Fifth Sunday of Easter: I am the vine and you are the branches

Billy Graham died in February. When he put on his Crusade for Christ and made an altar call, thousands would stream down the aisles to publicly profess their faith in Christ. Those human bodies, like cells in the blood stream of a body, obeyed the call of Jesus, the Sacred Heart, the Son of God. For us, when we stream up the aisles of St. Mark Parish to share communion with God and with one another, we are the blood cells of the Body of Christ. I proclaim by my reception of communion that Jesus Christ saved me and that I live in him as he lives in the Father. I am in him and he is in me. We share the same supernatural DNA. We are in communion with God and with one another through the head of the body, Christ.
 
The Didache and the Eucharist
Today, in the Gospel, Jesus taught his disciples that he was the vine and we are the branches. We have life as long as we are rooted in the sacred vine. We need to be pruned, but he will give us new growth. The picture Jesus paints of a living organism, a vine, was very important in the early Church.

About the same time that the Gospel of John was written, early Christians wrote the Didache. (The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles). That document was so important many Christians argued that it should be part of scripture. For Catholics, two things were important to determine what books went into scripture. The first criteria, was that the book was very important and used by the Church. The second, was that the book was written under the authority of an apostle. The Didache, in the judgment of the bishops satisfied the first, but not the second criteria, and was therefore excluded from scripture. The Didache was probably written by Jewish Christians living in Syria in the first century.  It is, however, the earliest non-scriptural book that describes how the liturgy was conducted in the first century, at least in one community.
 
The Didache and the Holy Vine of David
The Didache relates that the celebration of Eucharist would begin:

"We give Thee thanks, Our Father, 
for the Holy Vine of David Thy servant,
which Thou hast made known to us
through Jesus, Thy Servant."
"To Thee be the glory for evermore."
(Didache)

 
Jesus, the Holy Vine of David, was connected to the Eucharist. David is not the vine; he is as rooted in the vine, that is Christ, as are we.  A branch receives its life from the vine as we receive our life from the Eucharist. The Eucharistic prayer in the Didache concluded, "If anyone is holy, let him advance; if anyone is not, let him be converted ...;"
 
Let the Holy Advance!
When we come forward to Eucharist we celebrate our fellowship, but also so much more. Communion is more than commemoration and remembrance. Communion is something greater than prayer. When we eat his flesh and drink his blood, we profess the saving mystery of the passion and death of Jesus. That mystery is our food. Without the Eucharist, something absolutely fundamental is missing in the life of a Christian.
 
God seeks full union with us, “so that where I am you may be too.” Jn. 14:3. He promises us that we will live in him, and he will live in us, just as he lives in unity with the Father.
 

“I have given them the glory you gave me,
so that they may be one, as we are one,
I in them and you in me,
that they may be brought to perfection as one,
that the world may know that you sent me,
and that you loved them even as you loved me.” Jn. 17:22-23.

 
The image of the vine and branches is presented as the icon of our life in Christ. We are in God and God is in us. Communion feeds our bodies and souls.
 
God is in me and I am in God my Savior
My reception of communion makes no sense unless I accept that Christ is my savior.  God became a human to share his life with me. His life is within me and by sharing that life I participate in life with God and you.  How important is our work reconciling God’s people to the Holy Vine of David through the Eucharist. I take heart in that prayer inviting Jewish Christians to Communion, “If anyone is holy, let him advance; if anyone is not, let him be converted.” I want to talk with Christians who feel separated from the table of the Lord for one reason or another. God always desires union with us. We are the ones that separate ourselves from the sacred vine.  We all ought to work towards reconciling ourselves and others to the Holy Vine of David.

Billy Graham called the people forward to make a public, personal profession of faith in Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. We do that whenever we respond to the call to Eucharist. Instead of the language of the Didache, our liturgy calls us so:

Priest: "Behold the Lamb of God,
behold him who takes away the sins of the world,
blessed are those who are called
to the supper of the Lord!"

All: "Lord, I am not worthy
that you should enter under my roof,
but only say the word 
and my soul will be healed." 

Let those who are holy advance!