May 2, 2021
Hope Lutheran Church
Rev. Mary Erickson
John 15:1-8; 1 John 4:7-21
Connected to the Vine
Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.
This is the time of year when you see The Old Farmer’s Almanac in the magazine stand at the grocery store. The Almanac contains a bevy of information: moon phases, tides, regional weather forecasts. Each year’s edition also includes short articles on a wide range of topics.
Several years ago, they published a fascinating article on how to grow a huge pumpkin worthy of the county fair blue ribbon. Here’s what you do. First, you have to trim all but one pumpkin per vine. That focuses all of the vine’s energy on the one fruit. If you have more fruit on the vine, the pumpkins will never be able to grow to supersized.
You also want to baby your pumpkin. Keep an eye on it so that it doesn’t get too much sun. That might burn and damage the top. Also, make sure its underside isn’t sitting in a muddy place. You don’t want your pumpkin to rot from the underbelly.
And finally, keep a close watch on the pumpkin’s connection to the vine. Sometimes they can grow in such a way that they actually snap themselves from the vine. When that happens, it’s all over. So make sure that the vine is free from impediment.
Fruit on a vine, how does it happen? How does it grow? Jesus uses the metaphor of a grapevine in a vineyard. Jesus is the vine and his heavenly Father is the vine grower. Tending the grape vines requires pruning. The vine must be cleared of excessive branches to encourage overall vitality.
I remember listening to someone who had bought a tree from a nursery. Part of the service included the delivery and planting of the tree they’d purchased. The delivery day came and the man from the nursery arrived with the tree. He dug the hole in the yard and planted the young tree. Before he left, he asked the new tree owner, “Would you like me to prune the tree for you?” The owner said, “Sure, thanks.”
So then the tree man started pruning. And he really went at it! The new owner’s eyes began to bulge and he started to get increasingly nervous as he watched limb after limb come down. Finally, the tree guy stopped cutting. The owner looked at his poor tree. It looked pathetic, a shadow of its former self.
The tree guy looked over at the owner and said, “Yeah, I took a lot off. I always ask people if they want me to prune their tree before I leave. You need to cut back on them when they’re transplanted. And as the new owner, you don’t have the heart to cut away what needs to go.”
As people of faith, we’re connected into Christ’s vine. So what does pruning mean for us? Do we have the heart to cut away what needs to go?
Maybe we’re overextended. We don’t have enough energy to do justice to all the projects we’ve got going. It’s draining us and leaving us exhausted. Something has to go. That’s one way we might need pruning. We’re trying to accomplish more than we have energy and time for.
But there’s another kind of pruning needed, too. Each one of us has personal characteristics and behaviors that are destructive. They pull us down and prevent us from bearing good fruit.
How do we identify them? How do raise our self awareness to the level that we can recognize our faults? Are there jealousies or angry feelings that need to be pruned? Do we have obsessive thoughts that sap our energies?
I’d like to lift up a very old and established spiritual practice called The Examen. The Examen comes to us from the Jesuit community. It’s a very simple practice. At the end of our day, we take a few moments to reflect on the day that just was. It’s an intentional time to consider inner self. You look at yourself in a mirror to tend to your outward appearance. The Examen is like a mirror for your inner life.
Here’s how it goes: First, simply place yourself in God’s presence. Give thanks for the grace and tender mercies filling your life. Then review the day that’s drawing to a close. Just briefly walk through your day and take account of what happened. As you do so, focus on your feelings. How did you respond in particular situations? Were there things that drew you closer to God? What occurrences pulled you away from God? Then think about what you might want to change going forward. Lift your day up to God and then look forward to tomorrow.
It’s a pretty basic process, and maybe you already sort of review your day. But there’s something about presenting the day to God. God is the great vinedresser and God will point out the things in need of pruning. We take it one day at a time.
Even the healthy vines need pruning. We all need it, and there’s never any end to the baggage we can unburden ourselves from!
So there’s the pruning. If you want that blue ribbon pumpkin, there will be pruning! But the other critical item is minding the connection to the vine. If the pumpkin breaks away from the vine, that’s it – no more growth.
In this brief passage from John’s gospel, Jesus uses the word “abide” no less than eight times! “Abide in me as I abide in you.” Jesus says that it’s impossible for the branches to bear fruit unless they abide in the vine. The vine is the life source. The vine provides the energy that fuels the branch. No vine, no energy. No energy, no fruit.
The word “abide” also came up in our first reading. That letter was also written by John. John really likes this abiding thing! In that passage, the word “abide” appears six times. Abiding is obviously a critical phenomenon for John! John wants to make it crystal clear how essential it is to abide in God. God is the source of life energy.
Outside of God, there is no vitality. Disconnected from the vine, the branch can’t bear fruit. We wither away and dry up.
As God’s children, what fruit is it that we bear? What fruit do we produce when connected to the God-vine? John tells us in his letter:
“God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” 1 John 4:16
God is love. When we’re connected to the God-vine, the fruit we bear is love. And if you think John went overboard in repeating the word “abide,” that’s nothing compared to his use of “love!” In today’s reading, John repeats the word “love” a whopping 27 times!
Friends, God is love, that’s the heart and soul of it. God is love, and when we ABIDE in God, when we’re tapped into God, that divine love will course through and fill us. Abiding in that love, we bear fruit. Our lives turn into God’s love. As we abide in God, divine love shapes the fruits of love in our actions within this beautiful world. We act in love, we speak in love, we frame our thoughts within the canopy of God’s love.
Like that giant pumpkin, there are times when other forces press against our connection to the vine. There are other influencers; other voices torque against us. They twist us about with false narratives. They whisper that we’re not loved or lovable. They try to convince us that we’re falling short, we’re not trying hard enough, we’ll never measure up. And they point us against our neighbor. They raise up suspicions and mistrust, hatred and prejudice. They kindle notions of dangers and threats.
Very gradually, these voices of self loathing and mistrust of the neighbor contort us until our connection to God’s vine becomes strained. And when that happens, we begin to wither inside. The goodness and love of God go from a constant flow to a trickle. As the saying goes, if God feels distant, guess who moved?
Something moved within us. Forces other than the divine are twisting us off from the source of divine life and love and light. That’s why John urges us to ABIDE. Abide in God.
The great Methodist hymnwriter Charles Wesley blessed us with the beautiful hymn “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling.” It’s really an ode to abiding in God. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.
Listen to his words: Fix in us thy humble dwelling, all thy faithful mercies crown.” That’s abiding.
And here: “Breathe, oh, breath they loving Spirit into ev’ry troubled breast.” When the alien voices whisper in our ears and trouble our hearts, the grace of God comes through the Holy Spirit to renew our connection to the holy vine.
Let us pray:
Finish then thy new creation, pure and spotless let us be;
let us see thy great salvation perfectly restored in thee!
Changed from glory into glory, till in heaven we take our place,
till we cast our crowns before thee, lost in wonder, love, and praise! Amen.
