Sermon for April 28, 2024: Grow based upon John 15:1-8

 John 15:1-8 Jesus the True Vine
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‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.

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      Several years ago, a colleague invited me to preach at her installation. She was the associate pastor to two congregations. The senior pastor of the two congregations had been there for a couple decades at that point. She really wanted to have a message of welcoming something new to a body that had already been together for a long time. I immediately began to think of my neighbor’s apple tree. It produces five varieties of apples. That can only happen because of one technology: grafting.

     I am certain that I have told you about this tree before. I'm going to talk about grafting again because I think it’s a useful metaphor for church. For that sermon years ago, I read up on grafting trees in particular. Grafting has myriad uses. One use is cloning. Because of the particular ways that apple and pears reproduce, if you have a delicious fruit and want to grow more trees that produce that fruit same fruit, it is better to clone that fruit’s tree than try to grow another from seed. A second reason that I learned that people add grafts to trees is to help heal injured parts of a tree.

     A third reason that I learned that people graft trees is probably the one I find most interesting. Grafting can be used to make a healthy tree stronger and create more variety in its fruit. New, healthier parts of the tree can be grafted in to keep it from cracking with wind and age. Also, you can help the tree pollinate more easily and successfully by introducing new grafts. Sometimes you can even make plants with several different kinds of fruit on them. This is how my neighbor ended up with an apple tree with multiple varieties.

     Last week, when I preached on part of John 10, I noted that Jesus said, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.” Dr. Gennifer Benjamin Brooks said this part of the reading on the Good Shepherd reminds us that a single faith community as it stands at any given moment does not complete the body of Christ. This has been true from the time of Christ and continues to this day. Jesus calls sheep from all corners to join the fold. And, as the sheep are gathered, they become one flock... one body.

     Foundational to our Christian faith is an understanding of God that allows people who are pretty different from one another, and often people forced to live at the margins of society, to come together across difference and become one body. In John 10, Jesus used the flock as a metaphor for this coming together. In John 15, Jesus uses the image of the vine and branches. How do you introduce a new branch into a plant? How do you support the health of an existing plant? How might you help a plant grow? Perhaps by grafting. Jesus is the vine and we are the branches and new branches can be grafted in at any time. 

     Just as each new branch that is grafted to a root stock adds to the strength and viability of a Vine of Christ, so, too, does it change how vine grows. If the grafting is done well, by a skilled farmer, a vine will respond to the new graft’s presence by knitting together old and new, creating a stronger plant. In time, this new plant will bear new fruit. Growing this fruit is only possible because the root stock and graft grow together. Doesn’t this sound like the part of the reading where Jesus described himself as a vine who relies on the vine grower? But, it also helps us see the way the vine grower tends to new vines to make the old vine stronger.

     The central metaphor of today’s reading, the vine and branches, I think, can show us something about how Jesus’ followers, with all our wonderful variety and necessary differences, grow with Christ into one whole body. Jesus said that he was the vine and God was the vine grower. The ones who hear the Gospel and are moved by it, becomes branches of that same vine. The branches cannot grow without the vine and the vine cannot grow without the vine grower. Though, we should note, the vine grower receives sustenance from the fruitful vine. The scholar Karoline Smith says we need to pay attention to the fact that the relationship between growers and plants is mutual. Each party is necessary for abundant growth and life. No one part grows by itself. Intimacy among God and Jesus and Jesus followers is necessary for the vine and branches to thrive.

     According to this chapter of John, we build intimacy with the Divine from following Jesus’ teaching. In John, this is called abiding in Jesus. According to Karoline Lewis, this is one of the most important ways Jesus understands his ministry in this Gospel. He says that the ones who abide in him and in whom he abides will bear much fruit. To return to the work of Dr. Brooks, in her commentary on today’s reading, she says that “The guiding principle by which all would be transformed into the image of Christ is boundless love of God and neighbor.” A thriving vine of Christ will be fed by this love of God and love of neighbor. When you love God, you love your neighbor. When you love your neighbor, you tend to your neighbors’ well-being and make sure that any body of Christ you are helping to cultivate is capable of incorporating new branches. A vine that doesn’t grow can’t produce the fruits of justice and love. And what are we doing here if not growing towards the Gospel that Christ has shared with us?

     This is where the part of how to make one vine out of many branches comes in. We are still in the season of Easter, where we spend time considering how Jesus would prepare his followers to carry on the Gospel without him being physically present. He did not preach the Gospel alone. He called disciples to help. The disciples, too, will need co-workers, and will invite others to be grafted into the Vine. The Gospel is always the work of community, at work through relationships. The branches will be called and empowered to grow and carry on Christ's work in the world, long after Jesus himself returns to God. These branches must grow, pruning that which does not produce love and justice, and reach out into all of creation, bearing fruit of God's love on this earth. One way we will grow is by making sure that the branch that we steward is prepared for new branches.

     Perhaps instead of cloning beloved varietals, we can understand that people will come to our church with great gifts for ministry cultivated in other communities, be they churches or neighborhoods, and decides to use those gifts to serve a new congregation in a new way. They may be able to replicate the attentiveness, prayerfulness, and dedication with which they went about developing these gifts in another situation to fit the needs and joys of a new congregation. One of the great joys of being grafted into a new community is being trusted to bring all of the experiences you have had up until that point and being allowed to use these experiences to serve in a new way. It is a joy to see these gifts bloom in a new place.
I mentioned that grafts aid in healing. Healing is certainly foundational to the Gospel. Congregations, if we’re following Christ, spend a lot of time healing, too: Healing old hurts and arguments, offering comfort for the pains of everyday life, working to heal systemic injustice that wounds whole communities. In recognizing the ways that we need healing and that the world needs healing, we are abiding in Christ and Christ is abiding in us. If we love our neighbors, we will seek healing. We will be confident that God is at work in our healing, too. Grafting on new branches can bring such joy and creativity, too. Like the tree with many kinds of apples, we may be surprised by who we grow next to.

      This body of Christ, the vine and branches, is not complete. There is always the possibility for new and different growth meeting the needs of new and different times. Whatever we will become is already growing in us, like the graft growing with the root stock. And, we’ll likely get some new grafts, too, helping us reach out with Christ in directions we can’t even imagine right now. Storms will come. So will droughts, freezes, and caterpillars. Do not fear, though. We have a vine grower with water to refresh, patient hands to pick away the bugs, and tools to prune and shape us as we grow. May we rejoice in this unfinished, ever growing, pruned, and grafted Body of Christ. May we never lose sight of the growing that we have yet to do.

Resources consulted while writing this sermon:

Gennifer Benjamin Brooks: https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fourth-sunday-of-easter-2/commentary-on-john-1011-18-5
-https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fifth-sunday-of-easter-2/commentary-on-john-151-8-5

Helpful information on grafting: http://www.extension.umn.edu/garden/yard-garden/fruit/grafting-and-budding-fruit-trees/

Karoline Lewis, John: Fortress Biblical Preaching Commentaries (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014).