Ninety Percent Needs to Go!

The Holy Gospel According to St. John the 15th Chapter

Jesus said, ”I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide 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. I 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. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.

When we lived in New Mexico I re-landscaped our whole yard, front and back.  Part of that project was a vineyard.  Not a big vineyard, just one vine each of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Malbec.  Classic Bordeaux grapes.  When the vines arrived they were just sticks, but after they were planted they grew like mad.  Then came winter and it was time to prune the vines.  Good pruning, I had read, meant that about 90% of the year’s growth should be cut away!  I could hardly bear it!  There had been so much good growth!  This meant cutting 4, 5 even 6 feet of growth back!  But the people who knew how to grow good fruit all said it had to be cut back to just two buds on one little stick for that first year!  They all said that the biggest mistake people make is that they keep too much growth from the previous year.  They insisted on a millenniums’ old, long-known truth about grape vines... Good fruit doesn’t grow on last year’s wood.  Good fruit only grows on the new year’s growth. 

Jesus is the vine and WE are those little pruned back, one inch, stubby, little branches with just a couple of buds.  But Jesus knew we branches… we’d be very tempted to second guess the Vine Grower.  He knew we’d want to keep all that growth from the past.  After all, it was amazing!  Beautiful!  Traditional!  Jesus knew, that we branches would, if given half a chance, take the pruning shears right out of the Vine Grower’s hands and keep all of that beautiful old growth from being pruned away.  

The thing is... you and me… we’re branches.  We’re not the Vine Grower!  Jesus knew, grape branches left unpruned grow lots of vine and lots of leaves and VERY few grapes.  And Jesus knew that if we were left focusing on the past, we’d end up bearing less and less fruit as the year’s ticked by.  To us branches though, pruning seems crazy!  Crazy!  Cutting away all that we worked so hard to grow!  It's crazy... like death being the path to new life-crazy!  But as it turns out, both in growing grapes and in growing abundant life, the way forward means dying to the old and rising to new life… pruning back the old growth and budding into new life.  It’s true for grapes.  It’s true for people.  It’s true for Christ Trinity.  It’s true for Lutherans and it’s true for Episcopalians.  It’s true for all of creation!  But the fact that it’s true, doesn’t change the fact that the “death” part of death and resurrection always feels terrible and the “pruning” part of cutting away so much beautiful growth always feels terrible too.

It feels particularly terrible in those Good Friday-type times, when the death part is right in your face and the resurrection part is still a long way off.  It feels particularly terrible in those pruning-type times, when the shears are out but Spring still seems infinitely far off.  I think that's why things might feel so unsettled and worrisome all throughout Christianity these days.  We're in a pruning season.  Jesus too lived in a pruning season.  The established ways of the religious systems of his day needed to change so that sheep from new folds could be brought in by the Good Shepherd (to painfully mix two week's worth of Jesus' metaphors!)  

We too are in a pruning season.  The Church, as we’ve come to know it, had been growing like mad over the last 500 years but now the season's changed.  It's time for pruning.  The last pruning season was called the Reformation.  For us, on this side of the Reformation, we jump up and down and celebrate all the growth that came out of that time, but for those who lived in it... the church they knew and loved... all the ways and methods and institutions that were deeply cherished... they were all suddenly being pruned away.  And now again, it's a pruning season.  Formerly fruitful churches, methods, ideas and institutions are struggling.  We branches look at all that beautiful growth our grandparents and great grandparents grew in the past, and now watch helpless as the Vine Grower takes out those heavenly clippers and begins to cut 90% of it away... back to just a stub and a couple of buds, and it feels... it feels TERRIBLE!  

It’s into that unsettling reality, that Jesus tells us here, in this lesson, to trust the Vine Grower.  I know... it’s hard for me too!  But Jesus is telling us to hold on and trust the Vine Grower as He goes about the work of pruning us as individuals and pruning the Church.  Jesus is telling us to trust that God, the Divine Vine Grower, really does know what God’s doing, EVEN when that means huge amounts of what we had grown before is now being dramatically pruned back to what feels like a few too-stubby, too-little shoots and a couple of tiny buds!  

Jesus is the vine and we... we are simply the branches.  As branches, second guessing the One with the pruning shears is probably not what we should be doing.  Our job, in fact our ONLY job, is to ABIDE.  To ABIDE in the vine, to live and be intimately and absolutely connected to the True Vine… to Jesus.  To do that we need to stay connected here… deeply tied to this church community… intimately connected to the Body of Christ.  Because it is here, connected with the True Vine that we are fed and cared for through Bread and Wine... Through Word and Water... through Kindness, Compassion and Generosity.  

