Storm Warning

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday May 29, 2012, Pentecost Sunday.

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Acts 2:1-21

Psalm 104:24-34, 35b

Romans 8:22-27

John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15

Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.  Amen

A couple of weeks ago, on the day before Administrative Professional’s Day, I went to the florist to order an arrangement for Georgia. (Nothing like waiting until the next-to-last minute, is there?) Walking into the florist, I remembered last year when on the day before Administrative Professional’s Day, I went to the florist to order an arrangement for Georgia. (Do you see a trend developing?) What I remembered was the weather. Last year that was the day that a tornado touched down just south of I-20.

I remember sitting in the closet with Marie. We had our chairs and our blankets and our NOAA Weather Radio listening to the broadcast out of Shreveport. I tried to listen to the station at Gilmer thinking notices from the west would be better than notices from the east, but that didn’t happen. Then there was that moment. Marie heard a sound, a rumbling sound like a great motor blowing. From our closet the sound was muffled and ominous. She asked if I heard it and I said yes, I did.

It was the air conditioner. She heard the compressor, the motor, and the blower. She was relieved and at the same time mildly embarrassed.[i] I told her it was alright. I had the same thoughts but I figured out what it was about ten seconds before she asked.

As we drop into John’s gospel, once again we drop in on John’s version of The Last Supper. By this time, Jesus had prophesied his death and his betrayal. He also prophesied Peter’s denial. They had seen many wonderful and glorious things. They had heard wisdom the likes of which they never imagined. Now Jesus shared devastation they could neither imagine nor stop.

Jesus had given them hope. Hope for new life. Hope for life eternal. They had seen and heard much. They had learned much and there was still much more to learn. For that, they need the Spirit of truth. What Jesus was giving them here was hope, hope that they could not imagine with his absence. Jesus offers them unforeseen hope, the hope which was yet to come.

In John’s gospel, the apostles were promised someone who would be alongside them when the world prosecuted them and persecuted them. They were promised the Paraclete, one who would serve as their counselor. Outside of scripture, the word Paraclete often referred to a lawyer or attorney. The Paraclete is one who advocates on our behalf not before God but in God’s good creation. At this moment, they needed an advocate.

They needed an advocate because they needed the comfort and reassurance that only the Lord’s Counselor can provide. The disciples had received great promises. They had high hope. But the counselor, the comforter, the Paraclete was still just a promise, not a reality, not yet. They may have had all of the hope in the world, but the reality of living in Palestine at that very moment is that they would have been foolish if they had not felt fear.

It was at this very moment, on the day of Pentecost, that they were assembled together in one place. It was at this very moment that from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, filling the entire house where they were sitting.

This must have been even more frightening. They knew to be leery of the princes of this world. They knew the Governor and the Prelate and the Sanhedrin had them in their sights, but now the violent winds rushed down on them.

In our time, we have a tendency to romanticize many of scripture’s narratives. We know the stories. We know what is coming next, so we tend to gloss over parts of the story that don’t seem so impressive anymore. This is to our disadvantage.

We heard from the Acts of the Apostles that “Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.” The problem that comes from familiarity with these stories is that when we read them we imagine sitting in the closet where we hear the AC kick on and think it’s the Holy Spirit. We have to remember that what happened that day was that a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.

We may be talking about this scripture and praising God for the glory of the coming of the Holy Spirit, but on that day, they were in the midst of a violent wind filling the house where they were sitting. We talk about joy, they experienced holy terror.

So how do we hold these scriptures together for our lives today?

Here’s the first thing we need to remember. We need to remember that Jesus, on the night before he was betrayed, broke bread and blessed it and gave it to them and their eyes were opened. We take grain and grape from the gifts we have been given and celebrate with joy the redemption won for us in Jesus Christ.

By His Spirit we are united with the living Christ and with all who have been and will be baptized in his name. This happened so that we may be with him and with them in one ministry in every time and place. We declare that by the fire of the Holy Spirit we are forged into one Body, many and different people together in Christ’s embrace.

By the grace and peace of our Lord, the promises Jesus makes in our reading today from John are realized in our reading from Acts. If that isn’t the first lesson to take it is a lesson worth knowing, Jesus keeps the promises he makes. Death cannot separate Jesus from fulfilling his work on Earth. Death cannot separate us from Christ’s love.

