Fifth Sunday of Easter

“Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit”

Eight times in today’s Gospel Jesus admonishes his disciples to “remain” in him. The Greek verb suggests making a permanent home, not a camp. Ironic, if you consider Jesus is preparing for his Ascension, but perhaps not. Each of us “remains” with Christ through the presence of the Holy Spirit.

It is rather an unusual way to think about our relationship with God—Father, Son, Holy Spirit...that we are asked to stay rather than asking God to remain; our perception is often that God might leave given enough cause, but this is not the case.

The dwelling of the Spirit is a permanent fixture from our baptism. We can thwart the influence of the Spirit through sin, but the Spirit never departs and is infinitely patient.

We are given the image of Jesus as the vine and ourselves as the Church, the branches that are prepared to bear fruit. But, like the fruit, it is only viable in its attachment to the branch, and the branch’s attachment to the vine. So too, we must remain attached to Christ through the Spirit and dwell with God in order for our lives to realize the potential with which we have been gifted at baptism. We are a people of varied fruits of the Spirit in service of Christ’s mission. As St. Paul reminds us in Ephesians Chapter 4,

 “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; ⁵ one Lord, one faith, one baptism; ⁶ one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”

Paul uses the body and its parts to suggest the need for unity, Just as Jesus’ metaphor of the vine and branches suggest a crucial interdependence. And that is what the Church is—a community of faith animated collectively by its members remaining (and often struggling to remain) in Christ through the Holy Spirit.

In 1 John, we are reminded that our obedience to Christ comes in the form of following the two cardinal commandments of Jesus: that “we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he commanded us.”  Believing “in” the name is Jesus is “remaining”, being sensitive to the workings of the Holy Spirit as our condition for bearing fruit. Being part of the Church as the body of Christ, we need to remember that our fruit is not the product of our own efforts but the will of God. Our “fruitiness” is the outgrowth of our relationship with Christ both in and through the community of the Church. There are no ears walking down the street or grapes growing apart from the branch.