  We’re all branches utterly dependent on the same Vine for our being. 

Action

In what are you rooted?  Your personal preferences and passions or the True Vine, the source of all life?