First reading: Wisdom 5:1-5
Gradual: Psalm 30:2-4
Epistle: 1 Timothy 4:1-5
Gospel: John 15:1-7

Everything God created is good

Lord for us your wounds were suffered. O Christ Jesus, have mercy on us.

Life skills:

When I was about 14 or 15 I decided that I could do many things for myself, that I really didn’t need mom to hand hold me or do a lot of other stuff. Now, I have to admit that my effort was not totally in vain. I was smart enough to go to my mom and other adults and ask them to show me the way.

Getting shown the way (hopefully not the door) was a really smart thing to do. I learned how to cook, clean, wash my clothes, iron —“ all those life skills that make a young man a decent marrying prospect, and prevents him from being a total slob.

Life skills are key to survival, and to living a good, peaceful, and comfortable life. While Google isn’t the definitive word on all things, I think we can infer the importance of life skills by the more than 61 million links to websites about them.

A list:

UNIFEF has put emphasis on life skills as a key component of education. They’ve provided a list of some of the major life skills that should be taught. Among those skills are interpersonal communication, negotiation and conflict management, empathy, cooperation and teamwork, advocacy, decision-making, critical thinking, goal setting, and managing feelings and stress; a lot more than just ironing, cooking, and cleaning.

God’s list:

God has given us a list of life skills, and as people of faith these are the life skills that rise to the top of our list. Of course, the most important of life skills are those taught by our Lord.

Jesus’ coming did more than provide a list. What He gave us was His life lived according to the life skills God wants us to know and adopt. Before Jesus came God repeatedly communicated a set of life skills that are key to our relationships.

Our first reading today was taken from Wisdom. The Wisdom books are all about life skills. The Hebrew word for Wisdom actually means life skills. The Jewish people always saw wisdom as something intensely practical, something to help you live your life. While that is true, the Wisdom books are more than a set of pragmatic, common sense skills that get us through the day, they are focused on God.

Wisdom then is about God’s relationship with us and our relationship with him and each other. Wisdom is having life skills defined by an understanding and proper respect for God and His works.

Getting it:

In today’s prophecy from Wisdom, the Just One, Jesus Christ, confronts all those who didn’t get it, and they stand back amazed and stricken in spirit. It is as if all the irony in life hit them all at once. This example is not just about irony however, nor about those who oppressed Jesus getting their due; it is more about the fact that they didn’t have an understanding of God’s way or a proper respect for God and His works.

Paul, in writing to Timothy, was giving advice on how to run the local Church. Paul was giving practical instruction as to how Timothy should live, how he should administer, and the ways in which he should prepare himself for the tough things. In our Epistle we hear that some will turn away. The reasons they turn away are not really important, but we know that those who turn away can have a devastating effect on a community. The key is that Timothy is to recognize and stand by wisdom, the life skills that make Christians who they are. In other words, Paul is saying that Christians have life skills based in Jesus, and that they are to receive what God gives —with thanksgiving.— Paul’s letter to Timothy teaches one thing: that a Christian’s necessary life skills are love and prayer. With those skills we are able to do all things.

The True Vine:

Many have argued over the passage about the True Vine in today’s Gospel. Some have used Jesus’ words as a metaphor for the Church; Jesus is the vine and there are many branches —“ or kinds of Churches. Others have used it as an argument against Church —“ I don’t need religion, that religion is just a process or an outright falsehood —“ what I really need is to be part of Jesus.

Wrong on all counts. The problem with over analysis and proof-texting the scriptures —“ picking out a verse to prove ones point —“ is that we miss the plain meaning. Jesus is discussing this very key and elemental life skill. We are to follow Him so that we might live. This key life skill is life itself. Not following Jesus is to be —like a withered, rejected branch,— that is, to have no life.

The Church:

Today we celebrate a very important and most solemn day. Today we recall the institution of our Holy Polish National Catholic Church.
The Church is many things, and like UNICEF I could make a list of all the things the Church is. I could carefully explain branch theory and prove that our Church fits the model and mandate of Jesus Christ, as well as the ways and methods set forth in the earliest writing of the Apostles and Church Fathers. I don’t think you would want to hear that.

What we need to focus on today is the why of Church in our lives and the question of why this Church. If you were to ask me: —Deacon, why are you in the PNCC?— I could offer hundreds, if not thousands of reasons, but the key is this.

Life, not death:

Our Holy Church is not about death, but about life. In 1897 it pulled itself out from under the shackles of a Church that focused on death, punishment, sin, and retribution, a Church of power and wealth blind to the cries of its children. A Church who put rule books and process before the life skills necessary — for life.

Our Holy Church spoke to the poor, the workers, the Union organizers, the immigrants with the gleam of hope in their eyes for themselves and for their children.

Our Holy Church looked at Jesus as the Divine Master who came to teach life and to provide the life skills that do more than what is practical. His life skills lead us to life that lasts forever.

That’s what I want, for myself, my family, my children, and for all of us. This Holy Polish National Catholic Church placed the gleam back in my eyes. This Church is the Church that gives us the hope and the life that Jesus was all about.

Our Church teaches that by accepting Jesus as our Divine Master, and following His way, we bind ourselves to the Vine that gives life. In our Holy Church we live a life defined by those necessary skills — love and prayer. In our Church we recognize true wisdom; that we have a relationship with God and with each other. In our Church we gain the life skills, the wisdom necessary for a true and proper understanding as well as respect for God.

We are blessed to have our Holy Church. We are not them, we are not something else, we are PNCC and we are life. Take great comfort in being in this Church and know it, learn about it, cherish it. Know that here we have the life that Jesus wanted for His branches. Amen.