5th Sunday of Easter Year B
Jeff Bagnall • 20 April 2024
The first reading ( Acts 9: 26-31) assumes that you know what has gone before in this chapter of Luke’s story of the early church. Saul, as Paul was called then, had been trying to suppress the followers of Jesus’ Way and in his travels to do this, on approaching Damascus had had a conversion experience: Jesus appeared to him, Luke says, and asked ‘Why are you persecuting me?’ The use of ‘me’ in these words is an indication of the presence of Jesus in His followers, though this may not have been interpreted then as we might take it today. In the Acts of the apostles Luke recounts this experience three times altogether, but in the letters of Paul’s which we have, he does refer to having a revelation (see Gal 1:11-17) but not in the visual and narrative terms used by Luke. According to Luke, after this experience, Saul himself became a believer in Jesus, and in our reading he tries to get accepted by the disciples in Jerusalem and to use his fluency in Greek to speak to the Hellenists who were Greek speaking Jews; but later his vocation will be beyond Jerusalem and even to non-Jewish communities.
The second reading this week is from the First letter of John again. In chapter 3, verses 18-24
he writes about the loving and forgiving presence within those who follow the command of Jesus; the command to believe in Him and to love one another. The 10 commandments have been superseded in this new era initiated by Jesus, which we now call Christianity, although, perhaps because of our weak human nature we still have and certainly need some guideline about how we should live as Christians. The writer’s message, however, is clear – whoever believes in Jesus and loves others lives in God and God lives in him, and the Spirit of Jesus within us assures us of this. This is taken up in later Church teaching, notably by Athanasius, (whose feast it was yesterday), in his work " 0n the Incarnation" (number 54).
In the Gospel ( John chapter 15), we have what might appear like the parable of the vine. The Old Testament often refers to the Jews as the vine of God; in that context it is seen as one that needs a lot of tending and that sometimes, even then, produces bad grapes (see Isaiah 5) – it is very frustrating for God to have such problematic people. But Jesus utterly dedicated Himself to please God His Father by loving others and giving them hope of a better life even here on earth. So Jesus is the true vine. But those who live in the same basic way of Jesus share in his life; and just as Jesus’ life was not easy-going, so the lives of His followers will have set-backs – and this is indicated in the parable by the reference to the pruning that the plants need in order to grow all the better and bear good fruit.
Jeff's jottings: Tree and branches
Jeff Bagnall was a lecturer for many years at Craiglockhart College teaching RE to many future Catholic Primary teachers.
In the first reading we have a very good illustration of a successful approach to delivering bad news when you are a prophet and that is your job. The book of Isaiah has been heavily edited, and our reading from chapter 5 is very likely the first public appearance of the prophet. If you want the crowd to listen to you, you don’t want to be known as a prophet of doom. So Isaiah draws a crowd by saying he is going to sing a song, like a street busker setting up his spot. It’s a song, he says, about his friend; it’s told as though it is about a man setting up a new vineyard, but it is really about unrequited love. He did everything one should for the vineyard to be successful, but it just produced (literally) stinking grapes. The friend then questions the crowd: “is there anything more I could have done?” And he tells them he is going to completely wreck the area and make it a wasteland. Then, when the crowd has grown and is listening intently, like a punch-line the prophet announces: “this song is about the Lord and you Israel!” The image of the vineyard became quite popular in the sayings of prophets and even among the people themselves; one of their hymns is the psalm that follows the reading for today.
The first reading is part of a heart-warming poem. It was written about the time that the people were going to be released from captivity by a friendly emperor, Cyrus. It attributes this release to the love of God, who has a special relationship of love for people, a relationship traditionally called a covenant. It is a two-way agreement: God will look after the people, and the people will live in a way pleasing to God. But the agreement is not conditional; it is not like God saying ‘if you keep my commandments I will be your protector and god;’ it is unconditional on God’s side: ‘I will be your God, so you will be my people however you respond to me.’ In the part of the poem we read today, the prophet is announcing to the people, God’s call to them; it is a call to give up any wickedness and turn their lives towards Him. But the prophet is also emphasising that God’s ways are mysterious, for He does not depend on the people behaving well for Him to love them and to be their God; there is no way they can deserve or merit God’s love, it is generous, free and everlasting. The extract is chosen for this contrast between God’s ways and ours, an idea taken up in the Gospel reading for today.