Plural, All of Us, Together

Plural, All of Us, Together

John 15:1-8

My in-laws were country people, even after they moved to Kansas City more than 60 years ago. Up until about the time my father-in-law passed away, they kept a large garden, a few fruit trees, and a grapevine.

I always appreciated the fruits of their yard. My mother-in-law made sure that none of the harvest went to waste, and she was always willing to share the bounty with her family and friends. It was the best eating, too. Every year there would be home-made pickles, using the cucumbers and dill raised in their back yard. Every year there would be several home-made cherry pies, using the cherries picked from their trees. And every year, there would be jars of home-made grape jelly, using the grapes they harvested from their own grapevine.

I don’t know if you have ever really looked at grape vines before. It may be that you have toured the vineyards at Rocheport, or one of the other wine-producing villages in Missouri. On those tours, you see fields with rows and rows of vines, and it all looks very neat and orderly and organized. They look that way because vineyard owners know that one year old branches produce up to three times as many grapes as even two year old branches, so every year the branches are pruned back to get the maximum output for the maximum profit.

The horticultural practices in the Bible were considerably different. According to the Law of Moses, you were not allowed to harvest the grapes for the first three years after a vine had been planted. Every seven years, you were not even allowed to prune the vines. This practice would produce a vine much like the one found at my in-laws’ home, with the branches entwined and entangled. With that kind of grapevine, pruning is much more intimate, and it is much more careful. The branches are all tangled together, so pruning is about removing a dead end instead taking out the whole branch. I think this is closer to what Jesus is saying with this image in our reading for today.

The vines overlap and entangle. They twist and they turn. They split off in multiple places and in multiple directions, which leads to further overlapping and even more entangling. The branches are not just joined to the vine – they have communion with each other, which makes a grapevine a wonderful image for the church.

We need to know the difference between union and communion. Jesus said in verse 5, “I am the vine, you are the branches.” When you trust Christ, you become a branch in His vine. That is union. And that, unfortunately, is where most Christians stop on their journey of faith. But, fortunately, Jesus goes on to say, “He who abides in me, and I in him, bears much fruit.” Now that is communion. To abide in Christ is a twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, overlapping and entangling intimate fellowship with Jesus, and with other disciples, which then enables you to become a fruit-bearing branch.

Jesus wants us to bear fruit. To bear fruit, we must be in union with God, and in communion with the other branches. The dead ends in our lives have to be pruned away. It is then we will receive the strength that only Jesus can supply, and the cross pollination that being together provides, so that we may bear the fruit of the Spirit.

As the branches of Christ in the Kingdom of God, we are expected to produce the fruit of spiritual life. The apostle Paul, in his letter to the church at Galatia, listed the fruit of the Spirit. He wrote, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” There is just one fruit – the life of a disciple, but that life gets expressed in all these life-affirming, God-revealing ways. With this understanding of fruit in mind, the test of an abiding faith is, “How well is your branch of the vine bearing fruit?”

In other words, when people look at you, is their first thought, “There is someone who radiates love, and who is in touch with the source of their joy” – or do they think they have to be careful about how they approach you, because they know that you can be irritable? When others work with you, are they thankful for your patience and kindness towards them, or does it make them nervous to be around you because they know they are going to be judged? If someone were asked to give a character reference for you, would it be appropriate for them to list gentleness and self-control? Those are all questions about bearing fruit as a disciple of Jesus Christ.

Paul makes this same distinction about the fruit of the Spirit in his letter to the church of Corinth. It is in a passage we don’t often think about when we are talking about the fruit of the Spirit. Paul tells us that Jesus isn’t looking for how many languages you can speak and read – he wants to know whether you love others when you speak to them. Paul tells us that Jesus isn’t going to test us on our understanding of the mysteries of God – he wants to know whether we find our joy in God. Paul tells us that Jesus isn’t going to count up the value of the things we donate and the money we give – he wants to see whether we give in response to the grace we have received. Paul tells us that Jesus isn’t asking us to sacrifice what is valuable in this world – he is asking us to give up those things that keep us from receiving what is truly valuable in the eternal life. That’s what Paul in saying in I Corinthians 13, which we call the Love Chapter. Love is a fruit of the Spirit.

We have trouble making this connection between love and fruitfulness because we think fruitfulness is about what we can count, while love is about how we feel. But authentic Christian love and fruitfulness are the same thing. What really counts in fruitfulness is loving God and loving our neighbors as Christ has loved us. That is Christian love – that is Christian fruitfulness.