So today, let us all regain that elemental presence of worship. Let us live into God’s storm warning.

We come to the font of many blessings overflowing with living water and remember our baptism. We come to the table with the cup and the plate to partake in the food that feeds our bodies and our souls. We hear the Word proclaimed and even more so, we come to know the Word Incarnate, the Son of God, the one who the Lord has set aside since before the creation, Jesus the Christ.

And today, especially today, we need to allow ourselves to be consumed by the fire of the Holy Spirit so that as steel is forged in the furnace, we may be made strong in the Lord for the Lord’s service. And we do this so that in the words of our Lord, “Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” This is the lesson of the Pentecost. This is how the dry bones live. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Amen.

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[i] Yes, Marie gave me permission to tell that story.

Passing the Baton

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday May 20, 2012, the 7th Sunday in Easter.

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Acts 1:15-17, 21-26

Psalm 1

1 John 5:9-13

John 17:6-19

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.  Amen

Friends in Christ, there are days, and this is one of them, that I truly appreciate those who have made a life teaching English and foreign languages. Look at the pronouns in this passage! The reason I used the cadence I did while reading this was so that I could get through it with as few slips as possible. I haven’t heard anything more convoluted until I heard John and Paul say “I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.”[1] Of course that didn’t come from the apostles, that came from The Beatles. Goo goo g’joob.

One of the biggest issues I have when reading this is the pronoun references. Some of it’s pretty easy. Our reading comes from what people call the “High Priestly Prayer of Jesus” so that tells us something about the pronouns. Since Jesus is praying, he’s the “I” and the “my” in the passage. He’s praying to God the Father, who’s the “you” and the “your.” As I consider these last two sentences I have just noticed I’ve used nominative singular first, second, and third person pronouns, and an interrogative. Let me guess, I’m not helping much.

Simply, the “I” and the “my” in this passage is Jesus and the “you” and the “your” is God the Father. As for the “they,” “them,” “their,” and so on; we’ll get into that soon. As for the “these things” Jesus speaks, that has been the heart of the matter since the gospel was first shared.

To make sense of this for us today, we’ll look at this reading in three sections. In the first, Jesus prays for his glorification. In the second, Jesus prays for his disciples. In the third, Jesus asks for specific intercession.

Jesus begins by acknowledging the Father, then what he (Jesus) has done: Made God known to the disciples. Jesus describes his disciples with the phrase, “those whom you gave me out of this world.” Verse nine also uses to this wording saying, “I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours.”

When Jesus talks about the world, he is talking about all creation. what the New International Version translates as “world” is the ancient Greek word “cosmos.” (Who knew? Cosmos is an ancient Greek word!) So when Jesus says he prays for the ones the Father gave him out of the world, he doesn’t pray for the whole of creation, the kit or the caboodle.

We know of God’s grace and love for all creation, but at this moment that’s not Jesus’ prayer. Jesus prays specifically for the disciples. Jesus prays specifically for those with whom he has cultivated a deep personal relationship.

Let that be our first lesson, God the Father and his Son Jesus the Christ care for those who have a relationship with the Lord. Our reading from 1John reminds us of this, “He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.” 1John offers reassurance a couple of verses later saying “I (in this case John) I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.

There is life in Christ and being in Christ is not a passive thing. We can’t wait on Jesus like a bus. We are called to find where God is acting and become a part and partner in God’s work. This is eternal life. This takes us to the second section.

What Jesus does he does for many reasons. Jesus knows God’s glory; glory which has come to him and has come through the disciples. Wonderfully, this glory is part and parcel of a grand design. From the Father to the Son to the disciples and back to the father, this is the path of God’s glory. It’s a cycle that if broken diminishes us. When the path continues, so does God’s glory. On second thought, a circle is a poor image, a spiral is actually better. A spiral which goes up and up provides direction, exultation. A circle just returns to the beginning.

In this section, we also learn that Jesus protected the ones the Father gave him. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled. Now, who is this?

