“EVIDENCE OF THE ABIDING LIFE”

                                                          St John 15:  1-10

A young American engerineer was sent to Irealnd by  company to work in a new electronics plant.  It was a two-year assignment that he had accepted because it would enable him to earn enough to marry his long-time girlfriend. She had a job near her home in Tennessee, and their plan was to pool their resources and put a down payment on a house when he returned.  They corresponded often, but as the lonely weeks went by, she began expressing doubts that he was being true to her, exposed as he was to comely Irish lasses.

The young Engineer wrote back, declaring with some passion that he was paying absolutely no attention to the local girls. “I admit,” he wrote, “that sometimes I’m tempted. But I fight it. I’m keeping myself for you.”

In the next mail, the engineer received a package and It contained a note from his girl friend and a harmonica. “I’m sending this to you,” she wrote, “so you can learn to play it and have something to take your mind off those girls.” The engineer replied, “Thanks for the harmonica. I’m practicing on it every night and thinking of you.”

At the end of his two-year stint, the engineer was transferred back to company headquarters. He took the first plane to Tennessee to be reunited with his girl. Her whole family was with her, but as he rushed forward to embrace her, she held up a restraining hand and said sternly, “Just hold on there a minute, Billy Bob. Before any serious kissin’ and huggin’ gets started here, let me hear you play that harmonica!”

"Every congregation has a choice to be one of two things. You can choose to be a bag of marbles, single units that don't affect each other except in collision. One Sunday morning you can choose to go to church or to sleep in: Who really cares whether there are 192 or 193 marbles in a bag?

"Or you can choose to be a bag of grapes. The juices begin to mingle, and there is no way to extricate yourselves if you tried. Each is part of all. Part of the fragrance. Part of the 'stuff.'"

That's a pretty good analogy. Are we like marbles or grapes? If we understand ourselves to be like grapes, then we will appreciate Christ's teaching that he is the vine.

We draw our life from him. We are his people, his family. That is why when there is strife or disagreement, someone must take the first step. We need one another. More important, we need to know that he is in our midst.

In "His" Service,

Roy