Homily Notes Fifth Sunday of Easter 2018

          Are you connected?  When we hear that question in modern times our minds turn to one thing, our internet devises.  We call it social media, but do we feel part of the world when we are on line?  Or, do we feel separated from the world? 

            You would think that we would be more engaged with the world on the internet but is that the way it is? We have all heard that there is big controversy concerning Facebook right now.  The scandal is about the company allowing information to be mined from its customers, but there is an even bigger concern revolving around engineers and scientists who work for tech companies.  The purpose of their work is to get people hooked on the internet.  We click on one piece of information which leads to a follow-up designated specifically for us which leads to the next story, which leads to the next picture that leads to an advertisement that relates to it all.  The progression does not happen by accident, but it is orchestrated by very smart people who know how the human brain works.

            We might think that all this is harmless, but more and more the bad affects are being revealed.  One small study, among many, was of 135 San Francisco State University students.  The students that had the highest rate of cell phone usage were the most depressed. We are addicted to the chimes, the pings, the rings.  We grow anxious, when we don’t have our phones.  What have we missed in the last five minutes?  Behavioral scientists are convinced that the desire to keep looking at phone is like any other addiction.  We become best friends with our phone rather than with living breathing human beings. 

            Human beings are social animals.  We need to look at other peoples faces.  We crave to touch each other.  We want to laugh as we converse with each other.  People need to share stories.  We also need to pray with one another.  Body language tells us so much in our conversations.   Yes, human beings are social.  And Christianity is meant to be a social religion.

            Jesus tells us that by his metaphor in the Gospel.  What is the image of the vine and the branches all about?   We had a grape vine in my back yard when I was a child.  The woody part of the vine was there all year long.  The grape vine lived for many years.  Every year there would be green branches that would grow out of the woody plant.  Some of them would have small grapes on them.  Others would have no fruit at all.  The fruitless greenery would shade the plant drawing nutrients away from the fruit bearing greenery.  My father would trim away the fruitless greens. All this would make the other branches stronger, the fruit bigger.  If the grape vine was not pruned the result would be a tangled mess with no grapes. 

            Jesus tells us that he is the vine.  But is his point that we must remain connected to him alone?  Probably not.  Jesus tells us to love God as well as our neighbor.  Jesus is not just talking about personal prayer here.  No, he is pointing to the fact that we need to be plugged into the Christian community. 

            A man said to me in the recent past that he is a Christian, but he was not tied to any particular church.  He said, “I have my Bible on my bed stand.  I read it often.”  But I do not speak to others of my faith.  He felt he was doing all he had to do. He believed he was connected to Jesus.  But to me he was like that person who is staring at their cell phone as they walk down the street. Or perhaps, he is like the family that sits at dinner in the restaurant, each person looking at their own screen admiring what is designed just for them. 

            A personal relationship with Jesus means not only that we talk to him, but that we talk to the Jesus who is next to us, the flesh and blood Jesus.  If we do not see the importance of this it is not only psychologically damaging, but it is spiritually damaging.  We read stories of the early Christian community in the Acts of the Apostles during these Easter days.  Name after name is mentioned.  To us, the people who are talked about are strangers, but for those who first read these passages the names refer to people they knew well. From the start Christianity was made up of interconnected brothers and sisters.  We are happiest when we are tied to other believers.  We can only bear fruit if we feel love and are loved. Jesus is, after all, the vine, but we are the branches that must bear fruit, the fruit of affectionate relationships with our brothers and sisters in Christ.