Biblical scholars spend good time and energy trying to figure these things out. For better and for worse, they don’t always agree with one another. You have heard me say that all translation is interpretation. In this case it would be more accurate to say that all interpretation is interpretation.

Some scholars look to Psalm 41 and say this is Judas Iscariot, the one who shared bread with the Lord and then turned against him. Others look to 2Thessalonians 3 where Paul speaks of the Antichrist, a man of lawlessness, the man doomed to destruction. As for me, I don’t know which Jesus was talking about, and all things considered it doesn’t matter so much. I take something different from this.

So rather than trying to figure out who this doomed one is, whether Jesus or the Antichrist, I prefer the truth of God’s love that comes from these words. The better truth is that the betrayal of Christ cannot void his love and care for creation. Neither crucifixion nor the apocalypse, nothing can stop God’s plan for the world.

This is also where Jesus acknowledges that his time in this stage of life is limited. In scripture, Jesus’ arrest, trial, and execution come next. He knows that he will be coming to the Father soon. Knowing this, like any good Rabbi, he explains what he is doing. He does what he does so that the disciples may have the full measure of his joy within them.

Where do we find Christ’s joy? Christ’s joy is a personal relationship with his people. This passage is specifically about his relationship with his disciples. Thanks be to God that through the events that follow, Christ’s arrest, trial, and death, this promise is extended to all creation. In the resurrection eternal life is made real for all the cosmos. A reality which is seated in the promises of God and this is the third section.

 The final section of this reading details the specific things Christ prays for his disciples. He prays the Father sanctify the disciples through his word which is the truth. Jesus prays that they will be sent into the world as he was sent into the world. Then in a motion only God can perform, Jesus sanctifies himself so that the disciples may be sanctified.

Sanctify is a churchy word. It can be translated made holy, but that’s kind of churchy too. An easier way to say “sanctify” is “set aside for the work of God.” In the communion, the bread and the grape of the Lord’s Supper are set aside from common use for a holy one; to feed, both bodily and spiritually, the people of God. In this part of the High Priestly Prayer, Jesus asks the Father to set aside the disciples for holy work.

He doesn’t ask they be put on a shelf; he asks this holiness be sent into the world so that the world might know who God is. In this moment, Jesus asks the Father to bless his children, the ones he was given, so they may continue his work.

In this moment, Jesus passes the baton. Unlike a relay race where each runner races alone, the Father and the Son run with the disciples in the world.

When I was in school, I took grammar and composition classes. One of the things I somehow avoided was diagramming sentences. In every school I attended teachers taught sentence diagramming, and somehow none of my teachers ever taught diagramming. There were many days when doing my English homework that I considered myself lucky, but in looking at this passage, a good diagram would have been worth its weight in gold. But the church, our faith, is about more than grammar.

Our faith is rooted in the relationship God initiates first through the Old Testament covenants. In Christ, that relationship is seeded in the disciples and spread through the cosmos by the truth of God’s word. As we heard in our assurance of pardon based on 1John 5, “The testimony is this: god gave us eternal life, and this life is in Jesus Christ, God’s Anointed One. I proclaim this to you who confess the name of Jesus Christ, that you may know that you have eternal life. Whoever receives the Word of God has life.

It is now up to us to pick up the baton. It is up to us to be sanctified by the word of God so that we may, set aside from the world, go into the cosmos of God’s good creation. Sharing the relationship we have with God with others.

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[1] That’s right, “I Am the Walrus.”

Greater Love

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday May 13, 2012, the 6th Sunday in Easter. Happy Mothers' Day.

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Acts 10:44-48

Psalm 98

1 John 5:1-6

John 15:9-17

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.  Amen

If you have never come to the Lectio Divina Bible Study, I highly recommend it. Every Thursday morning we come together and examine the coming Sunday’s gospel reading using this holy reading technique. We read the passage three times. Between the first and second times, I ask everyone for words and phrases that jumped out at them during the reading. Between the second and third readings, we delve into the passage deep and wide. After the third reading we ask what the passage is calling us to do in the coming week.

Let me add, if you don’t come because you don’t feel comfortable speaking up, you don’t have to speak up, that’s up to you. I hope that everyone who comes will get their sea legs quickly and join right in, but I don’t expect that right out of the box. If you think you aren’t qualified to speak at the meeting, let me say that I learn something new weekly. We teach one another more than I teach.

