Shear Fruitfulness

John 15:1-8

William F. Schnell

May 10, 2009

 

Today’s message is the third in a four sermon series from the Gospel of John.  What was I thinking, scheduling a sermon series with Mother’s Day smack in the middle?  I am reminded of the lyrics to a song that go something like this: “You don’t tug on Superman’s cape.  You don’t spit into the wind.  You don’t pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger and you don’t ignore Mother’s Day at church.”  Some causes are worthy of martyrdom, but ignoring Mother’s Day is not one of them.  Hopefully we will find a way to integrate dear Mom into our message for today.

 

In the first two sermons of our series Jesus drew upon the images from shepherding to make his points.  The sheep industry was big business in his day, and most everyone could relate to the allegories and metaphors he drew from that vocation.  In today’s text Jesus draws upon the images of another widely known industry in his day: viticulture-the cultivation of grapevines.  Not many of us grow grapevines, but I think we will be able to follow Jesus’ reasoning if we have any experience growing anything at all. 

 

Two weeks ago I mentioned that Nancy and I were getting back into vegetable gardening after a 14 year hiatus.  Right now we are waiting for our freshly cleared patch to dry out so we can till it up and begin planting seeds.  We will probably plant one corn seed every 3 inches in rows that are about a yard apart.  Then we will wait for them to germinate and grow into sprouts.  Then comes the counterintuitive part.  We will have to pull out, on average, three sprouts for every one we leave in the ground. 

 

This is called thinning and it is necessary to give the plants room to grow to their natural height and width without crowding each other out and reducing the final yield of corn.  The reason we don’t plant one seed every foot is because germination rates for seed are affected by a variety of variables such as moisture, temperature, the age of the seed, etc.  The only way to insure an average of one plant per foot is to plant more than needed and thin out the excess.  But let me tell you, it is emotionally distressing to pull those perfectly good sprouts out of the ground.

 

When it comes to growing things, less is often more.  Too much water and you get blossom end rot on your tomatoes.  Too much nitrogen fertilizer and you get lots of leaves and very little beans.  Too many corn sprouts and you get stunted plants and a much lower yield than if you thin the plants properly.  And what goes for vegetables goes even more for fruits and berries which, if left to their own devices, tend to grow in very unproductive ways. 

 

For example, if you plan on growing raspberries, you better buy yourself a good pair of pruning shears.  Aside from cutting the canes back almost to the ground in the fall, you are going to want to cut away all but the strongest canes when they grow back in the spring.  Otherwise you will have a tangled briar patch with a few berries here and there that are nearly impossible to reach.  Pruning ensures that the energy of the plant goes into berry production and not briar production—clusters of raspberries that are easy to pick.

 

Hence the title of our message for this morning: “Shear Fruitfulness.”  That was not a typo in case you were wondering.  “Shear Fruitfulness” describes the relationship between pruning and productivity—between the skillful wielding of shears and the promotion of fruitfulness.  Insofar as success in viticulture is concerned, pruning is absolutely essential.  Jesus said, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.  He 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 (Verses 1-2). 

 

A great motorcycle ride in the fall is heading west on 82.  About five miles past Nelson you come to Rt. 534.  Turn left and head north until you come to Geneva on the Lake.  Along the way you will pass vineyards on both sides of the road filling the air with the fragrant smell of ripe grapes.  It’s enough to make a pastor want to stop his bike and steal some.  Acre after acre are rows of grapevines carefully trained on trellises and absolutely loaded with clusters of grapes.

 

They don’t grow that way naturally.  Naturally grapevines fork and wind into a tangled mess of new shoots and old dead wood and tons of leaves and relatively few grapes.  Those grapevines on Rt. 534 have been cleaned of their dead wood and pruned of what are called sucker shoots, aptly named because they suck the life out of the plant without producing any fruit.  Only the strongest vine remains to be trained to grow along the trellis so that the life force of the plant can produce clusters of grapes.

 

Jesus describes how the gardener cuts away the unproductive dead wood from the plant, and then further prunes the parts with productive potential so that they may realize their full potential.  The gardener in Jesus’ allegory is God.  Jesus represents the vine.  You and I represent the branches.  Jesus concludes his allegory with these words: “This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples” (Verse 8).  God want us to bear fruit—lots of it. 

 

Before we get to how God trains us to bear lots of fruit, let us consider what the fruit in Jesus’ allegory represents.  St. Paul has written, …the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).  I like that last term, self-control, because I don’t think any of the other fruits of the spirit are possible without self-control.  For example, we do not normally associate peace, patience, kindness, gentleness and so forth with those who cannot control their anger.   And so it goes for people who cannot control their carnal passions and appetites. 

 

How does God train his people to produce the fruit of the spirit?  He prunes them.  When like a wild sucker shoot they grow apart from him, he cuts them off just as he cut them off from the Land of Promise during the Exile.  God does not do this to his people to destroy them, anymore than a good gardener prunes his vines to destroy them.  God does it to train his people so as to bring the very best out of them.  Indeed once his discipline has done its work in restoring a measure of self-control, God transplants a much more fruitful people right back into the Land of Promise.

