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covid-19, Sermon

Abiding in the Branches

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GOSPEL: John 15:1-8
Jesus said: 1“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. 2He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. 3You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. 4Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. 5I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. 6Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”

Abide in me as I abide in you.

Here we are into month 14 of this global and pandemic, while it feels like we are in much the same place that we found ourselves one year ago, so much has taken place during this past year. 

This Easter season has again been a journey begun in Lent, Lent 2020 that is. And when we gathered at the foot of cross on Good Friday and then again the empty tomb on Easter morning with the women who were afraid, our journey barely paused for moment. 

These 14 months have dragged us through much, through world changing times, even as so much of it has been about staying in place and keeping to ourselves. 

In this back half of our second pandemic Easter, Jesus lays out this metaphor of the vine and branches for us. And today, we need as much as ever to hear Jesus’ promise again… the invitation to Abide. 

To stop, to gather ourselves, to lay aside our fretting and worrying, to take a breathe and simply abide.

Abide in me as I abide in you.

This 1st century metaphor of a grape vine may be an image mostly lost on our 21st century ears. While there are certainly many green thumbs out there, grape vines are fairly uncommon in wintery Manitoba. I know because I remember them being uncommon in wintery Edmonton where I grew up. I know because many summers growing up, the back walls of my parent’s house bore the unusual sight of heavy, leafy, green vines growing up makeshift trellises, tended to by my father. Dutifully grown, and pruned each spring and summer. Harvested and picked clean each fall. Carefully wrapped and buried each winter only to be resurrected each spring. 

So unusual were the grapes, that my kindergarten class took a walking field trip to our house to see them. So did other gardeners come from time to time, interested in seeing these uncommon grape vines. 

Now the thing that almost all the first century folks listening to Jesus would have known about grape vines is that they are complicated plant systems. The vines twist and tangle up around grape trellises to find sunlight and air. The branches grow big leaves which protect the fruit from the sun and the rain. Other branches grow to make structure and support space for the fruit to the grow in sheltered areas between vines and branches. The grapes grow in luscious bunches when they find the combination of supported vine, protected shade and space. 

The vine, the support systems, the branches, the leaves all work together in symbiotic harmony to produce fruit. Unlike apples or some other fruit bearing trees and bushes that just seem to grow something no matter the conditions, grape vines need attention and care, they need all the parts of the plant working together towards the common purpose of growing fruit. 

And the branches that don’t work in the system need to be pruned back, even sometimes the branches that do work need to be cut back in order to keep the fruit growing. 

And it is this image of the complicated, fragile plant system that Jesus choose to describe the community of the church. If Jesus were Canadian he would describe a well coached hockey team, with all team members working toward the common goal… the players who weren’t getting cut from the team or traded away. 

The branch who does not abide withers away. 

Abide in me as I abide in you.

Whether it is a withering branch, a hockey player cut from a team, or a church members feeling disconnected from church community… it can feel a little rough to consider being cast out from a community from which we think we should belong. 

A branch withering on its own maybe hits a little too close to home these days. We get what it means to feel like we are withering way having cut pruned from the other branches and vine that we thought we belonged to. 

And on the other hand, we also know of the branches who will not abide. Those who insist on striking out on their own, those who will not abide working in harmony with the community, those who would rather be cut off than be beholden to system working together for the common good. 

Either way the effect is much the same, being cut off from community is life draining. Both for the branch who cannot abide or will not abide, but also for the system as it must heal and regrow to compensate for the loss. 

Abide in me as I abide in you.

And so it feels almost harsh that Jesus seems to suggest that not abiding is cause to get cut off by the vinegrower. Yet, Jesus is not being prescriptive, Jesus is not suggesting condemnation for those who aren’t getting along. 

Jesus is describing what happens to the branch that leaves the plant system. The branch will not abide, so the branch withers and then the branch is thrown into the fire and burned. Immediately our minds turn to the medieval visions of hellfire and brimstone. 

And yet to Jesus’ ancient hearers, hell would not be the place that they would be thinking of. 

Instead, they would imagine the cleansing fire pit of agricultural land. The place where the pruned branches, the branches who will not abide are reclaimed. Reclaimed, found again,  and brought back into the fold, into the plant system. 

These burned up branches are reclaimed and turned into new life, sprinkled as fertilizer onto gardens and vineyards, or added to compost as key sources of nutrients. 

Even the branches who will not abide, the branches that are burned up are still found and reclaimed by the vinegrower and put the purposes of new life. 

The withered branches are not left or abandoned or punished by the vinegrower, but instead are brought back into new life. 

And this complicated system of vines, of branches for leaves, branches for support and branches for fruit, are joined by branches for fertilizer ash. In the vines and branches, the community of the church there is room for all, for all kinds of gifts and skills to join in the work of producing fruit for the sake of the world, for all kinds of people who work in the midst of community and those who have trouble abiding. God vine grower pursues them all and finds a places for in the community that produces life. 

This is good news for us who are withering away these days. Those who of us who are having trouble abiding alone. Those of us who have forgotten how to live in systems and communities tasked with working for new life, for life for the sake of the world. 