Thank you for the shameless plug; we hope to see you soon. Now back to the sermon.

On Thursday when I asked “What is this calling us to do this week?” the answer came with speed and authority. The first answer to that question comes straight out of verses twelve and seventeen, “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” What a wonderful command, “Love each other.” Jesus says in these three words what he expects.

Jesus doesn’t go at the Ten Commandments. He doesn’t go through the 613 mitzvah of the Old Testament. He doesn’t establish and discuss the Westminster Confession of Faith and its Catechisms. Jesus cuts to the heart of the matter and tells his disciples to love each other. Does it get any easier than that?

So now for the “$64 Question,” what does Jesus mean when he says “Love one another?” Now there’s the rub. There’s no better place to answer that question than John’s gospel itself.

One of the ways to analyze John’s gospel is “everything that comes before chapter 13” and “everything that happens after chapter 13 begins.” This is because everything that happens from that point, which begins with John’s version of the Last Supper, makes its way to the passion narrative. Using Jesus’ words from the Garden of Gethsemane, one of the ways to mark the separation between chapters 12 and 13 is that the former happens “while the hour is coming” and the latter happens “once the hour is upon them.”

The hour begins with the sharing of the Passover meal. John’s gospel doesn’t have much about the meal itself. Since John was written at least ten years after the other gospels, the celebration of the meal was pretty well set by then. There wouldn’t have been anything significant to add to the feast and the sharing of bread and wine, the body and the blood. John adds something else.

John’s gospel is where foot washing is added to the celebration. The purpose of foot washing was to allow guests who have travelled to freshen up before the festivities begin. Ordinarily the host would provide the water so guests can take care of their own dusty feet, or would provide servants to wash the feet of the guests.

At this Passover, Jesus shows his disciples how to love one anther acting as their host offering the water and acting as the slave washing their feet. This is one of the ways Jesus shows his love for his disciples. He is their host, their master, their Rabbi. He is also willing to set aside all of those symbols of his power and authority and wash his disciples’ grimy feet.

If you remember last week, in John 15:3 we heard Jesus say, “You are already clean…” In these words, Jesus reinforces the lesson of the foot washing. Those who are bathed are clean; they only need sprucing up before being ready for what follows.

This is one way Jesus shows his love to his disciples and shows us how to love one another. He provides what is necessary to be clean and to be fresh and sets aside his divine standing to serve his disciples as a slave.

At this point in John’s gospel, a devastating turn of events befalls the celebration. For the final time, Jesus announces his betrayal Judas leaves. The other disciples thought he was going to get supplies. Boy, were they wrong.

Jesus knew better. He knew what was about to happen. He knew it was going to be a circus ending in his death. So does Jesus mobilize the troops? No. Does he call out the National Guard? No. Does he bug out and head for higher ground? No.

After Judas leaves, Jesus looks at his disciples and says, “Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him.” He follows these words by teaching them about the Son of Man and the Glory of God. He also gives them a now familiar command. “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”

In the face of coming death, even death upon the cross, Jesus stays with his disciples. He continues to teach. He gives them their most fundamental instruction. People often say that “bible” means “basic instructions before leaving Earth.” When I look at what’s happening in this reading I believe that expression is too limited.

Jesus is not teaching his disciples what to do before the last round-up. He is teaching them how to live today, in every moment, not just the ones before leaving Earth. He is also leaving them with their most important command, the first command, to love one another. Again, Jesus doesn’t go at the Ten Commandments. He doesn’t go through the 613 mitzvah of the Old Testament. He doesn’t establish and discuss the Westminster Confession of Faith and its Catechisms. Jesus cuts to the heart of the matter and tells his disciples to love each other.

Jesus stays with his disciples. He teaches them at his side. They stay together. Jesus doesn’t go out and seek holy vengeance upon the one who will betray him hoping he can get back in time for a quick review. He remains, he abides with his disciples, and they with him.

In this teaching, he says “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” He shows them how the people will know they are followers of Jesus, by their love. It’s like my favorite church camp songs, “They’ll Know We Are Christians by Our Love.”