 

Every “Thou shalt not…”, every prophetic warning, every biblical expression of tough love is a snip from the pruning shears of the Master Gardener who is seeking to bring the best out of his children in terms of bearing good fruit.  Sometimes God may seem to be a nag, or excessively demanding or impossible to please.  But once his pruning begins to bear good fruit in our lives we forget the discipline and realize that he knew what he was doing all along.  Moreover his handiwork actually represents quite a sacrifice on his part and that he must have loved us an awful lot to make it.

 

I think you can probably tell where this is going.  If not, then the quote at the top of our bulletins should make it clear.  “Any understanding of motherhood includes cajoling, guiding, and giving—as well as taking away, in the form of grounding, being put on ‘time out’, or being sent to our room.  Isn’t this a bit like God’s role as the Vinedresser?”  Every “no” we have to take for an answer from our mothers, every correction of our lousy grammar, every pat on the behind to get going is a snip, snip, snip from a mother’s pruning shears designed to bring the very best out of us.

 

During private baptisms I will often tell parents that they will have to teach their children many things: how to tie their shoes, how to ride a bike and how to do their math.  But the one thing they will not have to teach their children is how to misbehave.  Children will learn the original sin of disobedience all on their own, and at a very early age.  Like the sucker branches of a grapevine, they will shoot off in all sorts of unruly directions if left to their own devices. 

 

If you don’t nip that in the bud you will end up with a tangled mess—a spoiled brat who has never learned how to take “no” for an answer, who lacks self-control, who increasingly becomes a danger to self and others and who just as increasingly becomes a heartache for parents who struggle to find the first bit of good fruit from an out of control life.  I’m not saying you have to beat your kids every day.  Every other day should be sufficient—whether they need it or you do.

 

In all seriousness, all Nancy had to do was point a flyswatter at Jim Bob and the kid would freeze in his tracks.  I wish that is all it would have taken for me.  For me it took a belt across the back of my legs out of the blue, sort of like that guy on TV who says: “Now you’re thinking with your dipstick Jimmy.”  Yes indeed, a surprise like that would have me standing right up on my tiptoes with my mother saying, “Now I’ve got your attention.”  Oh yes, this attention deficit kid was all ears at that point.

 

That’s what it took for me.  Waving a flyswatter was what it took for Jim Bob.  I don’t know what it takes for your kid—maybe a “time out” or “the look”, but you better do whatever it takes if you want to bring the best out of that child God has entrusted to you, and if you want that child to know the depth of your love.  I love my Mom.  I am doing my level best to care for her as the advancing years take their toll.  And despite the toll they take, I still have the ability to bring a good measure of joy to her life.

 

My kids love their mother.  They are in college now and don’t have access to much money, but they found enough to send her a dozen roses for Mother’s Day.  She opened the box, read the note and asked if I had anything to do with it.  I said, “Absolutely,” which was a lie.  The kids did it on their own because they love their Mom.  They love her too much.  Whenever Nan and I argue about something, they always take her side.  That’s too much love in my book, but I suppose it’s better to err on the side of too much rather than too little.

 

Love your kids too much.  Love them too much to let them settle for less.  Love them too much to let them expend life’s energy in unfruitful ways.  Love them too much to let them grow unpruned.  Err on the side of too much love rather than too little.  You will probably have some regrets—some things you might have done differently.  I certainly have my share when it comes to raising the kids.  God doesn’t expect perfection from us—he doesn’t expect what we are unable to give.  But he does expect us to do the very best we can.  And if we do, that will be sufficient.

 

Even little children are pretty bright about certain things.  They know if they are loved.  They know if they are numero uno in their parents’ lives.  They know if their parents are willing to make any sacrifice for their best interests.  If they know that kind of love, they will keep no record of wrongs.  They will have the distinction of having had the best Mom and Dad in the whole world.  Not because their Mom and Dad were perfect, but because that’s just the kind of fruit we produce when we are connected with the vine which is Jesus Christ.

 

Indeed, Jesus says: “Remain in me, and I will remain in you.  No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine.  Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me” (Verse 4).  Fruitful people are well-connected people.  A newspaper reporter went to interview a successful entrepreneur.  “How did you do it?” he asked.  “How did you make all this money?”  “I’m glad you asked,” the entrepreneur replied.  “Actually, it’s a rather wonderful story.” 

 

“You see, when my wife and I married, we started out with five cents between us.  I took that nickel, went down to the grocery store, bought an apple, and shined it up.  Then I sold it for ten cents.”  “What did you do then?” the reporter asked.  “Well,” he said, “then I bought two more apples, shined them up, and sold them for twenty cents.”  The reporter thought this would be a great human interest story.  “Then what?” the reporter asked excitedly.  The entrepreneur replied: “Then my father-in-law died and left us $20 million.”  That’s being well-connected!

May we experience the “Shear Fruitfulness” of being well-pruned of all unrighteousness and otherwise being well-connected with the vine which is Jesus Christ, who enriches us beyond measure.