Because it is in staying connected with God and with each other that we are able to hold onto the promise... that even though all this pruning looks and feels terrible now, the day will come... just like the Son of God came... just like Easter came... just like the Reformation came... when all the pruning of this season will break into a new season with never before seen growth that bears good fruit in an abundance we had never before even thought possible. 

It is not easy, with the Divine Viticulturist's pruning shears going nuts on the vines we've held most dear… It's not easy to trust that the Vine Grower is an artist and not a maniac... That God knows what God is doing.  It's NOT easy.  Which is why we need each other more than ever to help one another ABIDE in Christ.  We need each other more than ever to connect deeply with Jesus and with one another in worship and in service and simply in spending time in one another's company.  Because it is in that ABIDING that we will be given what we need in order to trust, that in spite of all this pruning... in due season, the Vine Grower will make through us, new and abundant life, new growth and an overwhelming harvest of the very best fruit.  Amen.

The Top 3 Things You’ve Never Thought About the 23rd Psalm

Psalm 23

The Lord is my shepherd;

  I shall not be in want.

 The Lord makes me lie down in green pastures

  and leads me beside still waters.

 You restore my soul, O Lord,

  and guide me along right pathways for your name’s sake.

 Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil;

  for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. 

 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

  you anoint my head with oil, and my cup is running over.

 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,

  and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. 

Sometimes it’s the things we’re most familiar with that we take the least time to examine closely.  The Psalm for today is one of those things.  Almost everyone knows something about the 23rd Psalm.  Even people who have never been in a church have probably heard it in a movie scene or something.  Most folks, regardless of their level of churchiness, probably even know that first line… “The Lord is my shepherd.”  But have you ever taken the time to really dive into it?  To really notice what’s happening in this thing?  Yeah, me neither!  So, with a click-bait title… here are “The Top 3 Things You’ve Never Thought about the 23rd Psalm.”  

The first thing you’ve likely never thought about comes from your 8th grade English class.  Don’t worry, there won’t be a test.  The Psalm starts out with “The Lord is my Shepherd” and “The Lord makes me lie down.”  THEN, it changes to… “YOU restore my soul, O Lord.”  Did you catch that grammatical shift?  It starts out talking about God in the third person… like you were telling someone ABOUT God at the grocery store.  But then suddenly, it shifts to speaking TO God in the second person!  Oh, there you are, God!  

This is really a great reminder of how much power there is in telling and hearing the story.  When the Psalm says, “I shall not be in want” and then paints the picture of green pastures and still waters, the Jewish folks hearing that would have been immediately put in mind of the Exodus… when the people of Israel were freed from slavery in Egypt and led across the wilderness to the Promised Land.  The Hebrew verb for “not being in want” used in THIS Psalm, is the same one used in THAT story when God provided manna to feed the people, just like shepherds provide green pastures to feed sheep.  And that same verb is the one used in THAT story, when water flowed from the rock to give them something to drink, just like sheep led to still waters to get a drink.

The power in remembering that ancient story isn’t that it magically forces God to suddenly show up.  No.  The power of this story is that it changes US… in the re-telling of this story we remember, no matter what’s going on around us, that God’s never left God’s people and we’re ALL God’s people!  God’s not somewhere, out there in the third person!  God’s right here… God with us… always!  

The second thing you might not have thought about is the part about the Valley of the Shadow of Death.  Because this Psalm is used at funerals… A LOT… I think we often assume “Death” is the exclusive sort of darkness this Psalm is allowed to cover.  Some less poetic, but more accurate translations, translate this instead as the “darkest valley” or the valley of the “deepest darkness.”  Those end up being more accurate because in truth, this Psalm covers EVERY sort of life’s darknesses.  The death of someone we love is for sure one of life’s deep darknesses, but life doesn’t limit dark times to just that one situation.  Life, in my experience anyway, seems to be wildly creative, dealing out ALL SORTS of deep darknesses with the generosity of Oprah giving out cars… You get some darkness and you get some darkness and you get some darkness!  This Psalm insists that God is PRESENT with us, caring for us, and walking with us through ALL of life’s darkest times.  

