THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH OF CANTON
Sermon: “Three In One”
Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor
Sunday, May 2, 2021 ~ Fifth Sunday of Easter
© 2021, Dr. Tamilio
I
I looked at the Lectionary readings for this week and realized I could write three different sermons — and really wanted to. Then it dawned on me: why not? So here we go: three passages, three mini-sermons, but they all fit together in a strange way.
II
First: the passage from Acts 8:26-40. Several years ago, long before I was your pastor and was still part of the United Church of Christ, I attended a conference in Cleveland — at the National Offices of the UCC. One of the speakers, Ron Bufford, the man who became the brains behind the God is Still Speaking campaign, talked about evangelism, and he referred to the passage from Acts that I just read. He used the passage to challenge the way we usually acclimate new members to the church.
Philip is on the wilderness road, “the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” He encounters “an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of…Candace, queen of the Ethiopians.” The Ethiopian is travelling in a chariot reading the prophet Isaiah. Philip is told by the Holy Spirit to approach the chariot. He asks the Ethiopian if he understands what he is reading. The eunuch says that he needs a guide — someone to help him understand the passage. Philip unpacks the passage, explaining how it is about Jesus. As they are traveling, they come upon some water and the Ethiopian asks to be baptized. Philip complies and baptizes him.
Ron Bufford cited this passage as a way that we should (or at least could) look at welcoming new members into our churches. Often times, churches have new member classes. Some make prospective members attend three or more classes before they can join. Bufford asked why. Do we think that people will be more committed to joining a church if they attend a few informational sessions? Why not grab them (for lack of a better phrase) when they are more than willing to join?
What Ron said stuck with me. It is a challenge to the way we usually think about and “do” church. For example, in most churches if you recommend that new members be asked to serve on a committee, you will most likely be met with the following reply: “No. They are too new. We don’t want to scare them off.” Ironically, the fresh excitement that new members have is exactly what church boards and committees need.
Now, you may be listening to this and saying to yourself, “This isn’t us. This isn’t what happens at the Congregational Church of Canton.” Maybe. Maybe not. My point is not to critique the way we currently evangelize. Rather, it is a challenge to look at evangelism differently. Brennan Manning, the author of The Ragamuffin Gospel writes, “A ragamuffin knows he’s only a beggar at the door of God’s mercy.” That is all of us. New members. Longtime members. The lot of us.
III
The second passage: the Epistle Lesson from 1 John 4:7-21. Then New Testament is really divided into three parts. First, there are the four Gospels and the Book of Acts, which is really the second part of Luke’s story. The third part of the Book of Revelation. The second, is the Letters — some written by Paul, some attributed to others such as Peter and Jude, and others (like Hebrews) of unknown origin. Then we have the three Letters of John.
When we talk about John’s Letters in church, we often quote from the passage we read today: “God is love.” These three words are so pertinent to our faith. So many Christians will cite John 3:16 as the crux of Christianity, and it is an important passage. But even before our theology delves into specific aspects of our faith — who was Jesus, what is the function of the Church, how many sacraments should we celebrate — before we get into any of that, we need to start with God. Just God. The God of Creation. The God of the cosmos. The God of all that lives, and breathes, and moves, or is inert. The God who spoke and everything came into being. Who and what is that God? How is that God known? In his First Epistle, John gives us what might be the best answer imaginable: God is love.
I love the musical Les Misérables. Based on the novel by Victor Hugo, the musical is a piece of historical fiction: a love story that takes place amidst the French Revolution. The main character is Jean Valjean: a man running from his tortured past, trying to follow the faith he found a few decades prior. Valjean is a good man who, in some ways, is misunderstood, especially by his nemesis Javert. In the end (don’t worry — I’m not giving anything away), in the end, as Valjean dies, we hear these words before the closing fanfare:
Take my hand
And lead me to salvation
Take my love
For love is everlasting
And remember
The truth that once was spoken:
To love another person is to see the face of God
It may sound anecdotal. It may even sound too simple. But there it is. When we love others, we are in the midst of God, for that is what God is: love.
I truly believe this. God is found in many places. In church. In nature. In the smile of a newborn baby. Most especially, God is found whenever we love, because that is what God created us for. We were created out of love to love.
IV
Lastly, there is the passage from the Gospel of John 15:1-8. Jesus tells us that he is the vine and we are the branches. If we abide in him, we will “bear much fruit and become [his] disciples.” Maybe this is where having a solid background in gardening will assist biblical interpretation. Diane Bellissimo and Helen McHowell must love this passage. Carl Lindquist must, too, especially after all the work he and his crew did around here yesterday.
A branch is not some piece of independent growth. It does not appear out of the ether. It is what it is because it is connected to something else, something bigger, something that defines it. The branches can only be as healthy as the tree to which they are connected. Jesus uses the term “vine” here. Same difference. Branches remain strong and healthy as long as they remain connected to a healthy vine. Jesus is that vine.
As long as we remain connected to Christ — rooted in his Gospel — we will remain spiritually sound. It is not about hopping onto the latest fad and getting your identity from that. It is not about conforming to the latest self-help book. We remain who we are by aligning our lives with the life of Christ. We remain on course if we calibrate our compasses with the Gospel. As long as we abide in Jesus, we will be spiritually sound. As one source claims, “just like a vine bears fruit, Jesus will help us to grow and bring good into the world.”[1]
V
So, there we go. Three passages that seem utterly unrelated. Acts talks about the need for spontaneous evangelism: the radical welcome of the seeker who wants to join the fold. The First Epistle of John reminds us that God is love. And then we have the Gospel telling us that we will remain spiritually healthy as long as we remain rooted in Christ.
How does all of this fit together? The people who come to us with so much excitement that they want to jump right into the baptismal waters see something that we don’t. Faith is something fresh and exciting to them. It isn’t a routine: the same old, same old thing we do each week. It is alive: as alive as a sturdy branch rooted in the giver of all life. That giver is none other than God, who is the very definition of love.
Maybe these passages work together to tell us as much about ourselves as they do about God. Maybe they are nurturing a newborn faith in us that will continue to grow and flourish as long as we keep in the front of our minds that God is indeed love, and we will embody and grow in that love as long as we are connected to Christ and his community.
There are many ways to connect the dots here. Whichever way you do, you will end up at the same place: in the arms of a God who loves us so much that we remain forever wrapped in his love as long as we hold on. Keep holding on. Amen.
[1] Taken from Happy Hearts Bible Study (online).
Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor & Professor 