But when the anonymous-gospel-storyteller stretches his metaphor to say, “If you live on in me, and my words live on in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you.” the metaphor begins to fail, because not all of us share the experiences of asking and receiving whatever we want. Vino veritas works, because we share the experience of seeing truth revealed when the wine is flowing. Metaphors often fail when they are delivered to folks who do not share the experiences of the creators of those metaphors. Metaphors can also entrap us because we are prone to stretching metaphors beyond their ability to carry us. Metaphors can carry us beyond the words and images to a reality that is beyond words and images. “Those who live in me and I in them will bear abundant fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” Wait, what? “Those who don’t live in me are like withered, rejected branches, to be picked up and thrown on the fire and burned.” The storyteller uses the metaphor of the vine to carry us beyond the image of the vine to the reality that is beyond words, the reality that we call Divine and the fruit of the vine flows through us to be the DIVINE in the world or as we say here “to be LOVE in the world”. Such a beautiful metaphor metaphor something that carries us beyond the words to a reality that is beyond words. In his teachings and with his life, Jesus said, God is in me, and I am in you, we are all in each other, we are all ONE. The anonymous-gospel-story-teller that we call John creates for us a metaphor drawn from the life experience of his people.We are the branches, intimately intertwined with one another, we are all connected to one another, and what flows through the Divine, flows through us. In the sharing of the wine, we too are in the flow, we too are connected to the flow that is the DIVINE. In Jesus’ we see the energy, the flow of the life force that emanates from the MYSTERY, from the LOVE, that we call God. From the other anonymous-gospel-story-tellers we also have the story of Jesus last meal, during which Jesus takes wine, gives thanks and shares the wine with his friends saying, “drink this all of you, this wine is my blood…to remember me” When we remember that meal it is as if the wine we drink together is the promise that Jesus’ life force, the life that flowed through Jesus, flows through us in the sharing of the wine. The ancient Romans had a saying, “in vinio vertais” in wine there is truth. Most of us are very familiar with wine’s ability to transform us. In the story Jesus takes something ordinary and transforms it into something extraordinary.
According to the anonymous-gospel-storyteller that we call John, Jesus’ very first miracle was turning water into wine. Wine is something that is intimately intertwined with the stories of Jesus life.
Of the vine, vine from the Latin for wine – wine the fruit of the vine. Divine is another word for the MYSTERY we call God. Sal says, “Jesus said, youz are the branches and I am da-vine.” Sal goes on to say that, the word divine is ‘of the vine”. Sal comes from New York city Sal would say it differently – “New York.” Speaking with his New York drawl, Sal expresses the vine metaphor in a unique way. For those of you looking for a sermon following the Revised Common Lectionary, this sermon from 2018, explores those readings. Tomorrow at Holy Cross, we will be celebrating Pluralism Sunday.