Being Branches

Thoughts before Worship:

In his Resurrection, Jesus brings us together, plain and simple.  He brings us each together with God, bridging the gap created by sin and the Fall.  He brings us together with one another.  Indeed, he requires that we come together.  Insofar as we are divided from one another (or opposed to one another), we are correspondingly separated from God in Christ.  Insofar as we live apart from others, we fail to be who God created us perfectly to be.  We are created to be together.  We are created to serve one another.  We are created to worship God together with the entire world in unity.

Sermon for the 5th Lord's Day of Easter (5.10.09) - John 15:1-8 

A Wonderful Prayer for the Day

         Sometimes when I’m reading a passage of scripture, I try to read it from a number of different angles, putting myself in the story, or imagining what it must have been like to be this person, or that person in the passage.  This helps me to understand what’s going on in the passage, helps me to hear what God is trying to say to me through a particular piece of Holy Scripture.  If we were talking about living people, we’d use the phrase put yourself in their shoes.  As we continue today, I invite you to let go of our reality a little and experience our text from the Gospel According to St. John from a different angle.  See what you can see.  Pay attention to how you feel and how the disciples with Jesus must have felt.

         I’m a rock, just a simple, everyday rock – big enough for a person to sit on, but not so big as my father, the old block from whom I was chipped.  We stand alongside the road leaving Jerusalem’s City of David going down into the Kidron Valley before it climbs to the Mount of Olives.  We stand between the road and a small vineyard.

         It’s been about a year since that night; I’ll never forget it.  We were just lying there, minding our own business on the night before the Passover.  A teacher and prophet named Jesus and his followers had passed by earlier on their way, presumably, to eat supper together.  A little later, we saw a man – I think it was the one they call Judas – rushing off alone, apparently on a mission.  Much later, we heard the rest of them coming down the road toward us.  Jesus was talking to them as they walked.  Then they stopped directly in front of us.  Jesus even put one of his feet on me as he pointed across us to the vineyard, saying to his disciples, “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” (Jn15.1-2). 

         Looking back, I can see clearly that Jesus was calling his disciples to be faithful and fruitful.  He was using images they could understand, as well as images that had traditionally been used by the people of Israel for God and God’s people: vinegrower, vine, branches.  If God is the vinegrower, then God’s the one who planted the vine, planted everyone, created everyone and everything for a purpose.  You wouldn’t plant a vine without a purpose.  God, the perfect vinegrower, wouldn’t either. 

         We can see God’s purpose if we look at a vineyard, orchard, or flowering bush for a while: I’ve had a lifetime looking at this one.  The vine and the branches are always connected, and there’s also a connection of care through the vinegrower.  This shows that God’s first purpose is relationship between the Son, and all Creation.  What’s more, in any vine or plant, all the branches are related together by the common vine.  Thus, God intends that all Creation, all the branches, grow and be in fruitful relationship with each other.  And finally, plants are created to bear fruit; that’s why they’re planted, whether olive, grape, or rose – to bear fruit that is beautiful.  In its perfection and beauty, the olive, grape, and rose all glorify God.  Beautiful, isn’t it?  I can’t stop thinking about it.

         I now know that Jesus and his disciples were coming from what some are calling his “Last Supper.”  I think Jesus wanted to make sure his disciples knew how to live, how to be fruitful branches that glorify God, who created them for that purpose.  Yet, Jesus also begins to warn his disciples that they, the branches, can only bear fruit if they remain in the vine, in him.

         Jesus tells them, Just as branches can’t bear fruit unattached from the vine, you cannot bear fruit unless you abide in me.  If you abide in me, you’ll bear much fruit, but apart from me, you can do nothing.  If you’re unfruitful, the vinegrower will prune you and eventually cast you out (v.4-6).  Mmm…that’s a warning.  But I’d seen and heard Jesus before – he once sat on me when he gathered a bunch of children to himself – and I don’t think he meant these words negatively.  Abiding in him and being pruned are necessary to bear fruit; that he made a way for abiding and pruning is a great word of hope.  Of course, I’m just a rock, but that’s what I think.

         See, God created all you humans, and all Creation, to bear fruit, which glorifies God.  What fruit are we talking about?  Well…what about peace?  When you work for peace, when others enjoy God’s peace, it’s a fruit that glorifies God.  Or, what about love?  When you love others, when others know and experience love and then share it further, it’s a fruit that glorifies God.  Or teaching others, and proclaiming to them the truth of Jesus?  These are fruits because through them, God transforms the world one life at a time. 