These are more ways Jesus shows his love to his disciples and shows us how to love one another. By the presence of Jesus, they stay together. They abide in one another. Together they bask in the presence and reflect the glow of their master.

Jesus tells them that as he is about to be forced to leave them and he will go to prepare a place for them. He promises this is the truth saying, “if it were not so, I would have told you.” He promised he would return. As Philip asks to see the father, Jesus promises that there is more to him than meets his eye.

Jesus declares his allegiance. He offers everything he has done as the sign of the promises of what he will do. He reminds the disciples of his promises fulfilled, and that he has the power and the integrity to follow through on the promises he makes. No lies, all truth, allegiance and integrity; this is again how the love of Jesus is made manifest for his disciples.

Jesus promises his spirit. Jesus promises his peace. Jesus tells his disciples to do as he has been doing. Let me testify for a fact that the only way we can possibly do as he has done is in his peace and by the power of his Spirit. This ties back into last week’s Gospel reading, without the Lord our God, without Jesus the Christ, without the Holy Spirit of God, we can do nothing. Jesus gives us what we need to do as he commands. His extravagant gifts of peace and power are more ways Jesus shows his disciples how to love one another.

These are the ways Jesus show his disciples how to love one another during the Passover meal alone, but this is not where I am stopping today. There is more because Jesus says more. In John 15:12-14, Jesus says, “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command.”

I talk about love. Jesus talks about greater love, love where a person lays down their life for their friend. We hear the call of Jesus. We know that he laid down his life for all creation. We know that he was resurrected three days later. We also know we won’t be able to follow that act, not like he did. But let me remind you that up to this point of the meal, Jesus didn’t say anything about his physical death. He was showing his disciples other ways to die, the death to self.

Jesus died to himself everyday. He set aside the power of God, power he could have exercised over humanity to force us into line. Jesus limited himself everyday. He could have done anything, and I mean anything in the most extreme sense. The best examples of this are found in the satanic temptation stories found after the baptism of the Lord. Satan tells Jesus what he can do, but Jesus tells Satan what he will do.

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul describes Christ’s self limiting love this way. He says:

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus,

Who, being in very nature God,

did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

rather, he made himself nothing

by taking the very nature of a servant,

being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,

he humbled himself

by becoming obedient to death —

even death on a cross![1]

Paul reminds us Jesus was God who would be a man. He was the host who would be a slave. He is the eternal who allowed himself to be murdered. Jesus humbled himself for all creation. Paul begins this description of the Lord with this command, Paul knows what it means to die these deaths of self for his friends. He knows what it means through the example of his Lord, and ours. He says this is how we are to love one another.

This is the greater love our Lord wants us to share with one another. Jesus wants us to put one another first when we deal with those we love. Jesus wants us to empty ourselves of our own enlightened self interest.

Jesus wants us to love extravagantly while limiting our wants and desires. This may be the most difficult part of all; Jesus limited himself while loving us and wants us to do the same. He forced no one to love him. He forced no one to follow him. Jesus forced no one to do anything.

Jesus limited himself while allowing his friends to experience all that was possible on this earth with him as our guide. Friends, the best news is that as much as Jesus limits himself, the bounds of what is possible is beyond what we can imagine.

Of course, being asked to lay down your life is the obvious time to gulp. What if I lay down my life for my friend and my friend takes advantage of me? What if my friend hurts me? Well, the possibility of being hurt is the price of loving. Only when we lay ourselves bare to the possibility of pain can we experience the fullness of love.

Jesus says to be meek, but he never said to be abused. Jesus never said to allow anyone to abuse what he gives us. Abuse of love is not what Jesus intends when he calls us to love one another. To love one another, this laying down, this self emptying must be mutual.

Jesus gives us this gift. His death is the proof and his resurrection is the redemption of all pain.

Jesus promises his spirit. Jesus promises his peace. Jesus tells his disciples to do as he has been doing. I say again that the only way we can possibly do as he has done is in his peace and by the power of his Spirit. Not only is this what Jesus gave us, this is what Jesus expects us to share with one another, spirit and peace. Jesus gives us what we need to do as he commands. His extravagant gifts of peace and power are what Jesus gives his us so that we may love one another.

