Pruned Clean, Living in the Vine Sermon for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, on John 15:1-8

Fifth Sunday of Easter, May 2^nd, A+D 2021
Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches, Custer and Hill City, SD
Pruned Clean, Living in the Vine                John 15:1-8

 

     It’s almost time.  The ponderosa pines are evergreen, but lots of other trees look pretty dead in the winter, naked and spindly, their leaves dead and blown away.  We’re ready to see some green leaves.  And it’s almost time.  The cottonwoods, oaks, willows and aspens, and all their deciduous cousins are getting ready to burst forth in green leaves.  Of course, they weren’t really dead, just dormant, sleeping through the winter, conserving their strength until the days grew longer and less cold.  Their strength is hidden in their sap, filled with nutrients drawn from the soil through the roots, already last year, sap that now surges out the branches to the buds, food for new leaves and flowers and seeds.  And so the life of the tree goes on, supported by the trunk and its roots. 

     It’s almost time for trees to bud out, which makes today the perfect Sunday to hear Jesus declare:  I am the vine; you are the branches.  Not exactly a tree and its branches, but really close.  And of course using a vine as the source and foundation of this metaphor about the Christ and His Church makes other connections for us.  For the fruit of the vine is the grape, which when mashed together naturally turns into wine because of the yeast on its skin.  God’s chosen beverage, which He graciously and strangely transforms, in order to draw us into the deepest mysteries of the faith.  There’s a sycamore and a couple of oak trees in the Bible, and but you can’t get wine from acorns.  So Jesus is the Vine, and we are the branches. 

     But what strange branches we are.  First of all, we come from all over, as we see in our first reading today, the story of the conversion and baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch.  God through His Word about Christ grafts new non-native branches into the One True Vine.  The Lord had been using Scripture to draw this Ethiopian toward Himself for a while, so much so that he had traveled all the way from Ethiopia to Jerusalem to worship.  But much is still a mystery to this official from Queen Candace’s court.  When Philip comes to him, he is struggling to understand Isaiah, specifically, Isaiah 53:7-8, where the Suffering Servant is described as a sheep, silent before the slaughter.  Starting from that very passage, Philip preached Christ crucified and resurrected, and pruned clean the heart of the Ethiopian, grafting him into the Vine, the Body of Christ, the Holy Christian Church, through the washing of water with the Word.  Praise be to God, the Church in motion, God’s tool for growth. 

      Christ is the Vine, and the Apostles, and also all believers by extension, are His branches.  But what strange branches we are.  The branches of a literal tree or vine don’t need to be told they must remain connected to the source or they will die.  Separating from the vine would never enter their minds, if they had minds.  We on the other hand, sometimes doubt the very existence of the Vine.  Or in our pride we somehow imagine that we are the ones who grafted ourselves into the Main Branch.  We foolish human branches are also prone to thinking we could strike out on our own.  We imagine that separation from Jesus doesn’t mean the end of faith and the beginning of eternal death.  But of course, just as a branch torn from its tree will die, there is no life, no lasting and eternal life, outside of the Vine, Jesus Christ.   

      But we’re not done being strange branches.  We not only doubt our need for the Vine, we often take a machete and hack away at our connection.  Can you close your eyes and imagine the branches of a literal tree, branches wielding tiny axes, who then suddenly turn them against their own base, chopping away, trying to disconnect themselves from the trunk?  That would be crazy.  But, knowingly or not, this is exactly what we do when we neglect the Word of Christ.  For as Jesus says, it His Word that prunes us clean.  It is His Word that draws us to the Father.  The Word of Christ goes out and achieves His desire to forgive, restore and recreate sinners.  Abiding in Jesus means staying in contact with His Word, so that His Word can prune us clean and keep us alive. 

    And yet, how do we treat God’s Word?  How often do we choose to let the cares and pleasures and struggles of this life keep us away from hearing the Word of Jesus?  And far too often we fill our ears, minds and hearts with garbage words, and shameful images, strengthening our bond to this decaying world, all the while hacking away at our connection to the True Vine, who gives real life.  

    Branches of literal trees and vines don’t need to be taught how to stay connected to the trunk or vine that gives them life.  But we do.  And so the Church of Christ teaches good habits.  Do, or did your parents make you attend the services of Christ’s congregation, whether you felt like it or not?  Good.  Parents can’t believe for their kids, but they can expose them to God’s Word and try to instill good habits.  They can bring them to God’s house, and make the Word a part of life in the home.  They can seek to reflect the discipline, forgiveness and love of Christ in their daily lives.  Good habits, all.   

