17 June 2018

Sermon Easter V John 15:1-8 29 April 2018 Year B


            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


[1] John 15:1-5 (The Message, paraphrased)

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