This part of the Psalm also reminds us that God’s M.O. is presence rather than magic.  God doesn't magic dark times away, swoop down with angels to fly us off, or numb us into a narcotic-like haze until it’s all over (all of which I’ve asked God for over the years, by the way).  God’s M.O. is to walk with us, be present with us, THROUGH those times.  Once again, reciting this Psalm, telling each other about the bad old days, doesn’t “magic” the latest darkness away… but it does remind me that in spite of how this current darkness feels… God will see me through this latest dark time too.  

The third thing you might not have ever thought about this Psalm is that bit where God prepares a table for me in the presence of my enemies, anoints my head with oil, and pours a cup to overflowing.  This DOESN’T say, “God prepared me a fabulous dinner, locks my enemies outside where they’ll be cold, hungry and finally get what they deserve!”  That may be what I WANT it to say… but it doesn’t say that.  

What this says is that this finally-able-to-let-your-guard-down, overly abundant, feast happens in the PRESENCE of my enemies.  That goodness and mercy only happens when we’ve been reconciled with our enemies… when our enemies sit down and join us at the table and become our friends.  Goodness and mercy is God’s desire for us and all of creation and God isn’t just “following us” with it.  God's "Pursuing us” with it!  Pursuing is actually a much better translation!  And God PURSUES us with enough goodness and mercy for EVERYONE… so that we can ALL finally sit down, be reconciled to one another and finally, finally, FINALLY be at peace. 

So, there you are!  “The Top 3 Things You’ve Never Thought about the 23rd Psalm.”  A grammatical reminder that God’s not far off, out there, somewhere, but always right here with us.  An honest acknowledgement that life has more than just one particular deep darkness, but that God sees us through them all.  And finally, a promise that God is not just following us, but is pursuing us, dogging us, chasing all of creation down with goodness and mercy.  So that all of creation might experience the genuine, lasting sort of peace that comes through reconciliation.  

It turns out, the Lord really IS your shepherd.  You really don’t need to worry and you’re never alone, even walking through the worst of life’s many darknesses.  And God will pursue you and me and all of creation with an abundance of goodness and mercy until we all finally accept God’s unconditional gift of real and lasting peace.  Amen.

The photo above is by Peter Ralston, a wise, good, friend. You can visit his gallery in Rockport, Maine or shop for his work at www.ralstongallery.com

Got Any Snacks?

The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke, the 24th Chapter

Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence. Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.

When Jesus said, “Peace be with you” this wasn’t, Jesus saying, “Hey, guys you look tense.  You should really like, you know, get some peace, man.”  No.  Jesus was ORDERING peace to get into the disciples!  “Hey Peace!  See these joy filled, disbelieving, wondering, freaked out, still hiding behind locked door, disciples?  Get in them now!”  Those disciples couldn’t get peace on their own!  They couldn’t even go OUTSIDE on their own!  In their entirely understandable, overwhelmingly human, completely flesh and blood, guy-who-was-dead-but-now-shows-up, shocked disciple brains… they needed peace, not SUGGESTED to them… No, they needed to be grabbed by the shoulders, thrown in the shower and the faucet labeled “peace which passes all understanding” turned on them full blast until they were soaked to the bone with it.  

We forget, I think, having had this story told for the last 2000 years how traumatic this must have been for the people who first lived it!  The person they had been following for years, who they pinned all their hopes on, gave up jobs, family, friends and everything to follow… had just being brutally crucified!  Then his grave was discovered to be empty!  Then these two jokers, Cleopas and that other guy, show up talking about seeing Jesus on the Emmaus Road and then BAM!  Here he is in their living room!  HOLY S#@T!  If I had been in that room, FIRST I would have said it, THEN I would have done it!  

Those disciples needed very tangible help with their very human, flesh and blood reactions to this mind blowing, earth shattering event.  And so, Jesus says, “Hey, you got anything to eat?”  Wait!  Huh?  Jesus Christ!  They’ve just been through a horror that’ll be told for millennia to come and you want some SNACKS!?  Apparently so… and so the disciples found him some broiled fish.  Not grilled, fried or poached but broiled.  Not baked, steamed, roasted or sous vie, but broiled.  Not sushi, not sashimi, not en papillote, but broiled!  What gives, Jesus?  And what gives Luke, with your oddly specific “broiled” fish thing?  

