Sermon for May 10th

I have a woodstove at home. It keeps us a little too hot in the Fall and Spring and not quite warm enough in the winter, but I still really like it. Every three or four hours, I have to get another load of wood into the stove in order to keep it going. If I don’t, for instance if I oversleep, I awake to find the coals not quite hot enough to get another fire going quickly and that means I have to put out a lot more effort and . . . use many more little sticks and branches.

Where I do I find these little sticks and branches? Well, mostly, my family finds them for me. They search the ground for little sticks that have fallen off trees and pile them up for me in the wheelbarrow or in a bucket or in a box so that, when the time comes, I can throw them into the fire and get it started again. Because, you see, that’s all those little sticks are good for, really, besides breaking my lawnmower or maybe for playing pretend games with outside. Those little sticks have fallen off the tree they once belonged to. They won’t produce leaves anymore. They can’t grow anymore. So, in my opinion, they are mostly good for one thing—to be burned.

Jesus compares himself not to a tree, but to a vine. He was probably referring to a grapevine. And he compares his disciples to the branches on that vine that would produce fruit. Jesus says that any one of his disciples that do not bear fruit are about as good as a branch lying on the ground. Not good for much other than burning. You also are about as worthless as this box of sticks if you do not continue and remain connected to Jesus Christ, the true vine. Jesus says that if you do not produce fruit—if you do not follow his commandments and actively love others—you’d be worth more burned up than just sitting around where you are. “I am the true vine,” Jesus proclaims. “Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.”

Jesus talks in a very organic way about faith and life. A branch on a grapevine doesn’t just “decide” one day to create a grape. It is nourished from the vine it is attached to, it abides in the vine, as Jesus puts it, resting securely, receiving everything through the vine until, after a period of time, fruit finally bursts forth. Jesus says he receives everything from his Father and gives it to us. And over time, after being nourished day by day by none other than Jesus himself, the fruits of the Spirit happen in your life. According to Paul’s letter to the Galatians, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” Important stuff. Stuff worth waiting for.

As a branch on the true vine of Jesus Christ, your “nourishment” comes in two forms. Jesus gives you commandments and Jesus gives you love. “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

Jesus gives you love. That love flows into you throughout your entire life. God gave you life at birth. God provides you with food. God provides you family and friends. God sent Jesus to die for your sins. The love keeps flowing and flowing into you. But if you are removed from that relationship, well, two things happen. First, that love cannot find its way into fruit. In order to get your neighbor loved, God needs you. If you do not abide in Jesus, your friends, your family and your coworkers cannot know God’s love. Second, if you did not continue receiving life or love from Jesus, you would not have love or life. One moment you would be a living branch on the true vine. The next moment you would be a dead branch, fit for the fire.

Jesus also gives you commandments. Jesus tells you what to do by giving you his words that you must fulfill. These commandments flow into you throughout your life. You are told to love God above anything else. You are told to pray to God for everything that you need. You are told not to murder. You are told to love one another. You see, sometimes we do things because we want to, we love our children and so we change their dirty diapers. But sometimes we do things, not necessarily because we want to, but because we are told to. Nurses or aides in a hospital or nursing home might rather not change a resident’s dirty diaper, if the decision were based purely on love, they might just choose not to. But they are commanded to by their bosses or else they might be fired.

These commandments of God, while not always being something we like or like to do, are extremely important in our world. Without them, diapers would sometimes not be changed. People would think they could do whatever they wanted without any consequences even if they hurt others. God’s commandments flow through Jesus into our ears and into our actions day after day, but if that relationship is cut off two things happen. First, your neighbors are no longer protected and may not be loved as they were before. Second, if you do not continue receiving commands from Jesus, you have no boundaries on your behavior. You are unprotected from others and from yourself. One moment you are a living branch on the true vine. The next moment you are a dead branch, fit for the fire.

And somehow these two things are connected. In fact, the purpose of God’s commandments is to get you to love, love is the completion of God’s commandments. But when Jesus talks about love, he is not simply talking about it like WE like to talk about it in our world. Everyone is “for” love, if you haven’t noticed. Very few religions don’t like love, right? Atheists like “love” too! Everybody likes love! But Jesus is not just talking about love the way the world works. This is a different kind of a love. A love described by none other than Jesus himself, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.” Love is about service. It is an active love that doesn’t aim at death or martyrdom, but, through the act of service, is willing to die for the sake of the neighbor just as Jesus did.

When you watch TV and movies, love is often described or connected somehow to sex and sexual relationships. Relationships between adults and youth often see the act of sex as a requirement for love: “If you really love me, you’d sleep with me.” That’s the general idea at least. Sex is even used to “fix” relationships or to “make up” after big fights. Some communes in the sixties were based on the idea that anyone could “make love” with anyone else without any jealously or so called “property rights” (at least that was the idea anyway). If you’ve ever read the book Stranger in a Strange Land you might recognize that concept of love.

The other description of “love” that is so popular today makes love equal to tolerance. Now, tolerance is a Christian ideal in many respects. We are all sinners and, as Jesus points out “judge not lest ye be judged”. However, the thing is, we are all judged by God, his words and his commandments, and so is everyone else. So while we are called to be tolerant of others and their choices in society, this doesn’t mean that people are not still punished for their bad choices. We don’t tolerate some things like murder or stealing. In the church, we must be tolerant of different ways of life, cultures and traditions, but when we break God’s laws, we aren’t called to tolerate bad behavior, we are called to forgive, just as we have been forgiven. We learn love from Jesus’ death on the cross for us, not from TV or movies. Jesus didn’t just tolerate your sins, he died to forgive you and save you from being punished for your sins.

Jesus’s statement about love in John’s gospel is different than sex and more than tolerance. In fact, it is different than any other statement that you can find in the other three gospels. John isn’t saying that you should “love our neighbor as yourself” and he isn’t talking about the “golden rule” or how to increase your pleasure in the world; instead, as the Father loves him, and as Jesus loves you, that is love. “No greater love is there than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” That doesn’t mean that everyone must die, it is not death seeking martyrdom, but all love is measured based on that gift of Jesus’. A soldier in the armed forces doesn’t serve with the intention of dying; however, they are willing to serve even if it means that they must die for the sake of loving their country and the people within it, for their protection and their freedom.

What did Jesus’ death do for you? It gives you life, forgiveness and peace. Love is life-giving, not simply pleasure seeking either for the person receiving or giving. Love is about forgiving, not simply tolerating, but forgiving specific wrongs that are being committed against people and against God. This is the love that fulfills God’s commandments. This is the love that God calls you to abide in.

Yet, even while abiding in Jesus Christ and bearing the fruit of the Spirit, sin still clings to you, for you are both a saint and a sinner. John says, “Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.” The word that John uses for “prunes” is the same as he uses for “cleanse” in the very next sentence, “You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you.”. God continues to cleanse and prune you through the words of Jesus Christ so that you will continue to bear fruit. So, while you are receiving love and commandments from Jesus Christ, the true vine, you can still expect to need forgiveness along the way.

In fact, that’s how God loves you. Growing on the vine that is Jesus Christ, you are free to sprout off in whatever direction you need to for the sake of loving or serving someone else. You’ll make mistakes, no doubt about that. You’ll do the wrong thing sometimes and need forgiveness, or pruning as Jesus puts it. But that’s what God’s love is like—not only accepting you as you are, but creating you into a NEW creation. Because the goal isn’t simply to make you feel good about yourself or to help everyone get along. The goal is to serve the world, and through that, glorifying God and his Son, your Savior, the true vine, Jesus Christ—who died for you and intends to serve the world through you.