“Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.” (John 15:4)
        
Jesus uses the image of the vine and branches in our gospel to describe an inextricable bond. Without the vine, the branches have no source of life. They wither and die. The operative word here is “abide” and it means “to be rooted in,” or “to live off of.” As branches living off the vine, we’re called to bear fruit by living off Christ. The job of a branch is to produce fruit. So, when we look at a grape vine, we expect to see grapes. Likewise, when we look at a Christian, we should expect to see a disciple of Jesus. That’s clear.
 
Jesus offers himself as the true source of all life. But many people have a problem believing Jesus is really the true source of life. We modern folk like to see ourselves as not being dependent on anyone other than ourselves. We’re often a skeptical, cynical people and we’d rather not trust anyone. But we do trust what we worship, often with great passion. We’re a nation of very religious people who prefer our divinity safely packaged in our own constructed containers. We prefer our lives safely packaged as well.
The objects of our worship include: our bodies, our minds, sex, knowledge, academia, progress, free enterprise & consumerism. You name it and Americans can make an idol of religious devotion out of it. And we like our idolatries baptized so we don’t feel guilty about worshiping at the foot of their altars.
 
I’m not suggesting there’s anything inherently evil about our bodies, our minds, or ideas like progress or free enterprise. But what I’m suggesting is that those things can usurp God’s place. Does anyone doubt Americans have come to see free enterprise as sacrosanct, like it was given by God as part of the 10 commandments? Just try at a dinner party to question the sanctity of a free market economy. You’ll be labeled a heretic and derided for your lack of following the one, true faith.
 
The same is true for the idea of progress. We hear people talk about all the sacrifices we must make for almighty progress. Remember, sacrifice is a religious word. It comes from the same root as the word sacred. To sacrifice something means to make it holy. So we’re called to make sacrifices for progress’ sake without asking why it’s needed. If you ask that question, most people will respond, “we all need progress.”
 
I read a survey reported recently. It showed how people spend their leisure time each week. The surveyors calculated the amount of leisure time people had and then surveyed them to find out how they used that time. Sunday was calculated to have over eight hours of leisure time. For the people surveyed, only 14 minutes of the eight hours was spent in religious activities.
 
Now, there are at least two ways of interpreting this. One way is to assume that everyone surveyed was a person of religious faith. If we assume that then their worship life lasted only 14 minutes. If that’s the case, I need to cut this sermon way short.
 
The other way of interpreting this is to assume that the vast majority of people surveyed have no worship life. The minority causes the average to come out to 14 minutes for every person. That’s probably the best way to interpret this. So, how can Americans be so religious and yet devote an average of 14 minutes to worship each week?
 
Some Christians may answer that question by concluding that many people have cut themselves off from the true source of life – Jesus – and are withering and dying. But when I look around at how folks outside our faith are living, many don’t look like they’re withering and dying to me. Even though the Bible tells us the “wages of sin is death,” when I look around, I’d say: the “wages of sin don’t seem all that bad!”
 
So, I think it’s wrong to conclude that those folks who turn away from the true vine may look happy outside, but inside they’re miserable. There’s nothing we like to hear more than news about some person who is famous, but then who has to check into a rehab clinic because of substance abuse due to their miserable insides. We love to hear those stories, because we can say: “I knew it, they were miserable all along.” But truthfully, there are many happy idolaters in America who never end up at a rehab clinic. They never go on cable TV to tell us how miserable their life has been.
 
My friends, this is the evangelism challenge for us and I think that we’re defining it the wrong way. The question isn’t whether you or I or anybody else is happy or fulfilled. That defines the problem from our individual perspective. It’s God’s perspective, not ours, that’s important. Jesus tells us that if we’re not attached to him; if we’re not living off him totally by his grace; if we’re not rooted in the True Vine, then we’ve cut ourselves off from God. That’s God’s perspective on our lives. So, whether we’re a miserable or happy idolater isn’t the question. Likewise, whether we’re miserable or happy in following Jesus is also not the question. I know all kinds of people who are miserable. And I know just as many who are happy. Some of those folks are rooted in Jesus and some those are not.
           
We need to stop seeing evangelism as defining faith in Jesus as a choice between being miserable and being happy. It’s simply not true to say: “If you choose Jesus, you’ll always be happy and if you don’t, you’ll always be miserable.” When we evangelize others, and we say stuff like that, they know we’re lying to them. They know having faith in Jesus isn’t some sort of transaction based on their doing a cost/benefit analysis.
 
But what if we shared our faith with others differently? What if we told them that we root ourselves; that we abide in Jesus, not for the earthly or even heavenly dividend it pays? What if we said we live off of the True Vine Jesus, not because it always makes us happy, but because it’s the only way God has given us to share in the purposes of God for creation.
 
The Danish Theologian Søren Kierkegaard wrote these words: “The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be changed.”
 
Kierkegaard continues: “Herein lies the real place of Christianity. Christianity is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close.”
 
Now I’m all for happiness. I’m a happy dude most of the time and I’m grateful for my life. But happiness is not why any of us should seek to root ourselves in Jesus. We seek to root ourselves in Jesus because Jesus tells us that’s what God wants us to do.
 
And that’s what God wants for the world. God wants the world to be rooted in Jesus; to live off him; to find its life from the True Vine who died for the sins of the world and rose again so every human being could share in God’s grace.
 
That’s what our evangelism needs to be about. It’s simply inviting people to be obedient to God’s desire for them and for the whole creation. It’s a straight-forward trust in what God has done for the world in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. It’s following Jesus by remembering that he died for our sins and then by living thankful lives for what he has done.
 
That’s the truth we’ve been given to tell. And tell it we must!