27 April 2024 | 5th Sunday of Easter (Year B) (Sunset Mass)

by Fr Larry Tan, SJ

Few years ago, I was preaching on a Sunday in Kuching. And while I was preaching, a lady was right in front of me, very busy with the handphone. Obviously I refused to let her distract me and let myself get distracted. So after when the Mass is about to be over, before the final blessing, I just made a simple announcement about the handphone. Of course, not blaming her directly or to humiliate her but just say in general about the need of really shutting down the handphone.

We live in a very digitally connected world. You ask any of the young people here. Wow! They can spend hours addicted to the screen time just to see how digitally connected they can be. At the same time, we also know how digitally disconnected we can be. Just look around you. When we go for dinner, wow you find members of family and a group here. Every one of them were busy with the handphone. Digitally connected with people far away but disconnected with people around them. True or not? I believe the answer is this (nodding head).

So talking about disconnected digitally and connected, the point of my homily would be just one point. Remember this point of the homily. You may forget everything else but just remember this point of my homily. The point is How connected and fruitful are you and I? I repeat: How connected and fruitful are you and I?

So talking about connection and here we have in this Gospel reading a very beautiful analogy on what it means to be connected. Here we have Jesus Christ given us a very agricultural example of a vine and the branches. Obviously we can use other type of trees to talk about connection. And He talks about: I am the vine, you are the branches. 

How many of you wonder when the word ‘vine and branches‘ or maybe trees are concerned. Perhaps maybe we think about ‘oh those ordinary trees, those branches and so forth.’ But there is something more than this. Think about it.

Put it in another way. We are branches of a Divine Tree. I stress the word Divine Tree. Not just any other tree but Divine Tree. And can you imagine ‘Wow! I am part of the divine tree!‘ Wow! Can you just imagine how great we are? That we are part of God, part of the tree and somehow we do not even realise that we are part of the divine tree, branch of the divine tree. And here Jesus Christ reminds us about how connected we are as branch of a tree! Really, really connected.

Few of us realise that in the history of the church, the early church fathers, when they talk about the Trinity, the tree is one of the favourite one. Why?

For the simple reason is:
The trunk is Jesus Christ.
The roots is the Father.
And the sap that goes from the root to the trunk and later on giving to the branches to bear fruit, this is the Holy Spirit.
And we are therefore connected to the Trinity!

Can you just imagine how powerful we are? Only if we realise that we are branch of the divine tree. In other words, part of us is divine. We cannot run away from that. But we behave as though we are ordinary human being. No! No! No! We are something more. If we are part of the divine tree, which means we can also say we are divine. We may not be God. We may not be the Trinity. But we are divine.

And here Jesus Christ is really stressing the point: Unless you are connected with me, you don’t bear any fruit.

In other words, don’t get disconnected from me. You will die. Just imagine how digitally disconnected we are in our lives. And when we spend a lot of time, 10 or 12 hours on the screen and so forth, handphone, we just don’t have time for God. How much time can you spend and we are completely disconnected from God? Aha! No wonder we don’t bear fruit.

Jesus Christ warn us over and over again: Anyone who does not remain in me like a branch has been thrown away, withers. Only when we are connected with Jesus Christ can we really bear fruit.

So connection = fruitfulness. So this now brings me to the point how fruitful are we? And what fruits are we to bear?

This brings me to the Second Reading. Second Reading is very clear. It talks here about love: Unless therefore we keep his commandments and believe in the name of His son Jesus Christ, and that we love one another as He told us, then we will really be bearing fruits of love.

How do we know? Simple. What are your labour of love? That you are doing something out of love, not of profit, not of name or fame or anything but really engaged in activities that really show this is my labour of love, just as God is labouring in His love for all of us? Love is not just mere words as the Second Reading tells us: My children, our love is not just words of mere talk but something real and active.

To put in a simple way, what are your labour of love? What are my labour of love?

So we can look at it in another way as well. Remember the scripture verses in Saint Paul to the Galatians, Chapter 5:22-23, it talks about the fruits of the spirit. It talks about love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, kindness and fruitfulness. But what fruits are we bearing?

Just research or just go back in our life, in my daily relationship with others and there we can see whether we bear fruit or not. Not only ust bear fruit but we can feel within us. Those people we are connected to can really get excited, where the positive vibes rubs on them. Wow, so good! Wow, I am connected! Peace, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, fruitfulness. And these are the fruits we should bear, only if we are connected with God.

To bring in another example, I go to the First Reading. In the First Reading, Saint Paul, a convert. Before that, he was persecuting the early church, the early Christians. Of course when he encountered Jesus Christ, can man just imagine when he was truly connected after his conversion, Wow! With so much courage, without fear, he began preaching in the name of Jesus Christ even though himself as the First Reading tells us he encountered opposition. They wanted to kill him. Why? Because he was the one that persecuted the early church. When he was really connected, nothing can stop him.

So this brings me back to the point of my homily: How connected and fruitful are you and I?

Unless we are really drawn into the Trinity, Father, Son and the Spirit as the Second Reading tells us: Whoever keeps His commandment lives in God and God lives in him. We know that He lives in us by the Spirit that he has given us.

The Father is the root;
Jesus the trunk;
the sap, the vital sap there goes the Spirit
and we are the branches.

Amen.

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