Jesus says “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” This is our command, to empty ourselves, to die to self, so that we may love one another as Christ loved us first.

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[1] Philippians 2:6-8

Making Choices

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas on Sunday May 6, 2012, the 5th Sunday in Easter.

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Acts 8:24-40

Psalm 22:25-31

1 John 4:7-21

John 15:1-8

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.  Amen

Last week’s sermon was called, “What It Means to Be Who I Am.” I used that title because I wanted to share who Jesus is and what that means when he says “I am the Good Shepherd.” It was also about who we are and what it means to be who we are as followers of the Good Shepherd. There was one piece that I left out of the sermon because it just would have made the thing too long, but that’s okay because it is still good today.

Last week Jesus said “I am the Good Shepherd.” Today we read Jesus saying “I am the true vine.” What doesn’t get lost in the translation gets lost in common language; what Jesus meant when he said “I am.” It gets lost for us because we’re all used to being something or other.

Those of us with a social media presence are asked to describe ourselves, sometimes very briefly. On my sermon blog, I joyfully tell the world, “I am the Reverend Paul A. Andresen of the First Presbyterian Church in Marshall, Texas.” On Twitter I describe myself as, “Child of God, Husband of Marie, Teller of Tales, Fortunate Son.” (I think that’s pretty good considering Twitter only gives you 160 characters to describe yourself.) On Facebook, I don’t have a personal description. I use a quote from the movie “Tango and Cash” that goes a long way toward describing why I use Mr. Potato Head as my avatar.[1]

When Jesus says “I am,” it means more than when we say it. Ancient Jews were very stingy with the words “I am.” When they used the Hebrew word we translate “I am” it was only used for the name of the Lord. When they said “I am,” they meant “The Great I AM.” They meant “I AM who I AM.” So when Jesus says “I am,” he invokes the name of the Lord for himself. When he says “I am the Good Shepherd” or “I am the true vine,” he uses these images to describe what it means for him to be fully God in the flesh and in the world.

This linguistic twist is lost on us because we don’t know to look for it. It’s not a part of our culture. It wasn’t lost on his audience. So what does this mean? Let’s answer that using what we are given in John’s gospel. Jesus declares himself the true vine while invoking the name of the Lord. He then says his Father the gardener.

Jesus says “[The gardener] 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.” Honestly, except for those who have gardened vines, we don’t really know what it means. So here’s a quick primer: When looking at a grape trellis, the vine is a trunk that comes out of the ground. That’s all there is to the vine, relatively speaking it doesn’t take up much space in the field at all. The branches sprout from the vines. Most of what we see growing are the branches, fruit, and leaves. The fruit of the vine is borne on the branches, not the vine. Like with the “I AM,” this wouldn’t have been lost on Jesus’ first century audience either.

From what Jesus says we know that the father does two things with the branches, he cuts off the dead wood and he prunes the live growth. This does two things to the plant. The first, cutting off the dead wood prevents any fungus or what not in the dead branches from making its way to the healthy ones. It’s like amputating a finger before gangrene infects the whole hand. On a lighter note, cutting off the dead wood prevents the strain that the weight of the dead branch puts on the vine. It also provides valuable space for good growth to spread.

The benefits of cutting off the dead wood are obvious, and there is one more thing to remember about cutting off the dead, it’s painless to the plant. To us, it would be like clipping a toe nail. It doesn’t really hurt and as for me, my shoes fit better. It’s a win-win.

The second thing pruning does is focus the growth of a plant. Left to their own devices, a vine branch will tend to grow outward producing lots of branch length, lots of leaves, and little fruit. Proper pruning will reduce the length of growth and increase the amount of fruit. It is true after all that the closer the fruit is to the vine the more nutrients it will receive. The closer to the vine, the better the fruit.

Jesus is the vine and the Father is the gardener; as for the branch, that’s us. The fruit, well, that’s a wildcard isn’t it. John’s gospel doesn’t say what the fruit is. Let’s just say that whatever the fruit is, it’s valuable and desirable.

