A sermon by Associate Minister Elsa A. Peters, May 10, 2009
John 15:1-8
What does it mean to bear fruit? Let alone bear much fruit. I don’t know how to bear fruit. I can’t bear much of anything actually. Last summer, after reading Barbara Kingsolver’s recent book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I was really inspired by her commitment to raise and eat local food. I ignored the fact that I can’t bear fruit and tried my very hardest to grow some basil and a small tomato plant on my urban porch. My father, who actually has a green thumb, encouraged me that if the tomatoes grew I could try something else. They didn’t. They died. So, I took comfort in Kingsolver’s words in the middle of her year of food life, the part where she admits: “I understand that most U.S. citizens don’t have room in their lives to grow or even see growing food.”
Perhaps it’s not my fault that I can’t seem to grow anything. I live in the middle of the city with a shady porch that doesn’t really allow for anything to grow. Maybe it’s not all my fault that I can’t bear fruit. Of course, that’s not what Jesus intends when he talks about bearing fruit. Sure. His community had seen food grow and probably even made it grow themselves, but that’s not what Jesus intends. This isn’t actually about fruit at all, but about us.
Jesus illustrates a vine with branches as an image for the community of the disciples. The metaphor isn’t totally comfortable. After all, just after Jesus assures the disciples that he is the true vine, God starts pruning branches, removing the branches that don’t bear fruit. The problem is: we are branches. It’s a little uncomfortable that God would chop any of us off. Now, I’m no gardener but I even know that sometimes you need to prune a plant in order to allow it to grow; but is that really what God wants? Are some of us supposed to be chopped off from the family of God?
Not really. It’s not about getting rid of a bad crop but about how to keep our vine thriving so that it can bear fruit. Not literal fruit coaxed into being through good soil and sunshine. Instead, this is the fruit of our relationships. That’s what Jesus hopes to impart in this speech. He repeats the word “abide” again and again as if to shake the disciples – and all of us – into an understanding that we have to put up with each other. That’s what love is. It’s putting up with the stuff that drives you crazy about the people you love because as disciples, we’re supposed to share in interrelationship and mutuality. We can’t prune anyone out. We can’t get rid of a bad crop.
No, instead Jesus tells us, Abide in me as I abide in you. Abide, he says. Abide, he repeats himself again. That’s when you know Jesus is serious. He repeats himself. Abide, he says. It’s a metaphor – but even for those of us that can’t make anything grow – it’s not just a metaphor. Jesus is using this image of a vine full of branches to capture the powerful connection that he shares with the disciples. These aren’t just friends or even family. These are people that are so connected to each other that survival would be impossible without them. These are people that are so caught up in your personal life that you can’t imagine living without them.
This is hard for modern people. We are busy people who value our privacy. We’re on our own journey and doing our own thing in our own way. And to us, Jesus offers us a metaphor – a “metaphor that assumes interrelationship and accountability” – both of which make we modern person cringe. We keep well enough to ourselves. We’re independent types. We’ve got it all figured out. Uh uh, Jesus says. Abide, he reminds us. Abide in me as I abide in you. It’s an invitation to open up and let a community in so that you can become entangled in each other’s lives. I know. It’s terrifying. I have enough New England pride in me to shudder at the very thought. It’s scary to be vulnerable. It’s hard enough to walk into coffee hour when you don’t know a soul, but to tell these strangers at the Women’s Spirituality Circle, the Prayer Shawl Ministry or even the Eskimo Men’s Club how you really feel… (sigh). Abide in me as I abide in you, Jesus assures you. The fruit we bear together is rooted in these truths, in these vulnerabilities, in these honest glimpses into who we really are. So, how will you connect? How will you abide in this community? How will you get tangled up in our branches? Where will you put down roots and really grow?
Now, I don’t tend to talk in specifics in my sermons – not concretely and directly – but I’m struck by the parallel of this text to our community here and now. Jesus offers these words to his disciples as his farewell. Jesus is preparing to go away and here he repeats to the disciples again and again, abide, abide, abide. And so he reminds them that they will need to lean on each other in a way that is unfamiliar and uncomfortable to them.
So it is for us. Whether we are new members or have grown up on Meetinghouse Hill, we are challenged to bear fruit. We’re challenged to be so interconnected so that “one branch is indistinguishable from another.” The sweet fruit we share is the gifts of these relationships – not because only we’re struggling, confused, ill or nearing death but because we seek to be interconnected to a group of people so that we can grow. No matter what our modern sentiments insists, Jesus reminds us that growth doesn’t happen when you are off by yourself. It happens when you abide together in a group of people that shares all of the ups and downs of your life, but how will you choose to abide here? Will you insist that you just don’t have the green thumb for it? Or will you allow yourself to entangle your life within this community so that survival seems impossible without all of us?