This week I planted my first ever vegetable garden. Now, I have helped my parents and grandparents in the garden many times, but this is the first time that these beautiful plants are all my responsibility.
I’ve prepared the ground. I dug little holes and planted the seeds and the seedlings. I have watered my garden and I’m waiting anxiously for sprouts to appear. And more than anything – I’m waiting for the fruits of my labor, the work of my very own hands – carrots and tomatoes and cucumbers and all of the other wonderful things that I planted.
I guess with all of this blood, sweat and tears… yes, I have the blisters on my hands to prove it… it might come as no surprise that I’m resonating a little bit with the vinedresser from our mornings gospel reading.
But can I also say that I am terrified that I am going to make a mistake? What if I don’t water the plants often enough? Or water them too often? What if I get busy and forget about weeding for a few days and pull up the sprouts with the weeds? As I begin to think about all of the ways that I could possibly fail in this gardening task, any bit of that pride starts to slip away as I realize how human I am, and how not like God the vinedresser.
As I thought about that garden in my backyard this week, I also got to thinking about another garden that I’m a part of – another garden that I am tending.
A pastoral theologian named Margaret Kornfeld talks about the congregation, the church, as a garden that needs to be tended. In her book, Cultivating Wholeness, she shares how we are all grounded in communities of care – or in the case of this church, a particular community of care. Using the work of theologian Marin Buber, she says “we can live together… because of our relationship to God who is at our Center. Through this relationship, community is formed… because of our relationship to God at the Center, we are connected to each other. However, it is not the community members’ connection to each other that comes first, but the quality of relation with the Center.”
In other words… our church – this Body of Christ is a garden. And we are all connected to one another not because we live in the same place, or attend the same church, or even like the same things… but we are all connected to one another because of our relationships with God. Christ is the vine, we are the branches.
In some ways, I help to tend this garden. I am here to love and care for you. I’m here to nurture you and help organize you into rows and to lead the tendrils of this particular vine up a stake so that it can grow better – to give the vine direction and guidance.
But there is one part of my job that is a little harder to understand and talk about… what to do about dead and dying branches.
Today, as we think about what it means to be a member of this body of Christ, we look at the second of our vows: we vow to support the ministries of the church through our presence.
As we think about how important our presence is in the community, let me tell you a parable about a gardener who had a plot of cucumbers.
This gardener had been very careful to select the best seeds, and plant each one at its proper depth. He fertilized and watered the plants, he worked the soil faithfully each week to prevent weeds from encroaching and he sprayed to prevent bugs and blights from afflicting the young plants.
The season was a good one – just the right amount of rain and sunshine, and on the vines appeared broad green leaves and in due course the blooms. It looked magnificent.
One day he noticed that here and there certain leaves were dying, certain blooms fading. Most of the leaves remained a healthy glossy green, but scattered among them were those turning brown. Why, he wondered, would some die in the midst of all the living? So he investigated.
Stepping carefully among the tangled mass of vines he traced the ones on which the leaves and blooms were dying, until he found that they were all connected to a single stem. There, just above the ground, cut-worms had severed the stalk. The entire vine above that point was dying because it was no longer attached to the roots and the stem that had produced it.
As I thought about this topic of presence, I realized that in many ways I would be preaching to the choir this morning… Most of us who would be here in the church today are already people who are connected to the congregation and to one another in one way or another. You are the healthy, glossy green leaves.
So in some ways, this message is a reminder about why we need to be present, why we need to abide in Christ, why we need to remain connected to the vine.
That parable of the cucumber plant reminds us that we will die spiritually, that we are incapable of producing fruit, when we are not attached to the vine, or when we are not connected to the roots which nourish us. And the vine that we need to be connected to is Christ – the Christ we meet in worship, the Christ we meet in fellowship, the Christ we meet in God’s Word, the Christ we meet in the face of the stranger.
It also reminds us that when we are attached we will naturally produce fruit. I did some reading and found out that the best grapes closest to the vine, “where the nutrients are the most concentrated.” (Nancy Blakely) In fact, growers of grapes know the importance of pruning, because the farther away from the vine the grapes are, the more bitter and the smaller they are. But close in, close to the heart of the vine, abiding near the heart, they find the nourishment they need and produce bountifully.
This is what the abiding we read about in John and 1 John is all about. “Here, up close to the vine, immersed in [God’s love and peace], we find not only nourishment but also hope and joy, and we let God’s word ‘find a home in us through faithful devotion…. ‘When we remain that close to Jesus, we attuned to him and he to us, the remarkable result is that what we want will be what God wants, and it will surely come to pass.’” (Kate Huey’s lectionary reflection with Nancy Blakely)
In some ways, this is a deeply personal process, as we grow closer to God in our private prayers and devotional life. But it is also deeply communal. Because Christ is not a million little vines that each of us find a place to connect to – but one true vine, one true body – and abiding in Jesus means that we also need to be in deep relationship with one another. Perhaps this is why the image of the grapevine is so powerful… grapes do not grow as solitary fruits, but in bunches.