Jesus says “Remain in me and I will remain in you.” This is an adequate translation, it sure isn’t wrong. But in my opinion there is a better way to say it. The New Revised Standard Version has Jesus saying, “Abide in me as I abide in you.” When I hear “remain” I think of a waiting room. It’s not bad, it’s better than being on the outside looking in, but to remain has no sense of action, no real sense of relationship.

When I hear the word abide, I hear the word rest, I hear the word stay, and I also hear that I will be nourished. To abide in one another is to deal in relationship. To abide requires more than just waiting. We were never meant to stay in the waiting room of the Lord, we are meant to be together in word and deed, that is how abiding in Christ we bear God’s desirable fruit.

There is something else I want to share with you. If there is one thing people who come to faith wonder about, it’s how is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ going to change their life. I say this from personal experience. While I went to church as a boy, I wouldn’t say I was raised in the church. Neither would any of the pastors who knew me as a boy. I finally came to faith in my late twenties, certainly old enough to be set in my ways. As you might hear someone say, “I was a grown man.”[2]

Frankly, there were some things I didn’t want to change. I like making myself and others laugh. I love sports. I love trivial garbage knowledge and facts. I love jokes. I love wit. I love making others think. I really love good stories. There are days that I would love to sit around with a beer and a cigar and talk about the good-old-days that frankly from the perspective of 20/20 hindsight weren’t all that good. So yes, being a disciple of Christ has changed me. The dead branches get cut away and pruning happens regularly. But has this changed who I am?

At my core, I am the man God made me, but I am a better man because God shapes me. I’m a better man because God cuts away what is useless and ultimately harmful. My branches don’t grow so wild anymore. I am a better man because cutting away early buds produces more and better fruit later. Yes, I am changed, but at the heart I am who God made me.

To me, this is what it means to abide in Christ. To me, this is what it means when scripture says Christ abides in me.

One of the ways I can confirm that is by the folks who told me that they weren’t surprised I became a minister. I was flabbergasted, I never imagined ministry as a vocation. People saw things in me I never saw, and as I often say, I am glad God was looking out for me long before I was looking out for God.

I have had an internal debate about this next paragraph, but have finally decided to share this. More proof that some things don’t change is that I do still enjoy a Churchill and a Shiner Bock from time to time, just not every night.

Now, excessive pruning and pruning out of season can be harmful. You can’t prune too quickly, if you do you can kill the plant. Using fruit trees as a good example for this, if a tree is pruned too much too quickly, it can fall into shock and die. Too much pruning too quickly is harmful. Being rid of an addiction is a fine example of pruning, but if it’s not done properly the patient can become seriously ill maybe unto death during detox.

Another worry about pruning happens often in the church. It has happened with Christians since the year 35 and it still happens today. People try to do the work of the gardener. People try to do the pruning on their own. The Jerusalem Council from Acts 15 decided whether gentiles had to become Jews before they became Christians. To the old school disciples this made perfect sense. To newer gentile Christians, this was a stumbling block. Looking at our reading today, the Jerusalem Council’s work looks like two sides of a church argument trying to do the pruning and training of the vine that is God’s prevue alone.

Our reading from 1John teaches us that the pruning the Father does is done in love; not in anger or hate or fear. Fear has to do with punishment, but pruning is not punishment, it is shaping us to bear much good fruit. God does this in love. So it is up to us to remember, that Jesus is the vine, God is the vinedresser, and we’re the branches. We’re in the system, but we’re not in charge of it.

Last week’s sermon was called, “What It Means to Be Who I Am.” This week’s sermon is called “Making Choices.” I hoped to share that it’s about the choices the vine and the gardener make, the choices they make because they are who they are, two-thirds of the Holy Trinity of God. It is also about the choices we make because God sometimes lets a branch run wild because that’s what it needs to do before the pruning takes. Finally, it is about also knowing that being pruned, like discipleship, is a continuing process. What lives on the vine today may be tomorrow’s dead wood.

Only by the Lord’s careful tending will we ever live the lives that bear good fruit. Jesus wants us to do nothing less than bear good fruit, because this is to God’s glory.

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[1] The quote: “It wouldn’t be a party without Potato Head” was spoken by Sylvester Stallone.

[2] So the expression is “grown-ass man,” I didn’t think the lovely widows really needed to hear me to say that.