A common mistake for new growers of
grape vines is failure to prune the vines enough. It’s a great temptation, when
you see all those bare vines you just know are going to give you great bunches
of grapes all summer long, to trim away just a little. New gardeners especially
can be tentative because it seems cruel to cut off that which will bear
something later this year. But will it?
Good thing for us, God, although at
times seeming unnecessarily tough with the pruning shears, God never hesitates
to cut out the old growth so new growth can bear fruit. It’s only when grape
vines are properly pruned that they bear much fruit.
There’s
something to be said for the timing on pruning as well. Midwinter – when the
sap is low and all the canes have hardened is the time to get in there and cut
everything down. And in the first winter of a new vine, it’s best to prune away
almost ninety percent of the growth.
As a gardener,
that kind of pruning is often painful to undertake. We look at the bare vines
in Midwinter, so many of them, and we imagine the lush leaves and all the fruit
hanging down in a few months. But that vision is a temptation and a lure, not
the truth. Pruning is the only way to make new growth that bears fruit. New
growth is the only way to make a grape vine bear fruit abundantly.
The metaphor of the vine reminds us
the Christian life is about more than just our individual lives and our level
of comfort. Pruning reminds us the Christian life is communal as well as
personal. Vines have a multitude of branches and endings but only one
beginning. All branches lead to the same vine. Their connection goes to one
point.
The verdict is
still open on whether or not plants feel pain, but to the gardener doing the
pruning, even though he or she knows it is for the best, the act of pruning seems
painful. It is only when grapevines are pruned properly that they will bear
abundantly. It may not be what we like right now, but pruning is inevitable if
we want abundant fruit.
This is the
situation we find ourselves in at St. Alban’s. During a transition time it’s
easy to look at vines and leave them as is. Or to get out the shears and slash
away without any regard to what is being removed, although that’s much less
likely in the church. We tend toward tangled vines rather than over pruning. Of
necessity at times, pruning happens during a transition. We have, in fact, just
done a painful pruning with the rummage sale. The parish has changed, the
people have changed, and the resources to conduct the sale are no longer
present. Yes, we are exploring other options. But, for the moment, we have
pruned the rummage sale. Who knows what abundant fruit may come because we were
brave enough to say, “It will be painful, but it is time. Pruning must happen.”
So if pruning
is painful and yet necessary, where does that leave us when we take out the
shears? Maybe it is this: we need to remind ourselves we are the vines. Nothing
can take from us the good years, the fun years, the connecting with one another
as we huffed furniture about, dusted books, sorted kitchenware and hung
clothing on hangers. The dissolving into laughter over an item no one could
identify but for which everyone tried to come up with a purpose so it could be priced
and sold. Sorting and sifting, lugging and laughing, and being at home in this
place by connecting with one another.
Jesus invites
us to stay connected to him in order to bear his fruit. And it is only through
that connection that God is able to prune away what needs to go. Each snip of
the pruning shears sets us free to see and hear God more clearly and to follow
him more nearly.
Jesus offers us
a way to accept the pain of pruning. We have a companion in the pain. Our
companion in this pain is the Jesus who is fully human and fully divine. Jesus
knows the pain of being human, and of being pruned.
To have this companion in both our
pain and our joy it is to make our home with him. “Abide” in me, could just as
easily be translated, “Make your home with me,” or “stay with me.” And this is
the invitation Jesus offers us: to connect with him and with one another and
explore how these connections will inform and change all that we do in Jesus’
name.
Making our home with Jesus means
becoming a disciple of Jesus and being deeply committed and connected to him. It
means accepting that pruning will happen to us.
You can connect to something other
than God. There are lots of other vines that are not the true vine. There are
plenty of other things to which we can connect: money, power, health, the
pursuit of pleasure and idleness. But that is life away from the vine. And when
this happens the branches wither.
Instead, Jesus invites us to make our
home with him, to live with him, to be joined with him in life on the vine.
Jesus invites us with these words today and every day,
"I
am the Real Vine and my Father is the Grape Farmer. He cuts off every
branch of me that doesn't bear grapes. And every branch that is grape bearing
he prunes back so it will bear even more. You are already pruned back by
the message I have spoken. Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do
in you. In the same way that a branch can't bear grapes by itself but only by
being joined to the vine, you can't bear fruit unless you are joined with me. I
am the Vine; you are the branches. When you're joined with me and I with you,
the relationship is intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant.
Separated, you can't produce a thing.[1]
AMEN.
The Rev Nicolette
Papanek
©2018
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