Fifth Sunday of Easter
May 6, 2012
Here is something you can know in all certainty: Jesus will never lay
anything upon you that He has Himself not endured. When you are mistreated,
when dark days are ahead of you, when you wonder if God is still with you, when
you are tempted and you don’t think you can bear up under the enticement, you
are enduring exactly what you need. It is through these things that you are
made stronger and are truly blessed. Jesus Himself has endured all of these
things. He didn’t enjoin upon you commandments you ought to fulfill so that God
the Father may then love you and care for you. He doesn’t place suffering and
trials in your life while He placidly stands by as an onlooker. He doesn’t
allow you to be tempted as one who enjoys seeing others squirm in their
struggle against enticement. He doesn’t stand look from afar while you endure
trials even as He enjoys seeing you wonder if He’s gone and has left you for
good.
Jesus Himself has submitted to the commandments of God. Jesus willingly
endured suffering at the hands of others and at the hands of His Father. Jesus
endured the abandonment of His own dear Father, being forsaken by Him.
The Bible in several places compares the Christian Church, the people
of God, to a vine or a vineyard. Oftentimes God will lament that His vineyard,
that He planted, was not bearing fruit. Even with all of His love and care for
the vineyard, for His very own people, they would produce the opposite of good
fruit, selfish and godless deeds.
Now Jesus makes a switch on us. He is the Vine. In a sense we are the
vineyard of God but Jesus says that He is the true Vine. We are the branches.
The same imagery still applies, being as Jesus says that whatever branches that
do not bear fruit will be cut off. But notice that He isn’t a dispassionate
observer. He isn’t sitting on the sidelines saying, Come on, bear fruit
already. Get in gear.
He is the Vine. He doesn’t enjoin anything upon you He Himself does not
endure. He is the Vine, His Father is the Vinedresser. The work that is done of
the Vine by the Vinedresser is not done merely on the branches. It is done
first and foremost on the Vine. What is done to you by your Heavenly Father has
first and foremost been done by your Heavenly Father to His dear Son.
If a vine could think and understand what is going on around it it
would think the vinedresser is causing it harm with all the digging around it
he does and all the cutting of it. All this work of the vinedresser would not
be experienced by the vine as a pleasant experience. It would be the opposite
of a pleasant experience. And yet, the vine would emerge from all that work the
vinedresser did healthier and producing more fruit. The vinedresser’s work is for
the good of the vine.
It is the same way with the work of your Heavenly Father, who is the
Vinedresser. He works away at His Vine and the branches. Since you are not just
a plant you are very aware of the pain and the seeming harm all of His work
does to you. It is in fact not a pleasant experience. You do in fact question
Him and why He is doing so. When a vinedresser takes his shovel and hoe and
clippers to the vine damage is being done in order to provide an environment in
which the vine can grow and thrive. This is what happens when your Heavenly
Father takes the shovel and clippers of trials and temptations and uses them to
clear out those things which hinder your growth as a Christian. You can’t just
water a vine you need to keep working at it and pruning it. God doesn’t just
let you be, He keeps working at you with His work of pruning.
When you see a vine you know that there is a plant that has not created
its life and does not sustain its growth. If left on its own it will wither and
die. A vinedresser must plant it and then work at it and prune it. In the same
way you have life because your Heavenly Father has given you life. In the same
way you are sustained in this life because God works at you and prunes you and
sustains you in life.
Jesus’ teaching of being the Vine and you the branches overflows with
grace and the love of God and the power and work of God. First, that He would
be the Vine and undergo the same trials that you go through. If Jesus were your
mentor or leader or guide He could easily stand by and point the way for you.
But He is your true Shepherd, your true Savior, He is the true Vine. He is the
Shepherd who lays down His life for you. He is the Savior who actually saves
you. He is the Vine that endures every bit of trials and suffering and
temptation that you do.
What He says here in being the Vine and you the branches shows you His
grace and love and His power and work also because He isn’t saying to you that
you are the branches so you’d better get moving and bear fruit. Of course it’s
true that you need to bear fruit. But if He were simply telling you that you
must do good works, how would that be any different from any other religion or
philosophy? It wouldn’t and you wouldn’t be left with much from Him. When He
says He is Vine and you are the branches and His Father is the Vinedresser He
is making you aware that you are the recipients of God’s gracious love and
care. He loves you and gives you what you need. He does the work of sustaining
you in growth.