While our gospel reading focuses on the fruit that God will produce in us, if we remain connected to the vine, our epistle from this morning tells us what that fruit looks like: “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”
You know that old hymn, they will know that we are Christians by our love? This is in part where it comes from. Our love for one another, our presence with one another, and the WAY that we are present with one another, is a strong witness to the world that something different is going on in the church. We aren’t meant to go it alone.
No… Abiding in Christ is about loving our brothers and sisters… ALL of our brothers and sisters. If we are abiding in Christ, then we have the strength to love those in the church who we disagree with. If we are abiding in Christ, then we have the strength to reach out to those who have wronged us. If we are abiding in Christ, then we have the strength to love without fear even those who society might turn away.
We are called to be present – to be connected to the vine and because of the vine to one another. And when we are really connected, when we are abiding in God, the fruit of love will show forth.
Which leads me back to the dead and dying branches. Those leaves and blossom on the vine that are fading and turning brown.
My least favorite part of being a pastor, of being the church, is figuring out what to do about the dead and dying branches. Those people in our midst who are connected and present in name only – or perhaps who show up every so often but are not deeply abiding in the vine… who aren’t close enough to the vine to be filled with the spirit and with nourishment and with Christ’s love.
The church body has a process for “pruning” these dead and dying branches on the vine. Our Book of Discipline clearly states that it is the pastor’s responsibility for ensuring that each member of the congregation is living up to their vows to be loyal to Christ through the church and to faithfully participate by their prayers, their presence, their gifts, their service and their witness.
Now – of that whole list of things, the one that is the easiest to see people are not living up to is their presence. We don’t take attendance in church, at least we don’t check off names to see who is here and who isn’t – but we could. My clergy mentor told me that her congregation has a process where if you haven’t shown up for a month, you get a postcard in the mail. If you haven’t shown up for two months, you get a phone call. If you haven’t show up to any event in the church (and I’m not talking just about worship either) for three months, then you get a visit from the pastor.
Now, we don’t have a process like that here at the church, so I was interested to know how this was working out. What Pastor Karen also told me was that by the time they got to that first three month mark, she had so many people to visit that she didn’t know what to do!
Now, we could act like God the vinedresser and simple snip those dead and wilted branches off the vine, throw them in the fire and forget about them – just like I did with all of the dead hostas as I cleared out room for the new ones to grow this spring.
But I have to believe that a God who also talks about grafting might have a little bit more grace for some of our dead and dying branches.
Grafting is a process where a branch can be attached to the trunk and roots of another tree – in many cases, different types of trees and plants are connected together for hybridization and for strength and growth.
In the scriptures, Paul talks about the Gentiles being grafted on to the tree and the roots of Israel after some of the branches were broken off – the unfaithful among the people of Israel. And Paul writes to his gentile audience… “they were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand only through faith.… And even those of Israel, if they do not persist in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. For if you have been cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these natural branches be grafted back into their own olive tree.”
None of us are perfect. All of us let things besides God into the center of our lives at one time or another. And there are many people in our congregation right now who are not connected to the vine, or who are being disconnected by the cut-worms of work or family or doubt.
I know that some of you have expressed concerns about how low attendance has been on some Sundays, or the fact that it seems like the same group of people are the ones who always show up for events or bible studies. I hear that. But what I hear from Paul in Romans is a word of hope. It is a reminder that even those branches that appear to be dead and dying have the ability to be restored by God’s grace.
What I have realized though, is that we can’t sit like a planted vine in a pot and wait for God’s grace to reconnect others to us. That is perhaps the limitation of the vine metaphor – it makes us think that we are supposed to be rooted and fixed in place.
But when we read our passage from John in context, we notice that right before our gospel reading for today, Jesus has finished dinner with his disciples and is getting ready to move. “Rise” he says, “Let us be on our way.” And then he starts into a long goodbye speech to his disciples, reminding them of everything that they need to know to continue on without him. This vine is not meant to be planted firmly in the ground, but is meant to move and be engaged in the world! (Kate Huey’s reflection, Charles Cousar)
Just as we take fellowship and God’s word to our homebound members who are unable to physically be present with us on Sunday mornings – or to our members who are residents at Rose Haven or those in the hospital, so too do we need to take the vine with us to those who are in danger of being cut off.
I want to challenge us as a church to go as the hands and feet of Christ and perhaps be the reconnection point for someone that you know. It might be your own son or daughter. It might be a friend. It might be a neighbor who hasn’t been in a very long time. With God’s grace and strength flowing through us, simply sit with them for a while. Have a cup of coffee together. Ask how they are doing. And as a first step in this process of grafting, simply be present. Let the love of God that abides in you overflow into your love for them.
A few conversations down the road, maybe invite them to come to church with you one Sunday, or to a small group gathering. But for now, I want to challenge you to simply be present – to carry God’s abiding love and grace to those who you know are disconnected.
AND – I want you to tell me about it. Invite me to come along for a cup of coffee if you want. Help me to be a part of the process of tending and pruning and let me hold you accountable to continue in that relationship of simply being present.
Because we don’t do this whole faith thing alone. It takes all of us, living together in love to be the body of Christ in the world. We are not alone. Amen and Amen.
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