It turns out that both Jesus and Luke are first pretty smart, and more than that, just a little bit tricksy too.  By asking the disciples this everyday question, “Hey, you guys got some snacks?”  Jesus helps them get their brains un-stuck from that fight or flight, traumatized part of their brains so they at least have a chance at doing something more than just cowering behind locked doors.  Human brains can’t resist thinking about a question.  It happens subconsciously, so a question asked is a question wondered about, and in that moment of wondering, locked mental doors are opened up to new possibilities.  Jesus was giving them the peace they needed so that they could step out from behind those locked doors and take one, next, step on The Way they had walked as they followed Jesus in his life before Good Friday.  

Luke was being sneaky here as well.  When Luke wrote his Gospel there was a debate over how the faithful were to follow Jesus after the Ascension.  Some argued that since Jesus was now up in heaven, his disciples should now only concern themselves with heavenly things.  The worries of the flesh, down here, were no longer to be a concern, they argued.  Physical, fleshy, earthly things like sickness, injustice, wounds and hunger were simply inevitable consequences of a broken, flesh-filled world.  It was just something to be endured until we all joined Jesus up in heaven in the sweet by and by.  

But Luke didn’t buy that for a minute!  Because he knew the story of this post-resurrection Jesus with his real, earthly, flesh and blood wounds and with his real, earthly, human, stomach-growling hunger!  And clearly, if Jesus was concerned with those flesh and gut things before HIS ascension… then to Luke it was perfectly clear… us disciples were to be concerned with those things before we went to heaven too!  

Luke reminded those early followers… Christ was PHYSICALLY present, giving his peace.  That the disciples touched his REAL, flesh and blood wounds and fed his PHYSICAL, earthly hunger not with some symbolic, spiritual meal but with a piece of broiled fish!  Luke was reminding them and us that all those human, earthly concerns that Jesus had before Good Friday for God’s people… THOSE were all STILL Jesus’ concerns after Easter too!  This troubled world, filled with broken bodies, imperfect people and difficult neighbors… we aren’t to look past them in our lives, because they all bear the same wounds and hunger of the risen Christ! 

With that oddly specific story about a piece of broiled fish, Luke reminds us that when we reach out to our neighbors in their physical, worldly hurts and pains, their every day grief and brokeness, their earthly flesh and blood, real-life wounds… When we do that… we reach out and touch something holy... in THEIR wounds we encounter the risen Christ with HIS wounds.  In hearing someone whose physical, earthly, growling stomach needs something to eat... we hear the voice of Christ asking for something to eat.  And in giving them something to eat, we see in their face the face of the risen Christ.  

This story insists that our focus is to be here… in THIS world where Jesus breaks into the locked rooms of our biggest fears, gives us his PEACE and asks for something to eat.  And that peace that Jesus gives?  THAT’s the same peace we share with each other every Sunday.  When we share the peace, it's not meant to be just a foretaste of the coffee hour to come, you know.  It’s infinitely more powerful than that!  It’s Christ’s peace we’re commanding to get into one another!  The peace that breaks into fearfully dark, locked places… the peace that snaps us out of our deepest fears... The peace that drives us out into the world, to bind up the broken flesh of our neighbor’s wounds and satisfy the growling stomachs of our neighbor’s most profound hungers.  THAT’s the peace we’ve been given.  THAT’s the peace we give one another every week!  It’s powerful stuff.  Because it empowers us to reach beyond our fears and touch the wounds and feed the hungers of our neighbors… and in doing that, we see the face of the risen Christ.  Amen.

The Joke's On You, Death!

The Holy Gospel According to St. Mark, the 16th Chapter

When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

Today is Easter Sunday AND it’s April Fools Day!  Now, if the world worked MY way, every pew cushion would be a whoopee cushion today!  Some would say we shouldn’t mix these two days, but the truth is, “HE IS RISEN” is the greatest punchline in the history of everything!  Even the punchline to the joke about the golfing priest isn’t as good.  Have you heard that one?  There once was this priest who was an avid golfer. Every chance he could get, he was on the links.  One Sunday morning he woke up and it was a picture perfect day for golfing.  The sun was shining, no clouds in the sky, and the temperature was just right.  The priest just couldn’t stand it.  He called his assistant and told him he was sick and couldn’t do church.  Then he packed the car, and drove three hours to a golf course where no one would recognize him. 