         And the only way branches can bear fruit is by being connected to, abiding in, the vine – Jesus.  This warning sounds harsh if you think about it negatively.  At first, it seemed like Jesus was being exclusive: only when you’re in me, can you bear fruit.  But Dad helped me to see it another way.  See, I’ve seen lots of people who were not yet followers of the Way living fruitful lives: they spread peace, and love, and joy, and reconciliation.  These are good fruits, so they must be in the vine…and here’s the turn…even if they don’t know they’re branches connected to the vine.  Dad helped me to see that God in the Son, through the Spirit is in everyone, enabling them to bear fruit.  It’s just that their fruit isn’t as good, isn’t as ripe and delicious and nutritious, as when they realize and actively abide in the vine. 

         Hmmhmmm….Oh yeah, Dad also wanted me to be sure to tell you something.  Knowing as many humans as he has, he thought you’d like to know about how to “abide” in the vine, in Christ.  From watching and listening to Jesus and his followers, this is what I can see.  Personally, each follower abides in Jesus by attending to his/her spiritual practices: prayer, worship, sharing Christ’s meal, offering, service, helping others, reading and writing, evangelism.  As a whole, abiding in Jesus the Vine means actively living in the Church, Jesus’ Body on Earth.  Through the Church, God continues to prune the branches, enabling them to bear more fruit.  To be a faithful Christian, to be fruitful, you must be actively involved in the community of faith that makes up Christ’s Body. 

         Through the ministry of Christ in the church, God snips away, pruning and cleansing, making you more and more fruitful.  That’s God’s promise, which Jesus conveyed to his disciples that night on the road.  God is the vinegrower.  Plants and vines need pruning and long-term care.  Young vines are not even allowed to bear fruit for a couple years.  Dad tells me that in your area of the world a flower called the pansy actually grows fuller and blossoms more if you pinch off its first blooms.  And all vines tend to grow inward on themselves, choking out growth, fruit, and life, so they need a vinegrower to prune those parts that have turned inward.  As the disciples have shown me, God prunes through the lives and care of others: parents, church friends, teachers.  God prunes through education, through Baptism and Eucharist, and through the Son, the Word of God.

         It’s just like when Jesus said that night, “You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you” (v.3).  At first when I heard Jesus say this, I didn’t understand.  I was about to pipe up my question when Dad sensed my confusion and whispered, “Junior, remember, the Greek word translated as prune can also mean cleanse.”  Ahh…Dad’s so smart (but don’t tell him I told you that).  Jesus has called and warned his disciples in this short lecture, but he’s also promised that they will bear fruit as they were created to do.  They will bear fruit because God the vinegrower is always pruning and nurturing the branches.  They will bear fruit because Jesus, the Word of God, lived, died, and rose again to cleanse the world of sin.  That’s a promise.  That’s a fact. 

         Thus, Jesus tells his disciples with total certainty, My Father is glorified by your fruitful lives of discipleship (v.8).  While this is conditional – if you’re not bearing fruit, God’s not glorified – you must remember the promise.  God is the vinegrower who planted the vine with all its branches.  God’s intent for the vine and branches is for them to bear abundant, perfect, fruit.  And when God makes the branches perfect, they will be able to ask and receive anything.  God will make it happen because that’s what a vinegrower does.  God enables the branches to bear fruit so that their faithful lives glorify God.  Then you’ll glorify God like us; we rocks shout God’s praise continuously (Lk19.40).

         Now, Jr., you know that we’re just rocks.  We’re already just as God created us to be – though we too will be redeemed from the Fall when the Lord comes again in glory to make all things new.  Humans are different.  I’ve told you this a million times.  Humans need to maintain their connection with Jesus in order to be more as God created them to be.  Through Jesus the Vine, God enables them to bear fruit so that their lives glorify God.  We glorify God by being rocks, and sometimes singing or speaking; humans glorify God with faithful, fruit-bearing lives. You are only truly fruitful as God intended when you’re in Christ, when you’re in his Body, the Church.  And you will be pruned for greater fruitfulness.  Go therefore, all of you, and be fruitful by the power of God, that in all things, God might be glorified through you.