The Rev'd Kenneth H. Saunders III
Christ Episcopal Church
Cleveland, NC
RCL Year B (Easter 5) - May 10, 2009
One of the things that I have noticed while living in Cleveland is that there are many talented gardeners… Growing everything from crops to personal gardens of flowers and vegetables, folks from Cleveland know something about planting something in the ground and tending to it, and making it grow and bear fruit. The ground here must be good for it. Since we have been living here, Kelly and I have taken up planting roses again.
So, for a gardening congregation, we know something about vines and branches. I know that when you prune roses, you need to cut the stem back to where you see new growth in order to let the branch take its course, uninhibited by the old growth that has bloomed.
At first it seems as if the bush is smaller, but once the new growth is given room and allowed to flourish, it takes off and grows… It grows into a strong bright brilliant bush, producing more beautiful blooms and buds than it did previously… but it is always a product of its strong root and stalk. For a rose, the stems and the new growth receive its nourishment from the stalk, it cannot live independently. If it is cut, separated from the stalk, it has no life in it, and it will wither and die.
In our gospel lesson today, Jesus uses a common metaphor (the vineyard) from the 5th Chapter of Isaiah – one that his disciples would recognize… It was a description of Israel’s relationship to God – and He used it in order to describe the relationship between the disciples and Himself.
The fifth chapter of Isaiah starts out...
I will sing a song for the Lord.
He is the one I love.
It's a song about his vineyard Israel.
The one I love had a vineyard.
It was on a hillside that had rich soil.
He dug up the soil and removed its stones.
He planted the very best vines in it.
He built a lookout tower there.
He also cut out a winepress for it.
Then he kept looking for a crop of good grapes.
But the vineyard produced only bad fruit.
The prophet tells of a people, cared for, given the best that they could get, provided for in every aspect, yet non-productive – producing bad fruit (or in some translations – wild grapes). He goes on to tell of the demise of God’s chosen people that lived there life apart from the care and comfort of the vine grower.
Jesus latches onto a metaphor that the people knew, and explains that He (Jesus) is the true vine. He is the part of vine that provides the life and sustenance for the branches (his followers.) And, as God (the Vinegrower) sees that good fruit is being produced, nourished by life in the vine, he tends the vine and prunes it, causing it to provide even more good fruit.
I don’t know how many of you folks have ever been to the vine arbor at the Biltmore house in Asheville… There is a long walkway there with a great trellis over it, where the grape vine grows up and over, almost creating a tunnel. From the outside, it just looks like a giant green tube, full and rich. However, when you go in, walking down the walkway in the arbor, you can see all the beautiful grapes hanging down, good fruit, plump and rich, ready for the picking.
I get that image in my head when I hear this passage. In that situation, we cannot see the fruit unless we are in the arbor. Being down under covered by this wonderful vine dwelling in it – protected, almost as if we were in a cocoon – a cocoon in where we are formed and transformed to be spiritually awakened as a new person in Jesus Christ.
Jesus says, “abide in me as I abide in you.” He reminds us that we cannot bear good fruit by ourselves; we must be an active part of the vine, connected to it so that we can be nourished and tended to… We cannot just grow anywhere we want to… we follow the trellis that is put in place by God, the Vinegrower.
As good a gardeners as we are, we must remember that we are not the vinegrower – God is the vinegrower… Jesus refers to us as the branches…
As his followers, we are branches of Him, the one true vine, getting everything we need from God (the Vinegrower) and being nourished by Jesus (the vine) as we grow and bear good fruit… if we are cut off, or if we cut ourselves off we start to wither and die.
However, if we abide in Jesus, truly abide (live in, dwell with), not just for an hour on Sunday morning, but being connected to every minute of every hour of every day… We will bear much good fruit…
And how do we get to be a branch of that one true vine? How do we get to participate and take part in the life that bears the good fruit? Baptism is how… That is why we hear a the baptism story from Acts this morning too…
We become attached to the vine at baptism, and vow to live a life letting the trellis of the arbor that the vinegrower has put into place support us and sustain us, and letting the vine nourish us…
What is interesting is that the story of Philip baptizing the eunuch from Ethiopia, is that it’s a story of a seeker of the truth, trying to find a religion that would accept him. His body had been mutilated and disfigured.
And Though he could not become a Jew because of his mutilation, he had come to Jerusalem anyway as a seeker, to worship the God of Israel… and he was reading from the prophet Isaiah. Philip came upon him and revealed the scriptures meaning to him, and proclaimed to him the Good News of God in the person of Jesus Christ.
The Ethiopian eunuch was drawn to be connected and share fully in this life that Philip spoke about, but was still afraid that because of his disfigurement, he wouldn’t be able to.
So, when they came upon some water, the eunuch exclaimed, “Look here is water, what is to prevent me from being baptized.” And Philip, knowing that through Christ, all creation is made a new, nothing would prevent him from being baptized and participating in the community of faith, Philip baptized him – connecting him to the vine that we are all a part of.
In our Christian Education class on Sunday mornings, we are looking at how we live and how we make moral and ethical decisions in light of the resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ… How we might live in the resurrection, and recognize the good fruit that is being produced around us and through us…
Life in the resurrection is abiding in God (the vinegrower), letting Jesus (our true vine nourish us and sustain us for our journey of faith) and living out that faith in participation with a community that also nourishes us and sustains us (among other branches that bear that good fruit). This is good news! These are all comforting and encouraging words to hear! But is that all?
So often this seems to be the main just of this lesson, but there’s always more to it than that. If we stop short with these comforting words, we miss the entire message. Life in the resurrection, being branches that bear good fruit requires responsibility and action and it has consequences.
We must not forget that this passage also includes the message of pruning, and being thrown away, and withering – of being thrown into the fire and burned, if we fail to produce “good fruit.” It is the part of this lesson that we don’t often hear, and it is sobering…
The Gospel message is clear, and when we read it closely, in its entirety, we realize that Jesus expects something from each of us. Each of us are connected though the awesome gift of God’s grace in our baptism, accepting us a living members of the body of Christ.
But our responsibility of being connected to this vine, is to be a branch that bears much good fruit, doing the work that Jesus wants us to do… using our resources to build up the kingdom of God, loving one another, and focusing our thoughts and our efforts on learning to be better disciples… All of this means that we are called and expected to answer our Lord’s love with action!
The action of fruit bearing, fruit bearing that is rooted in our baptism and it is sealed with the promise of “I will, with God’s help.” How then shall we live? Maybe the answer to that question is right in front of us. Jesus said, “Abide in me as I abide in you.” This doesn’t mean settle down and relax, it means get busy!
