Sermons from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
Easter 5
John 15:1-8
The Rev. Melissa Skelton
Jesus said, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. 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."
“I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit.”
We took possession of our “new” old house at the top of Queen Anne Hill in early November last year. I love old things and so was excited about the clapboard exterior, the original wood trim in the rooms and the high ceilings. But as lovely as the house was, something excited me even more about it—the backyard garden, a combination of profusion and order that stirred me the moment I saw it. A little fenced patch of grass stood in the back corner of the yard, anchored by a Japanese maple. Raised beds planted with herbs, flowers and late vegetables ran along the left half. And along part of the back fence grew a vine with green leaves that brushed against you as you walked past it on the little gravel path to the back gate.
It was all so beautiful, so beautiful except…what was that dead-looking vine on the other half of the back fence? What was that mass of bare, woody branches that had found its way through and around the other vine? What was that tangled mess all over our fence?
How I felt when I first looked at that tangled vine is a lot like how I’ve been feeling lately when contemplating the many issues plaguing not only our dear Episcopal Church but the Christian Church more broadly.
I’m not one of those who keeps up with every new ecclesiastical controversy, but I find that I don’t have to know who is saying what about which issue or person to sense the tangle, to feel as if I’m in the middle of a morass of branches that seem to be disconnected to one another and cut off from whatever or whoever is supposed to be holding them all together.
I feel this so much so at times that I yearn to get out my trusty pruning shears and begin tidying things up, lopping off the people and factions and churches and traditions that I no longer want in my face, no longer want to be connected to because I find them difficult, troublesome, or even offensive. And once I let myself go down that road, I go even farther. For then I begin to imagine the new vine I would create with by my pruning, the new and improved Episcopal Church or Christian Church that I would have. Both would be, well, more orderly and, I imagine, more able to flower and bear the abundant fruit of the kingdom of God for the life of the world
Our gospel reading for today about the vine and the branches is from the so-called “last discourse” of the Gospel of John, an extended discourse delivered after the footwashing at the Last Supper. Biblical scholar Raymond Brown describes the last discourse in this way: “(the other discourses in John) are directed toward hostile audiences and were delivered against a background of rejection by the world. But in the last discourse Jesus speaks to ‘his own’ for whom he is willing to lay down his life, so intense is his love. The Jesus here transcends time and space…Although those who hear him are his disciples, his words are directed to Christians of all times.”
Evidently John’s Jesus has quite a lot to say to Christians of all times, for the last discourse covers about four chapters of the gospel. In one of the sections concerning the disciples’ life after Jesus has departed, John’s Jesus uses the image of the vine and branches to speak about the disciples’ relationship to him. On first blush, all the words about God as the vinegrower removing and pruning branches could lead us back to focusing on the branches we believe aren’t bearing fruit and, therefore, deserve to be removed and thrown into the fire.
But when we look closer and listen more carefully, we see and hear something else.
The central thrust of Jesus’ words is not about separating ourselves from those we have trouble with. In fact, it’s not about separation at all. It’s about unity—unity that is not based on agreement with one another or similarities in practice. No, our unity is based on the love of God in Christ. Our unity, therefore, is not a unity we have created. It is a unity that already exists in God. “I am the vine” Jesus says, “you are the branches.”
And for all the concern we have about what we experience as fracture, and for all the talk we engage in about how separated we are and how fragile it all is, we in the Gospel of John are given a look at a vine in Christ that is anything but fragile. No, what we see and hear in this Gospel is a unifying vine that is thick and muscular in the same way that the body on our cross is thick and muscular, a vine though at times in the history of our church may seem barren but is alive and vigorous and running with sap, a vine that holds its branches fast.
All of this is not to say that we do not have work ahead of us—the work in the Episcopal Church is to continue to come to the table with what we have been given to say, to continue to work and pray for unity. Within the broader Christian Church it’s the same story and challenge—to continue to come to the table with what we have been given to say, to continue to work and pray for unity.
In a profile on Frank Griswold in PBS’s Religion and Ethics Newsletter, we get a look at and description of a this kind of work, specifically in what Griswold has been doing to assist the Episcopal church and the Anglican communion in more fully realizing and manifesting its unity in the discussions and actions related to the of the issue of human sexuality. The words of Bishop Charles Jenkins, the conservative bishop of Louisiana who did not vote for the consecration of Gene Robinson, the openly gay bishop of New Hampshire, who is also one of Griswold’s closest friends, says it best:
“I’m willing to say that Frank Griswold is orthodox, and I am orthodox. We are both seeking God’s truth. Now he believes God’s truth is pointing in a different direction than I. But we are both seeking to wait upon God to show us that….(Frank) has taken some very hard punches . He has been betrayed by friends. And he keeps showing up, and he keeps saying his prayers, and he keeps, I think, exhibiting the graciousness of someone who knows Jesus.”
“The graciousness of someone who knows Jesus:” this, in the end is what allows us to do and to be people who manifest and advance the manifestation of the unity of Christ, the knowing of, the abiding in the one who took our flesh and bound us to himself, the one who climbed and died upon the gallows tree to bring forth the healing and unifying vine.
And for those of us who would prefer a more orderly church, remember that God’s aim was not a Holy Mother Church where everything was in order according to our standards, a household of God run by some kind of obsessive, compulsive cleaner and organizer. No, God’s aim was to touch and surround the world with the grace and the love of God the way some other mothers do—a grace that may be best served by branches and tendrils and shoots that can go many, many places, that can find their ways into crannies and cracks, seeking out all the lost and the hidden.
Months have passed since we bought our house. Thankfully, I never had time to go out with those pruning shears and to whack away at that dead-looking vine on my back fence. For about a six weeks ago I began to notice something happening. Covering what I had thought was a worn-out and lifeless plant were hundreds of buds, buds that became light pink flowers that have not faded. For what I discovered that I had on my back fence was a vine of great age and stamina, a vine of great productivity and beauty. What I have on my back fence is probably the largest Clematis vine on all of Queen Anne Hill.
“I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in my and I in them bear much fruit”…and many blossoms.
