Easter 5 Year B (Mother's Day)

Do you know the story “Love You Forever” (by Robert Munch)? It starts with a mother holding a baby – I bet she felt she would never let him go. But of course she had to, as the baby grew into a 2-year-old, grew into a 9-year-old, grew into a teenager, grew up into a man and left home!

And yet wherever he went, the mother always tracked him down late at night when he was asleep, picked him up and rocked him and sang to him “I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always. As long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be.”

But at the end, the story turns around. The mother is old and sick – so she calls her son and he comes to see her. She’s too old and sick to sing the song, so he sings it instead. “I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always. As long as I’m living, my Mommy you’ll be.”

Even more important than that - he goes home and sees his own baby daughter asleep. So he picks her up and rocks her and sings, “I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always. As long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be.” And now his mother doesn’t have to hold on to him any more, and he doesn’t have to hold on to her, because her song has put down roots inside of him. She’s inside his heart, just like he’s always been inside hers.

I think that says something like what Jesus was talking about in today’s gospel: Live in me, I will live in you. The Bible I read uses a different word, it says “ABIDE in me”, but do you know what that means? It means live here, stay here forever. Be with me always, and I’ll always be with you.

First of all we need to know that we live in Jesus. We are inside his heart. We don’t need him to come and hold us, we don’t need to go somewhere where we think we’ll find him. Wherever we go, his song is in our heart: I’ll love you forever. And that helps us to be brave and to go and do amazing things in our lives, whether it’s going off to daycare or school, or leaving home, or saying a last goodbye to someone we love.

But there’s another part to the story that‘s just as amazing. Jesus also lives in us. He is inside our heart. When we’ve done the brave thing and gone off on our own, we’re not really on our own. The love of Jesus is so much a part of us that now it’s our turn to find someone to love and encourage and help them grow. That could mean anything from making a new friend at school, to growing up and becoming a mum or dad ourselves. Just like the grown-up man in the story - once we really know someone loves us forever, we pass it on.

Jesus used another picture to help us imagine what that means: “I am the vine, you are the branches.” Do you know what a vine is? It’s a long, snaky kind of tree, that has all sorts of branches on it. And what grows on a vine? Grapes! If you saw just a branch by itself, that wouldn’t be a tree would it? What would happen to it? It would dry up and wouldn’t be good for anything. And it certainly wouldn’t grow any grapes.

Just like my reading lamp here. What is a lamp supposed to do? Shine a light on things! OK, I’m going to turn my lamp on. Uh-oh, nothing’s happening. Why isn’t it shining a light? Because I haven’t plugged it in! All right, now it’s plugged in let’s see…. Yes, once it’s plugged in, once it’s connected, it shines a light just like it’s meant to do.

It’s the same for the branches. A branch that isn’t connected can’t live, can’t do anything. But when all the branches are together as part of the vine/tree, it’s wonderful. Then they’re not just alive, they start to grow fruit - like grapes. (Do you like grapes?)

Jesus is saying that it’s just like that for us. When we are on our own, we don’t have power flowing into us to make us shine (like the lamp) and we aren’t getting the nourishment we need to grow and develop (like the branch). What would it look like for us to be all together as part of Jesus’ vine/tree? Let’s see if we can make a picture of that…. Everyone grab hold of someone else and let’s see if we can make a snaky kind of tree made up of people….

I don’t know if you noticed something when we did that. To grab on to the tree and be part of it, each of us needed one hand. As long as you have one hand holding on, you’re part of the vine. What’s the other hand for? To reach out and bring someone else in! Like the light of the lamp, or the grapes on the vine, or the song in the story - we have a part of us that reaches out to someone else.

That’s what I want us to remember when we leave church today. When we let go of each other, we don’t stop being part of Jesus or of each other. Jesus is inside our heart forever. When we go home or to school or to work, we’re still “plugged in”. That’s the great gift we receive from Jesus and our mums and all the people who ever loved us: even when we go out on our own, we’re still part of them and they are still part of us.

That’s what gives us the strength to try new things in our lives, things we’ve never done before. But more than that – Jesus living in us means we won’t just try, we will actually make new things happen - things that will let other people know that we love them and Jesus loves them too.

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