    To speak of another habit, we say the Lord’s Prayer a lot, over and over again.  You could probably pray it in your sleep, and I hope you do.  Maybe sometimes you pray it without thinking, and that’s not good.  Jesus warns against mindless repetition.  Still, if the grooves of this habit run deep enough, when a crisis strikes, or when you approach the sleep of death, the Words Jesus taught us to pray will be there, with the power to help you finish the race in faith. 

    The Vine and the Branches should also make us think about proximity, about being close to the Lord.  Planted in God, if you will.  St. Paul tells us that Jesus Christ, crucified and resurrected, is Himself our Justification and our Sanctification.  Justification, that means being right with God, being in a peace filled, loving relationship with the Creator.  And Sanctification means being day by day transformed more and more into the image of Christ.  Both of these things, according to Paul, are Jesus.  Which sounds weird, but it’s true.  To be justified, Jesus must draw near to you with His forgiving love,  To be sanctified, He must give you His Holy Spirit.  We need to be close to Jesus, like sheep stick to their shepherd, or like branches are connected to the vine, receiving the life giving sap.  Abide in Jesus, get close to Him by receiving His Word, for He promises to be present to bless you there, in the Word. 

    God makes us into good vines, holy, chosen, intimately connected to Jesus.  God does this because He loves us, and so that we will produce good fruit.  Which, connected to Jesus, we will naturally do.  But, do you ever feel like there is little to no good fruit in your life?  Do you think you aren’t living up to what you know God would have you say and do?  Me too.  What’s the solution?  Is it simply to try harder?  To really commit to being holy and loving?  If you’ve really tried that, you know it really doesn’t work.  No, if we want to be holy, if we want to be loving, if we want to bear fruit, we need to get closer to Jesus.  For He is our holiness; He is God’s love, poured out for us; He is the One who can work through us to bear fruit.  Abide in Jesus, by hearing and studying and praying and eating and drinking His Gospel, and He will make you the fruitful vine He wants you to be.  

    Of course, seeking out Jesus in His Word isn’t comfortable.  We know we need
pruning, we need our rotten parts cut away.  But pruning hurts, so we tend to avoid it.  So we need the good habit of confession too.  The Father ‘pruning us clean’ starts with repentance.  It starts with the Spirit using His Law to force us to own up to our sins, to confess, our particular sins and our innate sinfulness.  That hurts, but repentance is good, for it leads to the cleansing of forgiveness in Jesus’ blood. 

    The Father also has other pruning shears, like the shears of suffering, of pain and trouble and problems that persist, which God uses for good as they drive us to Jesus.  And the Father even uses persecution, the hatred and injuries we suffer from the world for confessing our faith in Jesus.  We don’t want nor should we seek out suffering and persecution.  But when they come, remember, they too are within the Father’s control.  He will not prune us farther than we can handle. 

    In the weakness of our flesh we see repentance, suffering and persecution as bad.  Kind of like the grapevine sees the pruning shears of the vinedresser.  Luther said if the grapevine could speak, it would cry out against the vinedresser: “Why must you tear at me with those horrible steel teeth? Why must you cut me so deep?”  The grapevine sees the wheelbarrow of manure coming and cries out “Why me?  Why must I endure this horrible smell?  Who will want my grapes if they know they grew from such foul stuff?”  The grapevine struggles to believe that pruning and fertilizing are good.  But they are. 

    In the same way, we naturally see repentance, suffering and persecution as bad.  But Jesus teaches us to see them as good, in the hands of His Father.  Just as a competent pruning and a load of manure make a grapevine healthier and more fruitful, so even more God’s pruning and fertilizer are true blessings, blessings that are proven in the life of Jesus.  For Jesus had no need for repentance, but nevertheless He went to the Cross as ‘The Sinner,’ in our place.  Jesus suffered.  He suffered unjustly, and to a depth we cannot imagine.  Jesus was persecuted for righteousness’ sake, that is, to pay our debt of sin and give us His own righteousness in exchange.  God the Father put His Son Jesus through all of this, for you.  And now, Christ is risen!  (He is Risen Indeed, Alleluia!)   Jesus has risen, so you can trust the Father, even when He comes at you with a pruning shears and manure.  

    You can trust the Father, because He has held nothing back from you.  He has given His only begotten Son, in order that He might have you with Himself, in glory, forever.  He grafted you into the Vine Jesus, and He will not abandon you, especially not when trouble comes.  Indeed, pruning in your life is evidence of your salvation, for God disciplines those He loves.  God’s goal is to keep you in the Vine, Jesus Christ, forever and ever.  Abide in Him, Amen.