John 15:1-175th
Sunday of Easter
Elizabeth M. Deibert
6
May 2012
We will
spend much of our May worship, the end of the Easter season in the heart of the
Farewell Discourse in the Gospel of John.
John is the mystical Gospel, quite different in character from Matthew,
Mark, and Luke, the Synoptics. In the
narrative context of John’s Gospel, Jesus has these several conversations with his
disciples, as he prepares them for his death and departure.
Today’s
reading is the last of the seven great “I am” sayings in this Gospel. Jesus says, “I am the bread of life…I am the
light of the world…I am the door to the sheepfold…I am the good shepherd….I am
the resurrection and the life…I am the way, the truth, and the life….I am the
true vine.. . These are central images
of the Jewish faith, now fulfilled in Jesus.
Because he is the culmination of these hopes, Jesus’ physical departure
from us changes nothing: we can
remain/abide in him and he in us, as he is the vine and we are the
branches. We must remain connected to
be fruitful, to prove that we are really are his disciples.
Hear for the
Spirit speaking to you through the Word of the Lord in John 15:
John
15:1-17
"I
am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. 2 He removes
every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes
to make it bear more fruit. 3 You have already been cleansed by the
word that I have spoken to you. 4 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. 5 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. 6 Whoever does not abide in me is thrown
away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the
fire, and burned. 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you,
ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 My Father
is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. 9
As the Father has loved me, so I have
loved you; abide in my love. 10 If you keep my
commandments, you will abide in my love,
just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. 11 I have said these
things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. 12
"This is my commandment, that you love
one another as I have loved you. 13
No one has greater love than this, to
lay down one's life for one's friends. 14 You are my friends if you do
what I command you. 15 I do not call you servants any longer,
because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called
you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from
my Father. 16 You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed
you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give
you whatever you ask him in my name. 17 I am giving you these
commands so that you may love one
another. (NRSV)
If you’ve been around Peace any length
of time, you will have noticed that I do not miss any opportunity to preach on
something related to gardening and growing.
I love to plant flowers and watch them grow. I love to plant basil because it grows so
quickly from seed that I get from the plants I already have. I love to plant Coleus because I can propagate
it so easily from cuttings. I love to
plant vines like Mandevilla and Jasmine and Bouganvillea and help them climb
and curl around trellises and trunks and poles.
I love to prune and cut grass and pull weeds when I am angry. Whack, whack, cut, cut, pull, pull weeds. I love to plant churches too, but they are much
harder work. They require lots of water
and TLC. And I’ve noticed those who do
not produce fruit, who do not get connected in meaningful ways to others on the
vine, naturally wither and fall away. What
churches need is lots of sun and Son.
They need SUN for a good mood – that’s why you moved to Florida, and
they need SON for their growth in faith, that is why you came to Peace.
Peace is a church where you can get a high
Christology theology, while getting a broad ecclesiology. That’s
why anyone seeking Christ is welcome to the table here. It’s why the doors are always open here. It’s
why the essential questions for joining are trust in Jesus Christ, desire to
turn away from sin and to lean into God’s grace, and the intent to get
involved. A Presbyterian minister
friend once said to me, “I am a theological conservative and a social
liberal.” I’m with him on that. I think the church will wilt without a tight
connection to Jesus Christ. And with a
tight connection to Jesus Christ, you cannot help but grow into an open church,
a church for everyone whom Christ loved – everyone!
Of course, Christ says in this passage
that those who are growing but not producing fruit need to be cut, and those
not producing enough fruit need pruning.
Pruning does not feel good or even look good at first, but it is
good. My neighbor thought I had killed the hedge
between us, but in time, it was healthier than ever because of my radical
pruning. So it is for us when God
prunes us back, removes our deadness, trims off our non-essentials or our
overgrowth. It humbles us.
Christians, and especially Presbyterians,
love to grow in knowledge, but if knowledge does not produce fruit, then
whack. As we said in the Confession of
1967, “Wise and virtuous people through the ages have sought the highest good
in devotion to freedom, justice, peace, truth, and beauty. Yet all human virtue, when seen in the light
of God’s love in Jesus Christ, is found to be infected by self-interest and
hostility. All people, good and bad
alike, are in the wrong before God and helpless without God’s forgiveness….No
one is more subject to the judgment of God than the one who assumes he or she
is guiltless before God or morally superior to others.” Now the Church has been filled with some
folks who thought they were superior in morals, in education, in social
justice, in Biblical and theological studies, in pastoral sensitivity, and in
musical tastes. And our tradition is
getting pruned, perhaps for our arrogance in many of these areas.