An angel was watching and was disgusted.  He went to God and said, "Look at the priest!  He should be punished for what he’s doing.”  God nodded in agreement. The priest teed up, hit the ball sending it sailing effortlessly through the air and landing right in the cup!  A picture perfect hole-in-one!  The priest jumped for joy!  The angel was shocked!  He turned to God and said, "I thought you were going to punish him?”  God smiled.  "Think about it -- who can he tell?"

Jokes are funny because they are stories with an unexpected ending that take us in a new direction.  Jesus’ resurrection is probably the MOST unexpected ending of any story, EVER!  But reading the story from Mark’s Gospel like we did today, it looks like this was a story that was almost never told!  Where this lesson ends today is where the whole book originally ended!  No one tellin’ nothin’ to nobody!  But over the years, clearly it was too good to keep to themselves and the story got out in the end!  

Speaking of “the end,” an atheist was spending a quiet day fishing when suddenly his boat was attacked by the Loch Ness monster.  In one easy flip, the beast tossed him and his boat high into the air.  Then it opened its mouth, intending to swallow him whole and as the man sailed head over heels, he cried out, "Oh, my God! Help me!”  At once, the scene froze.  The atheist hung in mid-air.  The monster frozen with his mouth wide open.  And a booming voice came down from heaven, "I thought you didn't believe in Me!" The atheist responded, ”Come on God, give me a break!!  Two minutes ago I didn't believe in the Loch Ness monster either!"

That’s a good one, but not the best one.  Like I said the best one of all time has the punchline… ALLELUIA!  CHRIST IS RISEN, HE IS RISEN INDEED!  But even the best punchline isn’t much without the right set up and the set up for this one is hard.  The set up is all the hurt and all the pain, all the injustice, brokenness, and horror of the world… The set up, is that darkness all too often seems overwhelming and light, so very often, doesn’t seem to have a chance.  The set up for this joke is that it seems that the powerful always win, that the answer to violence is always more violence and that death is the inevitable and very final end.  The set up leaves us wondering… just like the original ending to Mark’s Gospel, is that all there is?   It leaves us wondering if death is inevitable, joy improbable and hope, well, just impossible.  

That’s where the setup leaves us… But then, into that tomb of darkness, comes that incredible punchline!  ALLELUIA!  CHRIST IS RISEN, HE IS RISEN INDEED!  Because if death can’t kill you, seriously, what can!?  And if death isn’t the end, then maybe light has a chance too.  Then maybe, along with death… violence, hatred and pain might just grab defeat from the jaws of victory and justice, peace, joy and love will make a buzzer beating come back!  Maybe, just maybe, there could be reason… still… in spite of all evidence to the contrary… that maybe… in the dim, morning, light that shines way back into the far back corner of an empty tomb… maybe in there, just maybe… there’s a reason… for hope.  

You see, this joke has the power to change EVERYTHING for EVERYONE!  But man, do we have trouble remembering the punchline!  The setup… well, that we seem to remember just fine, but it takes something miraculous for us to remember the punchline!  And that’s EXACTLY why we tell the short version of this joke every week.  Both setup AND punchline!  I stand right back there and say, “Therefore we proclaim the mystery of faith.”  And together we say both the setup AND the punchline… “Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again!”  Because once we’ve remembered the punchline, THEN we can remember that impassable seas… well, those can be walked through!  A childless family?  Well, a whole nation of descendants can come from them!  Hungry and thirsty?  Bread can fall from the sky and water can be squeezed from solid rock.  Once we’ve remembered the punchline, we can remember that terrible deserts ALWAYS give way to promised lands.  That the blind end up seeing, the lame end up walking and five thousand hungry folks can eat their fill of fish sandwiches down by the sea, with baskets and baskets of leftovers to spare!  

But that same punchline isn’t just there to remind us of someone else’s miracles from some long past time.  That same punchline is also there to remind us that in our own lives… winter eventually gives in to spring, addictions can turn to sobriety… that the senseless deaths of children can be transformed into improbable movements, that dark, hopeless times can become light-filled, hope-filled times again.  That punchline reminds us that that our anxiety can be replaced by peace and our sadness can be overcome with joy.  Because if God has the power to turn death into life… well then, there’s no good, right or just thing in the world that remains impossible!  So here’s my Easter prayer for us.  Lead us, dear Lord, from death to life, from falsehood to truth; lead us from despair to hope, from fear to trust; lead us from hate to love, from war to peace and may this Holy, Easter laugh fill our hearts, our world, our universe with the endless possibilities that come with new life in You.  Amen.