Text: John 15:1-8
Introduction
I’m something of a news junkie. It is a hazard of the job. As a preacher you are always look for contemporary stories that capture perfectly some portion of the lesson. It is easier to find examples for the law – how we know what we should do, but don’t, how we Lord it over others in ways that we ourselves would not like. But I also keep an eye out for stories of mercy or grace. Especially honest ones, instead of manufactured or stage-managed grace.
There is something that I’ve noticed for a while, but it never bothered me as much as this week. News in my experience has always had a politics or maybe I should just say power first lens. It was very rare for a story to hit the front page without a political or power frame to it. But there were whole sections – sports, cultural, science and medical, the occasional religion article – that were politics free. Both in how things were reported and in the choice of what to cover. That is not the case anymore. Everything gets the political frame. And the biggest place is in the choice of what to cover.
If your Newspaper was the New York Times or associated with it or NBC your network of choice, I could say the name Alfie Evens and it probably wouldn’t mean a thing. If your newspaper is the Wall Street Journal or those affiliated or Fox your network, that name most likely brings up sadness if not anger and incomprehension. Alfie was a two year old child in England afflicted with what was officially called a “terminal degenerative neurological condition”. Whatever caused his suffering, it didn’t have a name. The British hospital had decided the that best thing for little Alfie was to remove oxygen, water and food. They were confident that he would die within minutes of removal. He didn’t. He last 5 days. His Dad didn’t agree, and there was an Italian hospital that thought they might have a treatment, or at least wanted a shot, and the Dad wanted to give them one. The British state unified to disallow any movement claiming along the way that it didn’t matter what the parents thought. Alfie died in the hospital room with the door being guarded by policemen, afraid that someone might try and take him out.
Yes, I’m sure the situation is much more complicated than I just laid out. But I’d put forward that it was also much more simple. Someone connected to the vine could have considered it hopeless, but the right time to be gracious to a grieving father. And of the judges could have simply put aside the law books and said, this is a hard case that makes terrible law, it requires mercy. And when the inevitable happened, the supply of goodwill and trust of institutions would have been increased all around. Instead, disconnected from the vine, the decisions all lead to death. The death of the child, but also the death of civility, the death of institutional trust, the death of parental authority, and even the death of simple humanity.
Text
Jesus says “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine dresser”. It is a statement that can play on the imagination easily.
We are limited creatures. We try not to think about those limitations, but we know they exist. So we try and ground ourselves and our actions in things that connect us. There are a bunch of things on offer. We could pick a philosophy, say utilitarianism. We could pick a method, say science. We could pick a party or a group – republicans or democrats, Human Rights Commission, the NRA. We could just pick our clan and kin. My bible study knows the story of my Grandmother’s desperate quest to prove a descent from a certain Col. Parker so that she could join the DAR. We could even choose a denomination or a religious body. Anything that we think might give us depth and meaning and life.
But what Jesus says is that He is the vine. The branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine…If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers.
We need to hear this. All true righteousness comes from Jesus. And by true righteousness what we mean is the righteousness that stands before a Holy God. There might be very fine civil things that we can do. We can act humanely toward our neighbors. We can “do the right thing”. But absent a connection to Christ, all of our civil righteousness, all of our Cub Scout Good Deeds, are as Paul would say filthy rags. All of our civil righteousness is conflicted. Or maybe a deeper way to understand this would be that even our acts of civil righteousness come from the common grace of Christ. Absent the sustaining grace we would all be Cain, but God causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike.
But anything that cuts itself off from Christ will wither. It immediately loses that saving grace of being in Christ. It can’t renew itself. But it also withers eventually to be thrown into the fire and burned. Things like granting a grieving father a last ditch effort to save a child,however unlikely, are turned into demands to “respect my authority”. Hospitals that strove to protect and restore life, have starvation and dehydration protocols.
And we should understand that we live in a time where many of our institutions have cut themselves off from the vine.
Christology
So, the question might be how we do this? How do we stay connected to the vine?
First, what Jesus says to those disciples is that “they are already clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.” What is that word? The most simple reference would be “all who believe and are baptized will be saved.” We are connected to the vice, we are grafted in through the waters of baptism. And as Luther says, that water is not simple water only, but the water connected to the Word of God. In those baptismal waters we have already been made clean. Every time we recall that baptism, we ensure we are connected. And we recall that baptism every time we confess our sins and receive the absolution. We are clean at that word.
Second, Christ has left us this sacrament. The sacrament of the altar whereby Christ literally abides in us. His body and blood are given for us to eat and drink. One of the questions that gets asked of confirmands is if they will “make diligent use of the means of grace?” The righteousness of Christ, that allows us to stand before a holy God, that is the true life flowing in the body, is available here.
Jesus has given us his promise. We have been buried with him in baptism. In this bread and wine we proclaim his death until he comes. In these sacraments the sure promises of Christ are present. We remain connected right here. By the sure promise of God.
Moral
There are also two other things that we should understand about being connected. “The Father is the vinedresser…every branch that bears fruit he prunes that it might bear more.” The path of faith in Christ is not the big rock candy mountain. It will include its challenges. You have faith now, you are fruitful now. These challenges are given such that faith might be made full. That we might understand how robust life in Christ can be. And that our faith might grow. It is exactly that faith that is the abundant fruit that the father desires.
The second thing about being connected is that whatever the season – a summer full of fruit or a winter of pruning and testing, being connected is about being in prayer. “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” There are some obvious limitations here. If we are truly connected to the vine, we won’t be asking for lawless things. But those type of things are learned in the living. What we are promised is that the Father hears us. And even beyond that, it is by our words, by our requests, that the Father is glorified. Through our worship and prayer, through our faith and piety, we can truly glorify the Father and find communion with God.
When we are connected, our good works truly are good works. When we are connected, we grow in grace, and faith and love. In fruitfulness.
Eschatology
And unlike the growth that we experience in this world – limited to certain season, everything that grows eventually dies – unlike this world, those connected to the true vine are promised that greatest growing season. Those that abide in the vine grow into eternal life.
We have been united to his death, so that the resurrection life flows though us. It flows through us individually, and it flows through us as the body of Christ. The church is constantly renewed by that life as long as it remains connected to the vine. Everything that remains connected to the vine of Christ will be restored. Will bear much fruit. Everything that cuts itself off will wither and be thrown into the fire.
The life of everything is found only in one place. In Christ crucified. Abide in him. Abide in word and sacrament. Abide in testing and prayer. Abide forever in the fruitful life that God intends. Amen.