"Branches of the Church Vine" - John 15:1-8 (5-10-09)

Jesus said in John 15:5: “Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.” Jesus is reminding the disciples to remain or stay in this relationship. They may experience persecution and struggles, but stay in this community and I was entwine you together. It’s really the difference between being a team player and a loner. Stay, remain and be held together by these branches of Christ.
There were many vineyards in the time of Christ. God assumed the quality of the people of Israel. This reminded to encourage disciples to stay intimately connected to the vine. When a branch gets the idea it can bear fruit on its own it will dry up and died. This place is a one house of worship and this is our abiding place. We gather as a family or branch of the faith. Yet this building is not the church, it is a place where we worship God and we are trained in the Christian faith as disciples of Jesus Christ. We have been wove into this branch through Baptism. We have become connected to the vine and we affirm our faith in Christ Jesus as DA-VINE! Our community is a branch of the Christian faith where we love and care for one another.
I see many such branches here together with arms and hearts open to reaching out to others with the message of Christ.You are the church and the branch of the Christian family here. The church is the people. We Christian-Lutherans have a unique place in the faith where we reach out to the Orthodox and Catholics; where we branch out and work with Presbyterians and Methodist and other mainline denominations. There are so many braches of the Church vine – for there is just one vine and we are the branches. There is just one Church with many denominations: My mother grew up Russian Orthodox and married Methodist. We have various denominational experiences. When I attended the funeral for Mary Ann’s mother, I received Holy Communion. There is just one church and I am a member of it.
Some church denominations may think that they have the faith figured out and are not connected to other branches of the church. Like difference siblings who don’t get along and don’t want to acknowledge one another, the churches today find themselves all over the place. Jesus said, John 15:5 says “I am the vine, you are the branches”. I remember the song that we sang in Sunday school. The vine is the main focus; the branches start out as little buds that are nice and green and shoot off in many directions. After a season the small green branch gets woody and eventually hardens and can endure winter. Yet we must be weary when branches of the Christian faith become so hardened and stubborn that we refuse to grow in a different direction.
Jesus grafted these disciples into community just like the way the Ethiopian (God fearing man) was when in Acts 8:26-40 Phillip started where the Ethiopian Eunuch was in answering his questions. God provides the perfect time for us to be woven back into community. God will prompt us to the waters and to conversations with others.
Yet we need training, like the Adult VBS program this summer. Vines sometimes have a natural tendency to trail down and grow low to the ground. They don’t bear fruit down there. They need to be taken care of or they will get dusty and muddy if it rains. Mildew can grow on them then and they will cause the branch to become sick. My new white lace vine is starting to grow. My Master Gardener neighbor gave me a clipping last fall when I built my Russ Ruzanski hammock holder. This white lace is starting to grow and I have to keep weaving these new shoots back into the trellis so it grows up.
We are intimately connected to God and others through this vine. 1 John 4:7-21: “Beloved, let us love one another. Perfect loves casts out all fear, for there is no fear in love.” We can’t give away what we have not been given. That is why this week we gave away a few crosses and wrapped a few people in prayer shawls during times where life’s unfortunate pruning has taken place. Where there is no more growth that will take place on the vine at death’s cutting leaves a bear spot on the branch of community.
This training also requires some pruning. I have a trumpet vine that is about ten feet tall. After last year I need to prune it. I climbed up on a ladder and cut back a bunch in order to TRAIN it to go in a different direction. That is what PRUNING is like – it’s training! So they don’t grow wild and out of control the vine needs to be harnessed. Might be painful at times but more growth will happen. Those parts that don’t bear fruit are tossed. It’s when we are growing and branching out into life that we find ourselves being pruned in order to grow more fruitful.
There are times where we experience such pruning. My aunt passed away yesterday at age 80 and I’ll be doing the funeral on Saturday. There are many people in this community and world who are spiritually homeless. They have no place to worship God outside of creation.
Today is Mother’s day and it is a reminder that we are all connected in the creation. We have all been given life from the creator. The umbilical chord of life that held us to the vine fed us until we were grafted into the human family. There is just one vine – that is Christ. There is one Christ – who is the head of this household of faith and Jesus binds us together.
Let us pray: Gracious God, we thank you for grafting us into the vine and we pray that we would be trained in your ways, we pray in Jesus name, Amen.