Eastertide
May 3, 2015

Scripture Reading: John 15:1-8

If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. –John 15:6-8

Billy Donovan is coming to town. It was announced recently that the current coach of the Florida Gators NCAA team had been hired to coach the Oklahoma City NBA basketball team. He was introduced to Oklahoma with words that indicated he was selected because he fit the Thunder cultural ideals: hard worker, drive to win, team oriented, strength of character, concern for the emotional wellbeing of his players as well as the athletics, doesn’t let his ego get in the way of the team.

In a very real sense, we are called to be the players, administrators, marketers, trainers, counselors, doctors, scouters, for Team Jesus. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you… It seems that these traits of the Thunder culture describe a part of our working toward the fruition of the Kingdom of God.

Just as God has gifted the Thunder players with amazing basketball skills, God has gifted each of us with some piece of the talents needed to make God’s way the way of the whole world, but we are responsible for honing our skills and using them to that purpose. It is a full time job that in many cases must be done while we are living our lives with jobs and family responsibilities. No one ever said it would be easy, but in our scripture today Jesus clearly says that when we are working, preferably together, toward the goal of turning the world toward God we are never alone.

It is an audacious promise that our Savior the Lord Jesus Christ will provide anything we ask toward the bearing of much fruit as his disciples, but we are called to be an audacious people fearless and bold.

Let us be today’s Christians. Let us not take fright at the boldness of today’s church. With Christ’s light let us illuminate even the most hideous caverns of the human person: torture, jail, plunder, want, chronic illness. The oppressed must be saved, not with a revolutionary salvation, in mere human fashion, but with the holy revolution of the Son of Man, who dies on the cross to cleanse God’s image, which is soiled in today’s humanity, a humanity so enslaved, so selfish, so sinful.
― Oscar A. Romero, The Violence of Love

Prayer: Lord, make us bold in our discipleship whether it takes the strength to standup to injustice or acts of simple kindness to heal the wounds of the oppressed. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.