We Abide in One Another

God is love and those who abide in Love, abide in God. Amen.

Several years ago, when I was in seminary, I made an amazing discovery: I had become my mother.
I’m sure you’ve had similar experiences of realizing you’ve become your mother, your father, an older sibling etc. I know I have. But in this particular instance I had become my mother.
You see, when I was a teenager my mother was in graduate school. Every Saturday she sat in the living room, on the couch, with the dogs at her feet. Classical music was playing on the Hi Fi (as it was known in those days). Books surrounded her as she read, highlighted, wrote and re-wrote. Periodically one of us would wander in with an “onlymomcananswer” question and she would look up, gazing over the top of her glasses, setting us straight. Back on that day of my: “I have become my mother revelation” I was in an easy chair, classical music playing on the iPod, a dog at my feet, books, paper and the computer surrounding me. A questioning housemate approached, I looked up, gazing over the top of my glasses and it was done: I was my mother.
It’s not just Mom, at times I find myself becoming my father, my sister, my grandmother. I act like them because I learned from them. They’ve guided me.
The Ethiopian Eunuch, in today’s reading from Acts, says to Philip, regarding his understanding of scripture: “How can I, unless someone guides me?” Exactly. We learn by watching others, listening to others, working with others. Our families, friends, mentors---they all GUIDE US. TEACH US. CORRECT US. HELP US.
Because they love us. Because they abide in us and we abide in them.
Abide.
It’s a big word in today’s readings. Abide:
To wait for
To endure without yielding
To bear patiently
Jesus says: Abide in me as I abide in you. In other words bear me patiently as I bear you patiently.
In today’s Epistle,  John says: “Beloved, since God loved us so much we ought to love one another…if we love one another God lives in us and [God’s] love is perfected in us.” (1John 4:11,13)
This is how it works:
By loving Jesus Christ within community, as we do here, we give God’s love a place to take root and grow. God’s love abides in us when we love one another. As new members join our community they learn about God’s love by witnessing our love for one another.
Abiding must have love as its foundation, that’s clear. To abide, to endure, one must have Love.
Back to mothers for a moment. Think how much mothers endure. First childbirth. Then colic. Then teething. Then the terrible two’s. Then those teenage years! Then the leaving home. Then the coming back home and not leaving fast enough…and on and on.
Abiding can be hard.  You mothers here---how often have you bit your tongue? Enduring in silence, offering a shoulder to cry on without saying: “I told you so.” Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, friends all do this enduring, this abiding, because they love us and want us to grow, to flourish, to be fabulous.
So does God.


Abiding takes endurance. God endures a lot with us: We deny, we forget, we ignore God.
But this abiding thing is a two way street. God endures us but we must endure God. C’mon, admit it, there are times when we really wonder what God is doing.  Disaster, famine, war. The death of a child, the tragic loss of love. Where’s God in that?
Theologian Walter Wink addressed this in an article he wrote almost 20 years ago for the Christian Century magazine entitled: “Abiding—Even Under the Knife.”  Using today’s Gospel as his text he takes the reader through years of his evolving interpretation of this story of God as the vine tender, Jesus as the vine, and us as the branches.  Wink chronicles his long history with this story, from the somewhat narcissistic “it’s all about me” interpretation of his youth to a more universal interpretation of his older years. In this latter interpretation Wink confronts the issue of pruning—you know, that part of the text that says if you don’t bear fruit you get pruned. Pruning is, in effect, clipping off dead or dying wood to promote new, vibrant growth. We do it to our plants. Our hair. We prune growing things so the growth will be fuller, richer: more lush. Walter Wink reminds us: we are growing things as well. As Christians we strive to grow more fully into the Body of Christ. For some of us (dare I say, most of us) that growth becomes stunted, stagnant and stale. And then, before we know it—before we know what is happening—here comes God, pruning shears in hand. Objectively (that is when it isn’t me God’s aiming at) we know this is a good thing. It’s good for the prunee. Healthy. You know, like lima beans and castor oil. Who knew that good could feel so bad? Growth experiences are like that. To abide with God requires an occasional pruning….
As Wink says, “How has the intrepid vine-dresser pruned you lately?” Are you grateful for it? If you are it probably happened a while ago. Because when the pruning is fresh we rarely feel gratitude. Fear, anger, bitterness and pain, yes, Gratitude? Not so much. Take a moment to think of those times you’ve been pruned. The times when it hurt a lot and you were scared.  Somehow you held on, somehow you endured. You stayed the course. Because you weren’t alone. You had company. You had parents and grandparents, mentors and guides, supervisors and co-workers, fellow parishioners, priests and deacons---you had guides, you had companions along the way and, above all else you had God, you had Jesus. For, as Jesus said, “as the Father loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love.”
The turnaround time---the pain of pruning evolving into gratitude-- varies. The disciples needed to feel betrayal and bitterness and doubt before they could embrace the miracle of the Resurrection. It took some time. It took patience on the part of God, it takes endurance on the part of us, but if we wait long enough, if we allow ourselves to be guided by those who have gone before, if we settle into and abide in God’s love, we’ll find our path paved with gratitude, our future infused with hope, pruning shears and all.