Yet we still are tempted to quantify our fruitfulness. We want to know that we have done enough, on our own, to be acceptable to God. We would much rather be able to point to some measurable standard and say, “Here’s the proof. I am fruitful. Jesus loves me.” We would much rather be able to point to that same measurable standard and use it to judge others: “There’s the proof. They are not fruitful. Jesus does not love them.” And all that would be fine if the branches could ever produce fruit apart from the vine. But it doesn’t work that way – not in the kingdom of God, not in a vineyard, not ever.

Walter Wink, author and Bible study leader, recalls that when he was a youth, Jesus saying “abide with me” felt repressive to him. It felt like he were always under the watchful eye and controlling thumb of a straight-laced Jesus who would not tolerate having fun or exploring creativity, and who expected to be thanked and praised for it all.

Likewise, Wink didn’t feel that being told he had to “bear more fruit” sounded very grace-filled. Instead, it sounded like a directive from a disappointed God who had expected so much more from him. God was so disappointed in him that God might abandon him, just lop him off of the vine, if he didn’t get to work and get some results. Instead of feeling pruned back in order to be more fruitful, he felt like the best parts of his life were being lopped off, and he was becoming less who he really was. In this short little passage where Jesus tells us to abide in him, Walter Wink found disappointment and judgment and abandonment.

Walter Wink realized that his problem with this text is that we read it in English. Not only do we read it in English, but we also hear it in the context of our individualistic worldview today. Listen again to verses 3 and 4, when we translate it from the original language: You (plural, all of you, together) have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you (plural, all of you, together.) Abide in me as I abide in you (plural, all of you, together.) Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you (plural, all of you together, the Church) unless you (plural, all of you together, the Church) abide in me.

That changes the question I asked earlier. Abiding in Christ is not about our individual journey of faith, or about our personal relationship with Jesus. Abiding in Christ is about all of us together being the Body of Christ. Our question becomes, “How well are we, plural, all of us, together, bearing fruit?”

When people in this community look at us (plural, all of us, together), is their first thought, “There is a congregation that radiates love, and that is in touch with the source of their joy” – or do they think they have to be careful about approaching us, because they know that we can be unmerciful about issues in their lives? When others work with us (plural, all of us, together), are they thankful for our patience and kindness towards them, or are they reluctant because they know us to be judgmental? If someone were asked to describe our congregation to someone new in this community, would gentleness and kindness be part of that description, or would they have reservations about recommending us?

Even with this emphasis on the word “you” being plural, all of us, together, this translation still falls a bit short. Most English translations do very little to help us see the word play in verses two and three. In verse two it says that we are pruned; and in verse three it says that we are cleansed. But in the Greek, it says “Every branch that does bear fruit he kathairei prunes to make it bear even more. You are katharoi pruned already, by means of the word that I have spoken to you.” The Greek word can be translated as either pruned or cleansed, because the meaning is actually about half-way in between those two English words. What it means is that when we abide in Christ, plural, all of us, together, the sinful parts are removed, our sin is forgiven, and we are cleansed, so that we – plural, all of us, together – may be the Body of Christ for the world.

When we are being pruned, however, the words, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love,” may not come as much comfort. After all, look at how God loved Jesus! From baptism to crucifixion, Jesus kept abiding, and the powers of the world maintained their menace until Jesus was buried and sealed in the tomb. Yet, because God does love Jesus, he was raised on Easter morning, seen by his disciples and many other faithful witnesses, and then ascended into heaven. When we abide in Jesus, we know that even sin and death and loss and suffering cannot separate us from the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ.

Sometimes, we – plural, all of us, together – are pruned for the kingdom of God. We make little adjustments here and there, and we make progress, and we bear more fruit. And sometimes, we – plural, all of us, together – get pruned, and it feels like we have lost something important. Something or someone is removed, and it feels unjust, painful, unnecessary, and wrong. But that is why our Christian faith can’t be a solitary endeavor, cut off from other believers. We need that communion so that we will know that in all things Christ works for good with those who believe in him.

We need each other, plural, all of us, together, to truly be the Body of Christ. We need each other so that we can know forgiveness when we fall short. We need each other so we can work for justice wherever evil has prevailed. We need each other to show mercy when life gets to be too much and we just need a break. We need each other when it is time to rejoice, and when it is time to mourn, and when it time to doubt and question. We need each other – plural, all of us, together – so that the kingdom of God can become a lived out/lived in reality and not just “pie in the sky when I die.” Together, all of us, we are the church. And when we are the church, the world will appreciate and benefit from the fruit of our spirit!

May we, plural, all of us, together, stand and affirm our faith as we sing #558, “We are the Church.” And when this service is over, may we, plural, all of us, together, go out into the world and be the Body of Christ!