Sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Lance Moore on Sunday, March
2, 2008
John 15:1-8: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”
1st Corinthians 3:5-7: “What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe--as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.”
~~~
Throughout the season of Lent, I’ve been bringing a sermon series from the gospels and letters of John, most of which challenge us to grow spiritually. In speaking of spiritual growth, and being on the cusp of Spring, we naturally find ourselves thinking of green growing things. Of course, in Alabama, Spring and Winter cohabitat. I’m amazed that I have flowers blooming in my yard in February! Actually, I’m amazed at plants in general. Sometimes we who are in the animal kingdom take for granted the amazing power of the vegetable kingdom. If we pause to consider our incredible, green friends, we see that in their own, silent way, plants have virtuous, super-human qualities. Plants never complain. Plants listen patiently and never make demands... though the ones in my office recently were actually reduced to screaming, “Lance, we need some water!!! No, plants never ask for much, yet they contribute food, lumber, textiles, and even oxygen to humans. Some people claim that if you talk to your house plants, they'll grow faster. I don't know if that's true or not, but I do know that plants are smarter than they look. I've never seen an unhappy plant. Plants don't allow little things to upset them; they seem to be content even in the worst of circumstances. You can pour concrete over a seed of grass, but it will sprout up through the cracks. You can repeatedly mow down your lawn, but it just comes right back. You can saw the limbs off a tree, and it doesn’t complain—it simply grows new limbs. We humans are not nearly that resilient.
The point is, we can learn lessons for living in the simple and beautiful lives of plants. Jesus Christ recognized this. Many of his parables were about plants, partly because his listeners were agrarian. He spoke often about seeds and sowers, trees, leaves, fruits and vineyards, about Israel as a fig tree and people as wheat, and about a faith the size of a mustard seed. In today’s Scripture, Christ speaks about a garden as a living allegory of the keys to life. Keys to spiritual and physical success. Keys to joy. He draws an analogy of a garden: God is the gardener, and we are the vines and flowers. Actually, his metaphor is more complicated than that. He talked about vines and grapes and stuff, and I’m an expert on pecan trees so I will extrapolate and paraphrase as if Jesus said, “God is the gardener and the pruner, I, Jesus, am the trunk of the pecan tree, and you are the branches, and if you let God prune you, you’ll produce more pecans.” More fruit. And “No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain” attached to the trunk, to the main source of life that is rooted in something far bigger and deeper than the little branches.”
My wife likes to garden. It amazes me how patient she is, because sometimes her work is in vain, thanks to the rabbits, or the insects, or an unexpected freeze or drought. When she succeeds with the garden and serves homegrown vegetables on the table, she takes understandable pride in what she has grown, because she knows how much tender care went into it.
Likewise, God the gardener is patient and loving, even though God knows much of the labor is in vain. It was God who planted not only our seed of life, but also the seed of the true vine or trunk, Jesus Christ. It is from Jesus that we, as branches, grow. You might picture the root of the Christ-tree, upside down, stemming from heaven, as part of the divinity of Christ; but the vine grows down to us, and in fact, joins with us.
As you all know, the roots of a plant carry nutrients from the root, up the trunk, and then to the branches. Likewise, we depend on Christ to supply us with spiritual sustenance. John 1:3 says that through Christ all things were made; without him nothing was made...and in him was LIFE. God is not only the Creator of life, but also the sustainer of life.
I have said the world is God’s garden. Are you in the garden? In my wife’s garden, there are some plants which are technically inside the garden fence, but which are not connected to the vines on good, cultivated soil. They are called “weeds” and I doubt Diana considers them as being truly part of her garden. I will not say that if you are not an active church member, you are not a Christian. Only God can make that judgment. But I will say there are people who occasionally step into the church building who are not Christian, just like there are weeds that grow into her garden that aren’t the least bit fruitful. Simply sitting in church does not automatically turn you into a Christian anymore than hanging around the produce section of Winn-Dixie turns you into a tomato. The church is the body of Christ; I cannot see how a person can be a growing and thriving part of Christ’s body unless they are connected. The Scripture plainly tells us that if you are not “on the vine” with Jesus, you are withering.
