![\"maple](\"http:\/\/www.nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/maple_tree_sm.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
This passage in John\u2019s Gospel about the vine and the branches
\nis one of the most beautiful in all the Gospels.
\nJesus says, \u201cI am the vine, and you are the branches.\u201d
\nIt\u2019s a beautiful image of life, growth, and relationship,
\nand it tells us a lot about how much the Father cares for us.<\/p>\n
Now, I don\u2019t know much about vines or branches or pruning,
\nbut Brenda and I do have this huge maple tree in our back yard.
\nIt\u2019s a great tree, about thirty years old,
\nand it gives our southern exposed deck wonderful shade.
\nIt just grows and grows,
\nand I guess maybe it\u2019s gotten a little bigger than we realized.<\/p>\n
We discovered just how big
\na couple of weeks ago,
\nwhen we went to the Home and Garden Show
\nand we were talking with a company
\nabout having them do some lawn care for us.
\nTo give us an accurate estimate of how much it would cost,
\nthey pulled up a satellite picture of our yard,
\nso they could measure it.
\nAs they brought up the picture on their computer screen,
\nBrenda and I were shocked to see
\njust how massive our maple tree had grown.
\nIt doesn\u2019t look that big from below,
\nbut when you look at it from above the house,
\nit\u2019s this great leafy monster covering half of our yard,
\nstretching its gigantic limbs across the fence
\ninto our neighbor\u2019s yard,
\nand entangling itself in the power lines.
\nFrom our angle down on the ground,
\nwe hadn\u2019t noticed it had grown so huge.<\/p>\n
I thought, How did that happen?
\nHow did we let that beautiful tree grow so wild and out of control,
\nwithout even noticing?
\nIf you\u2019re a home owner,
\nyou probably know what I\u2019m talking about.
\nIt\u2019s expensive to have a tree pruned,
\nand there are lots of other bills to pay.
\nAnd life gets so busy with kids and jobs,
\nand all the other day-to-day responsibilities.
\nThe time seems to pass by so fast,
\nand before you know it,
\nyour nice shade tree is a hulking monstrosity.<\/p>\n
As I was reading today\u2019s gospel,
\nI thought about how what happens to trees
\ncan happen to people, too.
\nWe\u2019re growing along nicely, stretching our limbs,
\nexpanding our root systems,
\nbut then slowly, over time,
\nthings can grow out of control,
\nand before you know it,
\nlife is cluttered with huge branches
\nthat get in the way, throw us off balance, and weigh us down.
\nWe get entangled, not in power lines,
\nbut in bad habits, distractions, and sin.
\nAnd a lot of the time we can\u2019t really tell it\u2019s happening
\nfrom our view on the ground.<\/p>\n
Jesus reminds us today,
\nthat He is the true vine,
\nand his Father is the vine grower.
\nThe Father has a perfect view of us from above,
\nnot only of who we are, but of who we can become.<\/p>\n
The Father prunes away what distracts us from Him,
\nremoving what would harm us,
\nshaping us into something beautiful.
\nGod is always taking care of us,
\ntending to us, nurturing us.
\nOur creation didn\u2019t stop on the day we were born.
\nGod continues to create us from moment to moment.<\/p>\n
This passage from John\u2019s gospel is about the goodness of God,
\nthe love of God, for each of us.
\nEven if there are sufferings in our lives,
\nGod can turn them into something helpful.<\/p>\n
This is what he did with St. Paul.
\nThe first time we meet Paul in Scripture,
\nhe is supervising, consenting to, the death of St. Stephen.
\nWe read how he persecuted Christians,
\nhow he entered house after house,
\ndragging men and women out,
\nand handing them over for imprisonment.
\nHe even admits in one of his epistles
\nthat he was trying to destroy the Church.<\/p>\n
Paul couldn\u2019t see from his vantage point
\nthat he was becoming as wild and monstrous
\nas that maple in my back yard.
\nHe couldn\u2019t see it.
\nBut God could see who Paul was,
\nand also who he could become.
\nGod kept tending to Paul, pruning him and shaping him,
\nfinally revealing Jesus to him on the road to Damascus.<\/p>\n
That moment wasn\u2019t easy for Paul, being struck blind.
\nIt wasn\u2019t easy having to admit he had been wrong,
\nit wasn\u2019t easy having to earn the trust of the disciples.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not easy for us, either,
\ntrying to love each other not just in word or speech,
\nbut in deed and truth.
\nIt\u2019s painful to admit we\u2019re wrong, to give up bad habits,
\nto seek forgiveness.
\nBut we have the promise
\nthat the Father will continue to take care of us,
\nperfecting us, shaping us so that we can bear fruit.
\nGod never forgets us, or leaves us on our own.
\nGod is constantly forming us more and more in his own image.<\/p>\n
When I think of that maple tree in our back yard,
\nI am so thankful that God is not as neglectful as I am.
\nI\u2019m happy to report that Brenda and I have scheduled an arborist
\nto come and prune our tree this week,
\nand restore it to its normal healthy self.<\/p>\n
As we all do our spring yard work in the coming days,
\nmowing our lawns, trimming our weeds, and pruning our trees,
\nlet us also use that time to thank God
\nfor pruning us, shaping us,
\nfor taking such good care of us,
\noften in ways we don\u2019t even realize.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This passage in John\u2019s Gospel about the vine and the branches is one of the most beautiful in all the Gospels. Jesus says, \u201cI am the vine, and you are the branches.\u201d It\u2019s a beautiful image of life, growth, and relationship, and it tells us a lot about how much the Father cares for us. Now, I don\u2019t know much about vines or branches or pruning, but Brenda and I do have this huge maple tree in our back yard. It\u2019s a great tree, about thirty years old,...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6814,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"A Hulking Monstrosity of a Tree: #Homily for the Fifth Sunday of #Easter - Year B","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[349],"tags":[354,1079],"class_list":["post-6813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-homily","tag-gospel-of-john","tag-trees"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/maple_tree_sm.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pOucj-1LT","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6813"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6822,"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6813\/revisions\/6822"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicksenger.com\/onecatholiclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}