Abiding…4 - Abiding in vineyard country

As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, but only as it abides in the vine, no more can you, except you abide in me.  I am the vine, you are the branches.  Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit…  Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away… and withers…  [John 15:4-6]

Well, we live in wine country.  In the Mahurangi district vines are tended, grapes are harvested, wine is made… samples of which are solemnly tasted by the high priests of wine and writers of purple prose… and some of it, I believe, appears as exotic boutique wine sold for eye-watering prices in Stockholm or San Francisco.  I don’t know how Mahurangi compares with Martinborough, Marlborough or Otago.  I do know that much of the ancient world depended on wine -- it was about all that was safe to drink.  The cultivation of vines was a high art from ancient times, and everyone knew about the flow of life between the soil, the sunlight, the vine, the branches and the fruit.  That  vital flow is what Jesus sees in abiding.  He says, if the branch abides in the vine, it is nourished and it bears fruit.  The branch will not bear fruit apart from the vine – if the branch is detached, alienated, or tries to go it alone, it withers of course, and as Jesus vividly describes, these branches are simply thrown away.

Now we might ask:  What then is the fruit, since it matters so much?  I am helped in this question by Sarah Bachelard’s four talks to the NZCCM annual retreat in Hamilton, and especially the third talk.  She bravely suggests that all our anxiety, activism and agitation for justice and change may not be what Jesus builds in us as we abide in him and he in us.  She says: 

Perhaps a willingness to stop for a while, to risk being fully present both to the depths of the world’s need and our experience of impotence in the face of it.  Perhaps a willingness to undergo the distress of that, rather than rushing ever more agitatedly with more supposed solutions and joint statements.  I reflected that, just as in pastoral care, we can so easily bustle in, primarily concerned to lessen our own anxiety and discomfort, so in social action we can end up embroiled in the same dynamic.

This, she says, is to insist that the clarity and energy we need for doing justice requires us (first) to make space for the truth, for God’s reality to come through.  Otherwise our search for justice or for peace becomes another exercise of human will, undermined by human self-deception.

So… our abiding place is needed because it is what Sarah Bachelard calls space for the truth.  In the silence and stillness, and as I have set aside self-concern as best I can, there is then space for discernment, for perceiving reality, painful often, as we know – and she adds -- accepting my own impotence to do anything much.  We start then, humbly and quietly, to share what Jesus shares, know what Jesus sees, pray what Jesus prays.  I think there is much more to be said about this, and so we will pick it up again in a week. 

Abiding…3 – Abiding in situ, and in love

Abide in my love.  [John 15:9]

Let’s go back to the Greek word for a moment – menein (μενειν), means to stay, to remain.  In fact the English word “remain” is related to the Greek word menein.  It is related also to the Latin noun mansus, which means a house, a dwelling – and indeed, some English Bible translators have rendered menein, not as “abide”, but as “dwell”.  Presbyterians may note that menein is also a precursor of the word “manse”, where their parish minister lives, abides, dwells, and dreams of retirement.  So, we see the note of settledness, stability… dwelling, residing, being present and waiting… all included in what our translators chose to call abiding. 

But as you know, we have another strikingly different paradigm of faith, called journeying, pilgrimage, moving on, changing and conversion, developing, growing... this is the “adventure” of faith. The biblical exemplar is Abraham, who, we are told, on hearing God’s call, left his settled life in Ur of the Chaldees, and went out, as the writer to the Hebrews puts it [11:8], not knowing where he was going. 

Perhaps it may be seen as a conundrum.  On the one hand the moving-on theme, the journeying…  Behold, says God to Isaiah, I am doing a new thing; do you not see it?  Jesus tells his disciples, The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head… presumably nowhere permanent.  But now on the other hand, this theme of abiding, as though there does have to be somewhere to arrive.  We need an abiding place.  It is an inner place, a place of belonging and returning, a place of knowing and being known, and it is above all a place of truth.   

There, it seems to me, is the heart of it.   When Jesus inspires us busy, involved people to come and abide in him, and he in us, he is offering us a place where love and truth come together.   “Love” is not the saccharine, sentimentality normally portrayed, which depends entirely on me and how I am feeling -- and “truth” is certainly not the negotiable quality currently in vogue.  Love is setting self aside… and I will not attempt to define truth.  In the stillness of prayer, content to be humble and receptive, we learn to discern it alright, and its counterfeits. 

Those two pictures of faith, one of journeying and the other of abiding, come together, it seems to me, when we understand what Jesus means by love.  Abide in my love, he says.  Shakespeare’s famous sonnet [116] says that love does not alter when it alteration finds…  But love as we encounter love in Jesus certainly alters, it is much more dynamic.  It suffers and may be wounded.  It does change – it deepens, becomes wiser, retreats and comes back again, it ventures, it risks, it learns forgiveness.  Abiding in love may be a rocky ride, but it is unlikely to be boring.   The place of abiding is at once a place of stillness where anxiety retreats, love and trust prevail – and at the same time it is a place of change, of setting burdens down, letting things go, and moving on. 

