In the first reading, the early Christian community grapples with questions about how strictly the Mosaic Law should be observed. The Psalm is a song of the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In the Gospel, Jesus uses the metaphor of a vine and its branches to convey his message.
I can imagine the younger version of myself in the role of a Jew who was an early accepter of Christianity. (I had a very rule-based perspective in my youth. I would have made an excellent Pharisee.) I can picture myself holding tightly to the structure and clarity that the Mosaic Law provided, and I would have struggled with the idea of welcoming those who did not follow it into my community. (My younger self was extremely judgmental concerning contemporary attitudes of right and wrong.)
In my later years, I shied away from questions of doctrinal purity. I found myself thinking about the differences between rules and guidelines. (Still, I continue to have a visceral response when someone runs a red light, both in a literal and in a metaphoric sense.) Retirement has given me more time to reflect on my own life and with that I find the words of Pope Francis, “Who am I to judge?” continually coming to mind.
I hear the psalm quietly echoing the rules built into the Mosaic Law as I am reminded of the duty to participate in the three pilgrimage gatherings that for centuries were celebrated in Jerusalem.
In John 15:1–8, Jesus offers a powerful image: “I am the vine, you are the branches.” I find a call to community to be at the heart of this passage. I hear a message involving a shared existence, mutual dependence, and organic growth. It reminds me that faith is not rigid or static, but it is something living and dynamic, just as a vine grows, twists, and adapts.
My prayer today focusses on this community.
Dear Lord,
We are the branches, all of us, in our diversity, our questions, and our hopes.
May we remain part of the Vine, not through fear of pruning, but connected through love.
Let Your Spirit flow through us into every part of our society.
Let our fruit be the kind that nourishes a world in need of compassion, justice, and healing.
Mike Cherney
I grew up in Milwaukee and have lived in Madison, St. Paul, Hamburg, Geneva, Omaha and Boston. I taught for 27 years in the Creighton Physics Department. Now I am mostly retired and have returned to the Milwaukee area where my wife recently became President of Mount Mary University. I continue to work with Creighton students on projects in high energy nuclear physics at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island and at CERN just outside Geneva, Switzerland. We have two sons and three grandchildren who all live in the northern suburbs of Chicago.
I am a person who asks questions. This often leads me down a challenging path.
