The Bible story we are using comes from Mark 2: 13-17. Jesus invites Levi the tax collector to follow him and Levi accepts the invitation. It seems that in response, Levi invites Jesus with his disciples, and all his own friends, to dinner. Even the Pharisees are there. They are puzzled because Jesus is having a meal with tax collectors and sinners. They have to deal with their prejudice too. They think that this company is not appropriate for a rabbi like Jesus.

This all makes me think of Tucker Club on Wednesday night. Jacob does a great job of personally inviting people who have been referred to us by Diamond Valley Community Support. The real success of Tucker Club is in the fact that a community is developing. It is about relationships. People who are somewhat disadvantaged are invited into a community of acceptance and support.

Again, I am reminded of a poet called Stevie Wills who has cerebral palsy. She presented a poem at the Churches of Christ Conference I attended last week. She presented the same poem at the Surrender Conference some of our young people went to a few weeks ago. Her challenge to us was to make our church community, not just physically accessible for disabled people, but relationally accessible as well. Are they invited?

I am reminded of the Leaders Retreat the weekend before last. There we discovered that we are good at inviting people to associate with our church at the contact level through a whole variety of great programs. We are also fairly good at inviting each other to meet together, for fellowship and Christian growth, but we are not so good at inviting people to become what we called, “explorers”; people who are interested in discovering the basics of Christian faith and how it might apply to them. Even when people who are already explorers come to us, we have almost nothing to offer them to satisfy their enquiry.

When Levi held this dinner, he deliberately invited his friends who were, I guess, mostly tax collectors. Certainly the Pharisees would not have been their friends and the general population rejected them as traitors, because they collected taxes for the Romans. The Pharisees’ question was, “How could Jesus associate with such people?” But these were the explorers. These were the people who needed forgiveness, acceptance and spiritual guidance, and Levi knew it. He had seen his solution in Jesus and he wanted to invite all his friends to meet him. Clearly Levi didn’t stop there because we have to assume that the Pharisees were invited too.

So everyone is invited to meet Jesus. Surely, all those of us who have been invited and called by Jesus to follow him, like Levi, will want continue the invitation. Invitation is like a chain. We invite people to come in contact with Jesus through programs of love and service. We need to offer another invitation for people to become explorers and provide opportunities for people to do that. After that we invite people to grow in their faith and hear Jesus invitation to serve in his mission.

I wonder who Jesus is inviting today?

This is a society, if not a world, of many and varied connections. Just one very clear example is that I am writing this by typing it into my computer at home, and will email it within an hour or so to the Getting Connected editors. Should they be at their computers, within moments they could be reading this, and inserting it into this Sunday’s edition of their excellent publication. I could, if I had friends there, simultaneously send this to some-one in Alaska, and in Hong Kong, and in almost any place in the world. All this is possible for me to achieve without ever getting up from my computer chair.

And yet strangely and sadly, it is a society and a world of great disconnects, in which the reality for far too many people is profound loneliness. Even in Greensborough, some do not know the joy of being loved, wanted or needed by any other person at all.

Today’s gospel reading, John 15 : 1 – 8, is a record of Jesus admonishing his followers to Get Connected. Now, I know that the name of this very publication is – Getting Connected! I think that is an inspired choice of name, because it states very succinctly exactly what we, as Church, should always be striving to do.

The obvious point of connection for Christians is to become, in fact to BE connected to the one who said, “I am the Vine…” Indeed, he – Jesus Christ – IS the Vine, the very stem from whom our lives can connect or link directly with God. The obvious imagery here is that of the actual vine that grows in the average vineyard producing rich crops of grapes. The success or otherwise of the vine depends on the branches. What we hear in this very earthy piece of teaching is that branches that are cut off, severed from the vine, can never bear the fruit as they were intended to do.

In the image Jesus paints, his followers, and that includes ourselves, are likened to the branches of this vine. And we are being asked this question: are we connected to the vine, or have we severed those ties, or allowed them to become frayed and tenuous?

There are many ways of being connected to God through Christ. The obvious ones include prayer, reading the Word of God, and participating in worship. Of course, there are other ways that people get connected – or RE-connected to God. Some of these will be explored in the sermon.
Let us say, then, that we have heard this teaching from Jesus, and we are thoroughly linked and connected, grafted into this vine. That would be fabulous! Well, wouldn’t it? Yes, but having a close, intimate even, relationship with God, beautiful as that is, simply cannot be enough. What is the purpose of the vine and the branches? Surely it is to “bear much fruit”?

That means getting connected in many more ways. We must make or maintain connections into the community and the world. Now, we of Living Faith Church know this and we practise this in many ways. All of us could list the connections we have into the community through the various programs of this church.

Even so, the question persists – is all this not yet enough already? How else, then, can we be expected to make links, to become or remain connected to those with whom we share the human condition? Can we hope to connect to everyone on the planet? Obviously not. And yet…
Maybe it is as simple – and as difficult – as being aware at every opportunity that all those with whom we interact are, at least potentially, also part of the same vine. It is clear that Jesus died on the cross and rose to life for them all, even if they do not know this, and even if they cannot (or will not) understand that they are inextricably linked, not just to other humans, but to God though the love and sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Jacob de Ridder

The first picture of waiting, is in the form of a question to Jesus, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” They are still waiting for the earthly Kingdom where Israel returns to be an independent monarchy, and by implication, the powerful positions they will hold in that new government. Even after the resurrection and all they have experienced with Jesus, they are waiting for the wrong dream. According to Luke, Jesus has been with them for forty days teaching them about the Kingdom of God. It is almost unbelievable that they would still ask such a question. Jesus doesn’t put them down for asking it, but tells them gently that it is none of their business. I guess the first lesson we could take, is that we are not waiting on God to fulfil our agenda, but to show us his agenda. God’s agenda for them is, the coming gift of the Holy Spirit and missionary activity throughout their whole known world.

The second picture of waiting, is an image of disciples staring up into heaven. Jesus has just ascended into heaven and there they are, just looking up. It takes the appearance of two angels to get them moving. The implication of what the angels say, seems to be that the disciples feel like their dream is over. They lost hope in the crucifixion, but regained it with the resurrection. Now Jesus has gone again and they are left staring after him. The angels remind them that their hope rests in Jesus return. Now they, with us, are to be the people between those two events and they have a mission to fulfil, in the power of the, already promised, Holy Spirit. So they go down the mountain and back into Jerusalem where all this will begin. I guess our second lesson could be, that we are waiting on God to complete his agenda. God’s agenda for us, is the completion of the Kingdom of God. We then, are called to the mission of presenting that Kingdom, by our words and actions, in the power of the Holy Spirit.

The third picture of waiting, is an image of disciples in prayer. Prayer is the means by which we keep our relationship with God active. Prayer is our way of listening for God’s agenda for our lives, our families, our church, our nation, our world. If God’s agenda is the Kingdom of God, how do those values effect the way we live? Before Living Faith Church began, as the Church of Christ community considered its future, we made listening to God the theme of our whole life. Under the heading, “Here I Am – Lord – I’m Listening”, we prayed and discussed, deliberately looking for God’s agenda for us. And God showed us the way. We were waiting on God by prayer and planning. Prayer is not a passive activity, it is the foundation for every adventure in mission and ministry. We are always in danger of reverting to our own agenda, often about power and position just like the first disciples. By waiting on God in prayer we begin our plans and activities in the right place. This is the third thing we could learn from this passage.

The disciples of Jesus were waiting on God to give them the gift of the Holy Spirit; that is God’s Spirit of power to continue the mission of Jesus for the healing of the world.