Abiding…2 – Abiding in love

Last week we opened a file, as it were, on Jesus’ teaching about abiding.  We find this teaching in John’s Gospel.  Not surprisingly, when we turn the pages to what are pretty well the last Christian writings to make it into the canonical scriptures, the First Letter of John, this is what we find:  God is love.  Those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them [I John 4:16]. 

It does seem that by the end of the first century of the Christian era, or not long after, at least one group of churches, perhaps around the Ephesus district in what is now western Turkey, were finding their life and inspiration in what we now call the Fourth Gospel, John’s Gospel, and eventually also the Letters of John and the Book of Revelation.  Teaching about abiding is reflected in these writings, and was a key part of their understanding of their life together in Jesus.

This teaching appeals immensely to me – but the point will always be, not so much to understand with our brains this matter of abiding – thinking and puzzling will never end – but to do it, to abide, and to know how God abides in us.   Jesus says he himself abides in us.  In that way faith is a living faith, inwardly as well as outwardly practised, not something we partly understand and provisionally accept or admire. 

And so the point today is that, each time we elect to come to a stop in our busy round, just for a little while… and each time we choose to be still and silent, alone or with others, when we could always make other choices… each time we consent to set aside our burdens and preoccupations and turn away for now from the control panel… thus, each time we sit apart from lists and agendas and goals… each time we retrieve our mantra and begin again gently and interiorly to recite it, as an alternative to all the distractions… each time we remember and accept our frailty and mortality, as God has made us… that is, each time I take the risk of being vulnerable and exposed, being the person God sees and knows and loves…  each time, this initiates what these Johannine writers mean by abiding – what Jesus in the synoptic gospels calls going into your room and shutting the door.  What does resurrection mean except that, really but ineffably, Jesus is present too…  I do not understand that, but what St Paul calls the eye of the heart sees it and knows it.  Abide in me, and I in you.  The branch cannot bear fruit except it abide in the vine… 

Now it is important to say…  Abiding is abiding in truth, not fantasies, lies or coverups, or excuses, or in something currently getting called post-truth.  It is abiding in reality and the present moment, which as we know is often uncomfortable.  That is the way he abides in us, at the level where we are, and are true.  Fr John Main puts it: 

The truth is so much more exciting, so much more wonderful…  Our way to experience this truth is in the silence of our meditation.  The power that silence has is to allow truth to emerge, to rise to the surface, to become visible.  We know that it is greater than we are, and we find a perhaps unexpected humility… that leads us to real attentive silence.  We let the truth be. 

The discipline of silence and stillness, moreover, plants a seed in us so that we become aware of this abiding, at other times than the times of meditation.  The abiding is forming us, re-forming, a process Benedictines know by the Latin term conversatio, a daily and continuous process of grace and love.  We become ever more open to the changes the Spirit is making in us by our quiet consent.

Abiding…1 – The word abide

Memory goes back some 63 years.  1954…first-year Greek language at Auckland University.  The formidable Dr E M Blaiklock was Professor of Classics -- he was also a prominent Baptist layman, back in the days when that was still notable.  He stood for scholarship in Christian preaching and teaching, and I can assure you he stood for no nonsense and no favours among his students.  Looking back to that other world now, I see how it was exactly that conjunction of classical discipline, and living Christian faith that caught my imagination.

Of course, Dr Blaiklock would never confuse the lecture room for the bible study group.  But one day in his presentation the two did come fleetingly together – and I remember it clearly.  We had encountered, I think in Plato, the Greek verb menein (μενειν).  It means to stay, to remain…  It can mean to wait, or be still.  Dr Blaiklock left his notes for a minute and said, “…if you’re interested, this verb is given a special meaning for Christian believers in the Greek of John’s Gospel… in fact the English translators had to find a special English word for it.” …and sure enough… just one example:

Abide in me, as I abide in you.  Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. [John 15:4] 

That word abide is not a word we use frequently in our normal conversation.  It’s an older, stilted word – and the translators of the earliest English bibles chose it because they realised that here in John it is now having to describe something special, the relationship of love and steadiness between the believer and the risen Jesus.  It is a relationship, said the Greek writers of John’s Gospel, a bond, of menein, abiding - Abide in me, as I abide in you.

Now, at my age and stage I have had all I ever want of false trails, shallow enthusiasms, great revelations, inspiring keynote preachers, spiritual sentimentalism, superstitions and solutions.  For some faith is really very simple – you live as consistently as you can according to the parts of the Sermon on the Mount you remember, which express decency and reasonable generosity.  Indeed, the world would then be a better place.  But Jesus was offering a bond of love which is more than respect and moral imitation, and general decency.  Abide in me, as I abide in you.  This abiding relationship grows and deepens, strengthens and warms the heart, comes to nourish and order our lives, becomes indispensable.

So there are different aspects to consider over the next few weeks.  How do we find this relationship works in practice?  Is it the same for each of us?  How can I think of it, speak of this bond of abiding, simply and without embarrassment?  Moreover, how is it love…? Jesus taught: Abide in me, abide in my love…  We will go down some of those roads.  But for the present perhaps it’s enough to say this…  In Christian Meditation, each time we choose to be still and silent for a time, asking for nothing, content to be present to God in Christ… each time, we are already in the room of abiding.  Abide in me, and I in you.  As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, but only as it abides in the vine, no more can you, unless you abide in me.