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.
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