I want you to imagine that today is Sunday, April 27th, in the year 1508.   And because it is the year 1508, . . . instead of sitting here, inside your parish church, we would have gathered outside, some twenty minutes ago, and made our way to the edge of the Parish grounds (oh, perhaps to the Manor Farm). . . and, because we are utterly dependent for our survival upon what the land on which we live will produce over the next several months, with the smoke of incense pouring out of the thurible and an acolyte carrying a huge basin of holy water, . . . we would commence to “beat the bounds” . . . to walk all around the boundaries of this Parish.  . . . And all the while I would be sprinkling holy water and singing (in Latin, of course); . . . I  would be singing petitions to God for protection of crops from frost and blight and drought; . . . I would be singing petitions that God defend the flocks and herds of our Parish against predators and pestilence.  . . . And each time I came to the end of a petition . . . you would all sing, “Te rogamus audi nos” . . . (which means “We beseech Thee to hear us”).  . . . We would sing these prayers in procession today . . . and we would do it again tomorrow . . . and on Tuesday . . . and again on Wednesday.  . . . Each day we would beat the bounds of the Parish beseeching the Lord God Almighty (singing “Te rogamus”) . . . beseeching the Lord God Almighty that He protect and prosper our crops and flocks and herds.  . . . And that is why today is called “Rogation Sunday.”  . . . It is the first day of Rogationtide, . . . a season of four days during which we beseech (rogamus); . . . four days during which we beseech the Lord God’s merciful protection and aid.

    Now, because it is not the year 1508, . . . most likely in places like Manhattan, today, no one will even remember that this is the beginning of Rogationtide, . . . or, if someone does notice, it will only be with a vague recollection of a quaint Anglican tradition that has something to do with plants or animals.  . . . But having been husbandman to a vegetable garden and priest to dairy farmers for some thirty years now, . . . I am very mindful of the Rogation Days and of the Rogation prayers.  . . . But in all my years of saying the prayers for protection of crops and herds, of praying for rain in time of drought, and of praying for a cessation of rain when the rivers threatened to jump their banks; . . . in all my years of praying the agricultural prayers . . . while I have never known God to wait too long, . . . neither have I ever noticed God to act too soon.  It is exactly as the Prophet Isaiah declares it:

When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue is parched with thirst, I the Lord will answer them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them.

The Prophet is very careful to point out that the Lord God Almighty does not answer us before we pant and thirst for water.  . . . This is because it is not the lack of water that makes us poor and needy.  . . . We are poor and needy -- all of us; … as a consequence of the Fall we are all perpetually poor and needy in the sight of God.  And because we are so impoverished, God desires for us to have wonderful things.  God desires us to have rivers gushing out of the heights of our spiritual barrenness and fountains springing up in the midst of our green valleys.  God wants our spiritually dry and desolate places to be pools of water with little springs of icy, cold water bubbling forth.  . . . But God must wait patiently and quietly for us to recognize our poverty; . . . the Lord God Almighty must wait patiently and quietly for us to notice that we need Him; . . . God must wait patiently for us to hold out our hand to Him with hopeful affection.  Otherwise, if God gives before we are in distress, He does us no favor; . . . for, then, we will simply fall to congratulating ourselves for causing God to act by saying the right prayer at the right moment, or, worse yet, we will congratulate ourselves for our good fortune independent of God’s mercy.  . . . And so, God withholds Himself.  The Lord God Almighty withholds Himself until our tongues are parched.  God withholds Himself a little so that

men may see and know, may consider and understand together, that the hand of the Lord has done this, the Holy One of Israel has created it.

God has a vision for us, you see; . . . God has a vision for us . . . and a purpose; . . . the Lord God Almighty has a vision and purpose for us which He longs to share with us so that we might consider and understand it together.  . . . And, once again today, the Holy Scriptures have given us a glimpse of the Lord God Almighty’s vision:

[Jesus says] I am the vine, you are the branches.  He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

The thing that the Lord God Almighty wants us and all the people of the earth to see . . . is that the focus of human Life which has been fashioned in God’s sacred Image; . . . the focus of human Life is not upon the Life, . . . it is upon the Image in Whose likeness we are fashioned!  And since Jesus is the Incarnate Word of God; the divine Life endowed with all the joys and sorrows of human flesh.  Since Jesus is the Incarnate Word of God, . . . He is the One in Whose likeness we are made.  We have life . . . in Christ.  God, in all likelihood, has blessed each of our lives with such incidentals as health, perhaps; children; a roof over our heads and food in our bellies; a vocation which gives satisfaction at times . . . and joy at others.  All these things, and any I have omitted, are good.  But they are the equipment of human Life; they are not the object of it.  Jesus it the source and object of Life:  “I am the vine, you are the branches.”

    We are, each one of us; . . . we are poor and needy.  We are undisciplined and easily distracted so that, like a Spring vine, our energies are poured into frivolous things . . . perhaps even unwholesome things, as God might see it.  And so, Jesus tells us that He is the vine,

and my Father is the vinedresser.  Every branch of mine . . . he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.

God strips away from each of us all the little buds and shoots of wild growth -- all the little strategies we have to protect by control and manipulation; the little schemes we conjure up to preserve our self-esteem; the ingratitude we accrue by forgetting to be grateful for everything; . . . God strips away this wild growth from us . . . in the hope that we grow, not an abundance of mediocre fruit tainted with only a touch of blight, . . . but a luscious yield of choice fruit; . . . fruit that we were created to bear; . . . fruit that bears the blessedness and shalom of its Creator.

    That is God’s vision.  That we understand that we are perpetually poor and needy . . . and so, resist the temptation to resist God.  It is God’s vision that we resist the temptation to complain and lament that we have not gotten our way with Him -- that it is too dry . . . or too wet . . . or too cold . . . or too hot, to use the language of Rogationtide.  It is God’s vision that we resist the temptation to resist Him and consider and understand together what the hand of the Lord has done or is doing; that we beseech the Lord God Almighty (“Te rogamus”) to grant us the will and the courage to turn to the Vine . . . and be nourished to blossom and fruit by Him alone; . . . that we each put our entire trust in the grace and love of Jesus … and bear such fruit as unity of spirit, sympathy, love for one another, a tender heart and a humble mind.  For, it is God’s vision that each of us have and be wonderful things -- that we be the lovely limbs of a fruitful vine; that each one of us be full of grace which nourishes repentance and tastes of joy . . . so that “men may see and know . . . that the hand of the Lord has done this, the Holy One . . . has created it.”  It is for this that you have been baptized into the death of the Cross.  If you live at all it is because Christ is risen;  . . . if you live at all, it is the Life of Jesus that is in you:  He is the vine and we are His branches.    Beseech our Heavenly Father to grant us the grace to abide in Jesus, . . . and then wait patiently for His answering mercy.