All that really matters to God is
fruitfulness. Are you connected to the
vine and are you being fruitful? How
will Christ know if we are being faithful disciples? By our fruit. Pauls tells the Galatians that the fruit of
the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness,
gentleness, and self-control. Does that
describe you? Does that describe us
together? Unfortunately, witty,
sophisticated, well-educated, determined, financially secure, athletic,
diligent, good-looking, and quick to judge were not in the list.
You cannot be fruitful without being
attached to the vine. You need the
life-blood of Jesus Christ in your veins.
That’s why we need a weekly communion.
The unity of Word and Sacrament is what nourishes our faith. It feeds us and strengthens us to produce
fruit.
Jesus says to those whose feet he had washed
before the Last Supper, “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much
fruit and become my disciples.” Become
his disciples! We thought they already
were his disciples. But no, they have
more fruit-bearing to do to truly become his devoted and joy-filled
disciples.
Jesus wants to be in the mutual
relatedness of friendship, not mere master and servant, boss and employee,
parent and child. To help us appreciate
the kind of loving relationship Jesus is describing, we need to have more words
for love. There are three types of love that Aristotle
and Aquinas spoke of in Latin: There’s benevolen’tia, from which we get the
word, benevolence. This is the love of a
superior that wills the good of another.
Like a boss who cares for his or her employee, or a parent who is
nurturing a child. There is concu’piscen’tia,
the love of desire, in which one hopes to get something from the person
loved. It is motivated by the desire
for fulfillment. Better than both of
these is the love called amici’tia. This is the love Jesus describes in John
15. “ I do not call you servants…but I
have called you friends.” Christ
empowers us to be his friends and gives us the greatest love of all, the
sacrificial and mutual love of agape
– that the great Greek word for depth of love which is used 9 times in 5 verses
in this passage. This is the love that
makes us one, that fills us up and makes us able to be channels of Christ’s love.
What people see first is the branch,
not the vine? Why do people walk away from church or never
bother to come? Often because we, the
branches, are not very fruitful. People
see the branch with all its deadness, or its wilted, rotten fruit. Who wants to be part of that? I took photos in my back yard of a lovely
yellow Mandevilla to show you the difference between a branch that is still
connected to the vine and a branch that has been severed from its source of
strength. After just one afternoon
disconnected from the vine, this branch is dying.
You too will wilt if you are not
connected to the vine, Jesus Christ?
Are you building into your life the devotions of prayer, Bible study,
and regular worship?
Are you working in your own life to
obey Christ’s commands or are you just complaining about other people who don’t
view the world as you do? Are you looking to the church and to
your family and friends to get your own needs fulfilled or do you really care
what their needs might be? Are you
committing yourself to develop a more peaceful lifestyle that is a blessing to
others, as you reach out in friendship and compassion toward all those around
you? You have ample opportunities here to develop the
peace of Christ in your life. We are
offering a class on that right now.
We’re offering a class which bridges the chasm between science and religion. And we have ministry teams, men’s and
women’s groups all of whom pray together, so we might grow into more fruitful,
faithful disciples.
We all need the spiritual nourishment
of a strong connection to the vine. We
need build a strong relationship with Christ for weathering the storms of life,
so you will not break off when the high winds blow through. But wind is not bad. Trees in greater wind have adaptive growth
patterns in greater wind. They grow
shorter; they develop a spiral grain in their trunk; they put their roots a
little deeper; and they develop smaller leaves, creating less drag in the
wind. In the stormy times of life, we
need to protect ourselves with adaptive change too. We need to avoid over-extending ourselves; we
need to stay rooted and grounded in Christ.
Build a connection to Christ that will endure and make you fruitful in
all your relationships. Abide in the
love of Christ, which will feed your soul with spiritual food and strengthen
you to love others. There is no excuse for people calling
themselves Christian and not working at keeping the great commandment. Christ has called you friends. Act like you know him, for Christ’s sake. Bear fruit – fruit that will last.
(credit to Gerard Sloyan, Interpretation Commentary on John and to
the writers of The Lectionary Commentary,
edited by Van Harn, for some of these concepts)
