Fruitful (Easter 5)
John 15: 1-8, Acts 8: 26-40 Perhaps, like me, you were brought up with the song “he is the vine & we are the branches..”. I think of it whenever I hear that reading from John’s gospel – where Jeus says “I am the vine..”. And yet actually what Jesus says next is not ‘You are the branches, but “ I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.”. So it seems that Jesus is wanting to explain to his disciples how they are connected to him, live in him, rely on him. But that is not an end in itself: as disciples we are the branches, joined to Jesus, abiding in Jesus – but for the purpose of bearing fruit. So what does ‘fruitfulness’ look like? What does fruitfulness look like in the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch? The Ethiopian eunuch (we are never told his name) is a person of great importance – he is in charge of the treasury o