If a vine could think and its branches were aware of what they were
they could easily see themselves as the source of the fruit they bear. Branches
could easily forget they are connected the vine and think that they are the
ones making possible the luscious fruit they bear. This happens very easily
with you as well. You look at yourself and all the good you do and forget that
you are not the one who makes it possible to bear this fruit. You forget that
you are connected the Vine that is Jesus Christ and that your Heavenly Father
is the Vinedresser who is constantly at work in pruning you and sustaining your
growth so that you may bear the fruit of good works.
The reason you don’t think of this as the amazing thing it is is
because it is so simple. It rests entirely on God’s work, what He does for you
in your life. But you pass that off because you want to go beyond the simple
work of God of forgiving and saving you and get to what you think must be the
real thing God wants you to do and that is do good works. You hear it all the
time in Christian circles and churches. You need to live more like Christ, you
need to do more good works, or in the words of our Gospel reading, you need to
bear fruit. All of this is true, there’s no doubt. But if you fool yourself
into thinking that if you just try harder, do more, focus on what you as
branches need to do then you are doing more than fooling yourself. You are not
producing fruit and you begin withering and will eventually be cut off from the
Vine.
Jesus said, “Already you are clean because of the word that I have
spoken to you.” His work in you and His Father’s work in you are never divorced
from this work in you in which He cleanses you and forgives you. It really is
that simple. His Word He speaks to you forgives you. You are clean. You are
branches that have not somehow attached themselves to the Vine but have rather
been given life by the Vine and are sustained in the life through Him. In this
understanding Jesus counsels you, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch
cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you,
unless you abide in me.” Branches do not produce fruit by trying. They produce
fruit by abiding in the Vine.
Your sinful flesh is very powerful. It either latches on to that Law,
which itself is powerful, which is insistent that you must do more, that you
must try harder, that you must by your own power do good works, so that you
either feel really good about yourself because you’re trying harder or you
despair of yourself because you can’t seem to get better or aren’t sure if it’s
enough for what God wants. The focus in either case is on yourself, not on
Christ, the Vine, where it belongs. That’s why Jesus has you covered. He knows
how you think. He knows you are prone look to yourself rather than to Him. So
He expounds on His words of abiding in Him: “Whoever abides in me and I in him,
he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”
Do you believe that? If you do you will stop focusing on yourself and
begin focusing on Christ. You will see your trials as what your Heavenly Father
uses in your life to draw you to Christ rather than turn in on yourself in
confusion or despair. You will see that Christ is far more powerful than
anything you could think to do. This doesn’t mean, and Jesus isn’t saying, that
you’re life will be a breeze. Yes, a branch on a vine just sits there. You are
a living breathing disciple of Christ who lives each day doing many things and
bearing fruit in many ways. That your life in Christ is difficult and
challenging and filled with trials is borne out by how Jesus began, with you
being pruned by God the Father.
This past week we were stunned in our community when Junior Seau’s life
came to an end. It would have been a shock anyway, but the way it occurred
makes it even more sad in his taking his own life. What we knew of him was a
man who loved life, who excelled at what he did, and who gave so much to so
many people. That he apparently was beset by demons within his own mind and
spirit brings home the reality of the world we live in. Junior apparently
thought there was no hope. What Jesus shows us in being the true Vine is that
there is always hope. He is the Vine, you are the branches. Abide in Him. Know
that even if you struggle or despair you abide in Him because He never lays
anything upon you that He Himself does not give you. He knows everything you
are going through, He Himself has experienced beyond what you could ever
imagine.
Abide in Him, His Gospel, His grace, His mercy. Take and eat the body
of Christ, for you; Himself whom He gives to you, for you. Take and drink the
blood of Christ, for you; His blood poured out for you and given to you for
your forgiveness. In and through this, but specifically, through Him, you then
bear fruit. Apart from Him you can do nothing. As the Epistle reading today
says, “We love because He first loved us.” Don’t spend your time trying to find
ways to bear fruit. God gives you many opportunities in many ways. When someone
impinges on your time that’s an opportunity to bear fruit. When you do simple
things to serve and help others. These are not commands, they are opportunities
Jesus gives you. He never commands or lays anything upon you He has not given
you the ability to carry out. He is the Vine, who you are and what you have and
what you do are all in Him. Amen.
SDG
1 comment:
This was lovely, thanks for sharing
Post a Comment