Bellybuttons & Blackberries

May 10, 2009
Mother’s Day; Fifth Sunday of Easter
Pastor Brad Davick
Psalm 121; John 15:1-8

Bellybuttons and Blackberries

Do me a favor; take a moment and poke yourself in the bellybutton. Yes, it’s a silly, and I ask you to do it anyway...I’m sure no one wants to hear me say,“Do me a favor; take a moment and poke your neighbor in their bellybutton.”

Thank you for joining me in that little exercise. It seems appropriate today; our bellybutton is a constant reminder that we all started life connected to another human being...namely our moms. Today, let us all remember and honor our moms with a sincere and heartfelt,“Happy Mother’s Day.”

There’s a level of irony when you think about the bellybutton. We are born into the world fully connected to another. For nine months, give or take, depending on a host of factors, our moms were our sole life source. Without that connection, we would not be. With a first breath taken, that connection is ended. We’re unplugged from that which sustained our life inutero.

From that moment on, we spend the rest of our lives trying to reconnect with others. God created us as relational beings; we have been created for connection.

I have a confession to share with you this morning. I’m embarrassed and disgusted that I’ve allowed this to happen; I’m addicted to my Blackberry!

Yes...it’s true. More and more, I can’t get enough. I want to be connected; I need to be connected. I need to know that at any time I can be connected to the Cubs website; I need to read who got brought from the minors. I need instant access to my bank account; it’s so embarrassing when the cashier says,“I’m sorry, sir, that card has been denied.”

I need to have it with me all the time. Maybe you saw me pull it out of my pocket a few Sunday’s ago just as Pastor Caroline was beginning the Children’s Message; I forgot to set it to vibrate and didn’t want it to go off in the middle of Pastor Caroline’s sermon. On Friday, I had it in the pocket of my costume during the School House Rock, Jr. Performances; I did have it turned off. Unfortunately it must have “pocket dialed”; during one of my scenes I received an incoming phone call! Still, I didn’t take it out of my pocket for the next two performances...I was afraid of being isolated, disconnected, unplugged!

A bit true and a lot tongue-in-cheek. Yet, in a manner of sorts, it reflects the reality of how strong the need is for connection and how deep the distress of being unplugged can be.

In the late 1950’s, Dr. Harry Harlow, a research psychologist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison conducted controversial yet ground breaking research on maternal-separation and social isolation experiments with newly born rhesus monkeys.

The experiments consisted of separating day old rhesus monkeys from their mothers. Some were put in labs cells with a “mother” made of wire or a “mother” made of wire with a terry cloth exterior or in complete isolation cells with no surrogate mother. Both mothers and the isolation cell provided the infants with food. The longer the baby monkeys were kept from real moms and the longer they were in isolation, the more devastating and debilitating the social development became. Additionally, the longer in isolation, the less likely a monkey would be able to recover from the emotional anorexia and social isolation. The monkeys needed to be plugged in to survive.

In today’s gospel, Jesus uses another “I am” metaphor saying,“I am the vine, you are the branches.” It’s an easy enough image to imagine. Jesus, the vine, brings nourishment to us, the branches. If we’re not connected to Jesus, like a branch cut off from a vine, we experience no growth...we bear no fruit; cut-off from Jesus we can do nothing.

This “I am” statement of Jesus is my least favorite; probably because I don’t enjoy gardening nor yard work. No matter how much time, how much weed killer, how much new grass seed, how much fertilizer used, my yard remains the same; overgrown with crab grass, dandelions, and a nasty variety of Creeping Charlie called mouse-eared chickweed.

If Jesus had said,“I am the wireless internet, you are a Blackberry,” that’s an image I more easily resonate with. Unless I keep connected to the wireless internet, my Blackberry can do nothing; my ability to be productive diminishes; I’m left unplugged from favorite websites and search engines, documents and files, applications and software. Only after the network connection, the power source, is restored am I able find information, connect with you through email, connect with online communities like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. Once the network is “down” it can be rather difficult to restore the connection.

Over the course of a lifetime, there will be moments when we become “unplugged.” Time when our networks go “down.” Times when it becomes difficult to restore connections with our families, our friends, our classmates, our colleagues. There will also be times when we become unplugged from our faith; moments when all that we believe goes “down.”

Perhaps in two ways. When you feel unplugged and your networks are down, consider the words of the Psalmist:

“I lift up my eyes to the hills-from where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. The Lord who keeps you will not slumber nor sleep. The Lord will keep your life...your going out and your coming in from this time on and forever more.”

In your going out...your coming unplugged...it is the Lord God who will help restore the connections you need in our lives each and every day. In your coming in...when you are connected and you find yourself with another whose faith network has crashed so hard and feels so unplugged from God, as one who is plugged into the same powerful network...God in Christ Jesus...you will keep that person’s faith until she’s ready to take it back and be reconnected with the one who made heaven and earth.

As those who are plugged in to the same power source, we do this for each other; there will a be a time when I’ve come unplugged and I’ll need you to carry my faith until I’m ready to take it back, too.

Today and always, whenever you see your bellybutton or answer your Blackberry or other such devise, remember that you and I have been created for connection. Connection with one another and connection with and in the risen Christ Jesus; the one who says to people like you and me,“I am the wireless network, you are the Blackberries. Those who plug into me and I in them are productive, because apart from me you can do nothing.”