Lectionary for April 28, 2024
Fifth Sunday of Easter
Acts 8:26-40; Psalm 22:25-31;
1 John 4:7-21; John 15:1-8
Do you ever have those moments when you, after years of studying a subject, discover something that you should have known a long time ago? As an example, I’ve finally learned that it’s much easier to clean our vacuum if I take both ends off the filter and blow compressed air through it rather than remove one end and pull the garbage out with my hand. Well, recently I stumbled across a pun in the Greek of John 15 that I should have seen long before now, and it is changing my reading of all the lectionary passages.
Where does that “clean” language come from in John 15:3? “You are already clean ….” What? I thought we were talking about grapes! Jesus talks about himself as the true vine and God as the vintner. All the branches that grow from the true vine that don’t bear fruit are removed and thrown away (yikes!). But all the branches that do bear fruit, God “prunes.” Except, the word there, kathairei, probably means something more like “cleans.” Which explains Jesus’ next sentence: “You are already clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.” Jesus made a pun, and I only now see it.
Somehow Jesus’ word cleans—in a way that is like pruning. It’s not so much about adding soap or shampoo to remove dirt and grime but removing that which stifles growth and wastes energy. Jesus is saying that you have been cleaned/pruned by his word in a way that ensures the growth of much fruit. But what does that mean?
The one who hates their neighbor will be gathered with the unproductive branches, because that one has not been pruned/cleaned, and is, 1 John tells us, lying about loving God.
When I was younger and participating in other Christian denominations, I just assumed that bearing much fruit was necessarily, directly and only about making converts. I’m not sure that’s the whole of the truth anymore. Instead, I think “bearing fruit” means waging love on behalf of the kingdom of heaven. I want to be like Jesus, lavishing love in exactly the form that it is needed to all the folks I encounter. Sometimes Jesus loved by including, centering and healing. Sometimes he loved by rebuking, challenging and bewildering. But everything that Jesus did was motivated by love for the humans around him.
1 John foregrounds the loving way of Jesus to exclaim: “Since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another (4:11). Furthermore, the passage states that it isn’t possible to love God and hate a human. “Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate a [sibling] are liars, for those who do not love a [sibling], whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen” (20). We simply cannot love God or bear fruit for God if we hate our neighbor. It’s impossible. The one who hates their neighbor will be gathered with the unproductive branches, because that one has not been pruned/cleaned, and is, 1 John tells us, lying about loving God.
As a timely example, Philip in Acts 8 was waging some intense neighbor-love. He first journeyed to the Samaritans, who were reviled and distrusted by Second Temple Jews. Philip preached Christ to them, and soon the Spirit rained on the Samaritans. Then, in one of my favorite passages (I usually focus on it this week, but I’m trying something new), Philip joined an Ethiopian eunuch in a Bible study on Isaiah, and the rest of Scripture, to point to Jesus. The Ethiopian eunuch rejoiced and was baptized. But then, I always skip what comes next. The Spirit took Philip to “Azotus.”
We need to have our hearts cleaned/pruned by God’s word in Jesus to love our neighbors—all our neighbors—with all our hearts.
Azotus was the name that Alexander of Macedon bestowed on the already ancient city of Ashdod when he conquered it. The city was founded by Canaanites, and like much of the coastal area of the Levant, captured by sea-peoples. Eventually Ashdod became one of the five capital cities of the Philistines and a capital of Dagon worship (see 1 Samuel 5-6). Eventually Uzziah captured Ashdod for Judah before it fell to the Assyrians, Babylonians and Greeks (the Persians rebuilt it after the Babylonian destruction). Then the Maccabees conquered the Ashdod, and it was ruled by the Hasmoneans until Rome seized it.
During these centuries of conflict, Jews who had anything to do with the idolatrous people of Ashdod, specifically, were censured (Nehemiah 13:23-24). The prophets looked forward to the destruction of these cities as a symbol of God’s victory over the Philistines (Amos 1:8; Zephaniah 2:4; Zechariah 9:6). In short, Ashdod represented centuries of warfare, conflict, idolatry and threats to Jewish identity.
And that is exactly where the Spirit sent Philip. In Acts 8, Philip’s heart had been cleaned, and he was prepared to bear much fruit. He went to enemies, foreigners and strangers alike to tell them the good news of God’s love. Just as the Spirit sent Philip first to go to Gaza and then to Ashdod, so the Spirit sent emissaries committed to waging Jesus’ love to break down dividing walls of hostilities (Ephesians 2:14). We need to have our hearts cleaned/pruned by God’s word in Jesus to love our neighbors—all our neighbors—with all our hearts. That is the only way to bear fruit for the kingdom.