That even when life feels as though it is draining from our bodies, God is the One seeking us out, finding and reclaiming us for the sake of the kingdom, putting back into the business of growing into new life. 

As we enter into yet another withering lockdown, as we contemplate our ever shifting and uncertain future, as we imagine what comes next in this topsy, turvey world, as the life feels as though it slowly draining away from us… God is busy at work, pruning, watering, tending and finding a place for us to grow into new life. 

God is making us ready to grow into new life when the time comes, making us ready for life in community, for being part of a system of vines, branches, leaves and fruit… and fertilizer once again. God is preparing us for life in together in the church, for being part of a worshipping, baptizing, word proclaiming, meal gathering, learning, growing, music making, praying, serving, community of faith once again… soon. 

But today, as we wait and wonder for God’s future… Jesus says:

Abide in me as I abide in you.

Sermon

God is pruning the Church

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John 15:1-8

Jesus said, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower.” (Read the whole passage here).

Sermon

Today, Jesus is speaking to his disciples using the image of vines and branches. His words come in the many teachings that Jesus leaves with his disciples on the night of the Last Supper. These words are spoken, knowing that very shortly Jesus will be arrested, tried, and sentenced to the cross.

The disciples have no idea about what is the come, they believed they were simply sharing a passover meal with the friend and teacher. Yet, Jesus is preparing them. Preparing them for what it will mean for him to die.

We know the rest of the story for the disciples. We know that they do not present themselves very well. They protest when Jesus says one of them will betray him. Peter rebukes Jesus for talking about dying. They fall asleep in the garden. One of them cuts off the ear of a servant when Jesus is arrested. Peter denies Jesus 3 times. They all scatter when Jesus is taken away.

The disciples are trying to hold on. Trying to hold on to Jesus, trying to hold on to life. But no matter how hard they protest or misunderstand or try to protect, everything seems to be falling apart around them. And Jesus tried to prepare them for this reality.

We still have the same problem as the disciples. We desperately try to hold on to life at all costs. And we are best at doing it right here, right in the church. Many Christians might find it easier to lose a job, or move out of a family home, or send kids away to university than to imagine closing down their local church. And Jesus is talking about just that today. Jesus is speaking about what it means to be the body of Christ, to be a community that at times needs to be pruned and needs to die.

It is hard for us to imagine letting go. The disciples could not let Jesus go to the cross. The tried in every way they could to keep him from dying, and we are no different. We try to hold on to life at all costs. We search for ways keep alive just a little longer, we want a little more, more time, more people, more resources.

But Jesus is preparing us for what it means to live AND what it means to die as the body of Christ.

The image of the vine and the branches shows us the fullness of life in the church. As the body of Christ we are in a constant state of dying and rising, of life and death. As people of faith we must learn when to let go.

For you see, life in the Church is to practice letting go, not to practice holding on. We know that generations come and go. We know that people and members come and go. We know that pastors come and go. We even know that congregations come and go. And that is why each Sunday we join together and we practice letting go.

We practice letting go through forgiveness. We ask for and receive, we offer and give. We let go of our guilt and sin, we set aside the hurts and grief we carry because of what others have done to us. We ask to be released from the hurt and suffering we have caused to our neighbours and loved ones.

We practice letting go by giving up of self-righteousness. We come to the baptismal font as unclean sinners, and God makes us clean, God declares us forgiven. We come with hands open, as beggars hoping to be fed, and God feeds us with God’s own body and blood. And there is nothing that we bring to earn this gift.

We practice letting go by giving up control. We remind ourselves that there are things that we have done and things we have left undone. We admit that much of what happens to us, to this church, to our community is simply beyond us. And the world marches on with or without us.

This is the life of Church. This is where God meets us. As we let go, as we die to our sin, as we die to our need to control and as we simply die, God meets and gathers, God takes hold of us and makes us alive.

This is how God works in the world. God turns death into life. Like the grape vine that is left out for winter, with branches and rotten grapes still clinging, we hold on to life, any kind of life, even if it is rotten.

But Christ says, “You have already been cleansed , You have been pruned, by the word that I have spoken to you.” Eve while we still hold on, God is doing the work of pruning us, God is making us let go of all the excess, the rotten fruit, the dead leaves, all the things that keep us from dying AND because of that keep us from living. Like a vine-grower that knows how to not only make us alive, but knows how to make us bear good fruit, God knows how to cut away from us all the things that keep us from bearing fruit. God prunes us of our sin, of our self righteousness and God prepares us to die.

And so it is with us. We also die, so that we can become alive again. We live and die as the Body of Christ, as a congregation of believers. We come each week to die to our sin, only to be forgiven with new life. We watch as members go from our community, and generations get older, only to see new members join our community, only to welcome new generations in our midst.

And all the while, even as we do our best to hold on to rotten fruit and the dying memories of the past long gone, God is pruning us and burying us. But God does not put us in the ground in order to end us, but we die and are buried so that we can bear new life once again. New and luscious, green and leafy, fruit filled life.

Amen.