I once read about a man who complained that after attending church for some 30 years, he could not remember a single sermon, so it must have been a waste of time. But another man replied, “I can’t remember the exact menu of all the meals my wife has cooked for me for 30 years—but if I hadn’t eaten those meals, I would have died.” If we go without spiritual food, we won’t die right away, but we will surely, eventually, die in the heart and soul.
A woman at a church I served years ago said, “Lance, I have not been to church in a month, and frankly, I haven’t missed it.” My first reply to her was, “Yes, but we missed you.” After all, church is not just something we do for ourselves...we go to church to worship God and to encourage other Christians. The better answer is that you may not notice any ill-effect from missing church immediately. When a pecan tree fell in my front yard after Hurricane Ivan, completely uprooted, the leaves stayed green for a month or so, leaving off the residual nourishment in its dirt-mangled roots. But eventually it died, and detached from Christ and His Church, you will also assuredly die spiritually over time.
Being in church is the way to help ourselves to remain connected to Christ, to grow on the vine. We can skip church without any immediate damage, I suppose. But off from the life-giving vine of Christ, we will soon wither spiritually. Longer still, and we will die physically. This is what God meant when he warned Adam that disobedience would result in death. It was not that God relished the idea of punishing Adam; it was simply a statement of fact: humans cannot live without God.
The vine and branches metaphor goes on to explain that there is more to life than just avoiding death. We are to be fruitful. The idea of fruit is clear. Fruit harbors the seed necessary for more life. Fruit gives us food. And fruit is beautiful. In strict scientific language, fruit can mean the fruiting, or seed-bearing body of any plant. That includes the tasty orange and apple, but also the beauty of flowers, the usefulness of peanuts, soybeans and cotton. Without fruit, life would end. We would have nothing to eat, and we would lose many of our textiles, clothes, and oils.
So the word "fruit" is synonymous with a full life. To be fruitful means to be successful, not only materially, but as Christ explains later in John 15, complete and full of joy. Paul picks up this thought in Galatians 5:22-23: “...the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control....” I would like to see all those traits grow in myself, and the sure way to do it is to grow in Christ.
Some people quarrel with the idea that God will punish sinners in eternal hell-fire for eternity. We find that difficult to understand because we know God is loving and merciful. I do believe God, in His infinite mercy, will do all possible to bring every human to redemption. Today’s parable, however, doesn't paint a rosy picture for those who fail to bear fruit. Jesus said the gardener will cut off the branches that refuse to be fruitful, and throw them in the fire. Maybe that is just a metaphor. I don’t claim to know exactly what God will do with those who stubbornly refuse to stay connected to God, the source of all life. But why would you want to risk being disconnected from the Gardener and the True Vine, why would you want to be a weed or a dead, discarded limb?
As frightening as that warning may be, we have in John 15 two wonderful promises: First, Christ says, “Remain in me and I will remain in you.” It's a comforting assurance. What more can you ask for? Remain with God and God will stick with you through thick and thin, through heck and high-water, through life and death. Second, he promises "If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you." The fruitful, abundant life of love and joy is ours for the asking.
But we must abide in the Word; we profess a belief in Christ, but we fail to bear fruit if we don’t live in his Garden. There is no other place to find the joy of living. We must constantly cultivate in ourselves a love one for another and a love for Christ. We must disentangle ourselves from the weeds and briars and journey back to fertile soil. We must plant ourselves on holy ground, and learn to rely on the tender but powerful hand of The Gardener to clean and prune us so that we may be fruitful. Then we can share with Him a bountiful harvest, a life freed from thorns and thistles in a new Garden of Eden, a new Paradise. It is our hope, our promise, our destiny. Keep on growing!
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Foley, Alabama