Bellarmine
University
“Interconnected
and Interdependent”
Rev.
Ronald Knott
May
3, 2015
I am the vine, you are the branches.
without me you can do nothing.
John 15
Am
I imagining it, or am I just an old cranky man? Is there a growing attitude of
people who think and act as if they live on this planet by themselves,
displaying a total disregard of how their behaviors affect other people,
displaying an attitude of “I am going to do what I want and I don’t give a hoot
how it affects you or anybody else”?
Recently,
I am finding my anger level hitting the boiling point when I see people throw
garbage out of car windows, roll down their car windows and turn their car
speakers up so loud it that it rattles the windows of my house, carrying on
loud cell phone conversations in public places, letting children run wild in
grocery stores and restaurants, trashing public facilities and vandalizing
public art, just to name a few.
This
excessive individualism is, no doubt, a reaction to an over-emphasis on the
common good, when individuals felt crushed and controlled. It’s the age old story of running off both
sides of the road, trying to balance the good of the community with the good of
the individual.
This
is a very old problem. It goes
all the way back to the story of Adam and Eve.
According to that story, at the end of creation God, humans and the
animals lived in harmony – interconnected and interdependent. As a colorful
Baptist preacher said at one of my graduations, “In the beginning, God was
happy being God. The animals were happy being animals. Human beings, however,
were not happy being human beings. They wanted t be God one day and animals the
next!” Adam and Eve were tempted to
believe they could do without God. Their children, Cain and Abel, were tempted
to believe that they could do without each other. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
With this, we see the sin of denying our interdependence begin, a sin that has
been repeated in a myriad of ways ever since. Interdependence is the
recognition that we are responsible to and dependent on others. To deny it is a
sin. Interdependence recognizes the truth of our dependence and independence
and weaves them together in a delicate balance.
The
scriptures are full of stories emphasizing our interdependence. Today’s gospel presents us with one of many.
In the gospel today, Jesus gives us the parable of the vine and the branches.
The Father is the vine grower, Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. Just as Jesus and the Father are one, we are
one with Jesus. “Just as a branch cannot
bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless
you remain in me. By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and
become my disciples.” We are
interconnected, whether we want to recognize it or not. As Celie, in the movie
“The Color Purple” put it, “It ain’t easy trying to do without God. Even if you
know he ain’t there, trying to do without him is a strain.”
Saint
Paul has many more examples of our interdependence. “I planted, Apollos
watered, but God caused the growth.”
“Everything is lawful, but not everything builds up. No one should seek
his own advantage, but that of his neighbor.” “Avoid giving offense, whether to
Jews or Greeks or the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in every
way, not seeking my own benefit but rather that of the many, that they may be
saved.” “As a body is one though it has
many parts, and all the parts of the body, through many, are one body. Now the
body is not a single part, but many. If one part suffers, all the parts suffer
with it; if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy.” No part of the body can say to another part I
don’t need you!
The
Kentucky motto is “United we stand. Divided we fall.” This could be the motto
of our country, our church, our parishes, our schools, our marriages, our
families and our neighborhoods. It is the message of our scripture today, as
well as all of Scripture. Some people
advocate personal freedom and independence as the ultimate good; others advocate
communal responsibility and interdependence as the ultimate good.
Interdependence recognizes the truth in each position and weaves them together.
It is only when people choose either independence or dependence, only, that we get into trouble. We are both independent and dependent in a delicate balance. We are
interdependent! We are interconnected and we need each other. No man is an
island, but part of the main. As John Muir, the famous conservationist put it,
“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything
else in the universe.”
This
is a timely message for our country and our church. In both worlds, there is a
meanness and a “them versus us” kind of attitude that make enemies, winners and
losers, rather than partners of each other.
We have even found out recently that we cannot even do without the
“illegal immigrants” who pick our vegetables, clean our hotel rooms, roof our
houses, landscape our lawns, nanny our children and dig our ditches. We have
found out that we cannot do without Middle Eastern oil or clothes from China.
We have found out that we cannot do without people in places like India when we
try to get our credit card bills straightened out or our computers fixed.. We
are finding out that we cannot even keep our parishes going without priests
from Africa, Poland and Central America. We are not as independent as we think
we are. In fact, we are becoming more interdependent than ever, thanks to
modern communication and travel.
“A
branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine.” This is
true spiritually as well as socially.
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