Bearing Fruit.

John 15:1-27.

I.

            This reading is a part of Jesus’ long, last discourse to his disciples before he is arrested.  They are in the upper room in Jerusalem where he has just washed their feet as a sign of servant leadership.  He gives them this example of how they are to serve one another, even to the point of humiliation and acting like a slave, bowing down to each other and washing the parts of the body that got most dirty: the feet.

            Then, after predicting Peter’s denial, Jesus talks for 4 whole chapters with barely a break.  It’s like he is trying to get as much teaching into their heads as he can before he dies, like a mother going on a trip, hastily giving last-minute instructions to the baby-sitter before she gets in the taxi….

            In chapter 14 he talks a lot about his death and departure.  We often read parts of that chapter at funerals.  Here in chapter 15 he changes the focus to the disciples and how they are to act going forward.

            The image he uses is a grapevine and its branches.  He says he is the grapevine, and the disciples are the branches.  God is the vineyard keeper.  The disciples are supposed to produce fruit: Grapes, which were used to make wine.  Unproductive branches, branches that don’t produce fruit, are removed by the vineyard keeper.  Those are worthless and they are burned.  Productive branches get pruned and trimmed so they produce more fruit.  This is supposed to focus the energy of the branch so it produces fruit rather than, I guess, leaves, or it keeps the branch from producing a high volume of mediocre fruit, helping it produce a smaller volume of much better fruit. 

            We have a bonsai tree at home, and I have learned that this pruning thing is an art.  Cutting off a branch in one place doesn’t necessarily mean the other branches will grow more.  Sometimes it means a new, stronger branch will grow where the cut is.  I still haven’t figured it out.

            Jesus’ point is that disciples have to be productive, they have to bear fruit, in order to be rendered worthy to stay on the vine.  He says, “You are already trimmed because of the word I have spoken to you.”  So this pruning happens to the disciples by Jesus’ teachings.  When their lives are reshaped according to Jesus’ words, then they are more fruitful and may stay connected to Jesus. 

            His teachings help the disciples to stay on the right path, not to wander out into other ways, not to dissipate their energy with trivialities.  They are to stay focused and use Jesus’ teachings as their guide.  If a disciple gets too distracted and spreads the vine’s energy too thin, it becomes unfruitful and even dies.  Then it gets cut off and thrown in the fire.  We don’t have to imagine hell or anything.  It’s just that an unfruitful branch/disciple is being shaped by Jesus words or expressing Jesus’ energy, and is therefore has no reason to be connected to the vine.

II.

            This whole thing hinges on what it means to “bear fruit.”  What does it mean to be productive as a disciple of Jesus Christ?  Keeping the commandments does not appear to be the end and goal here; that is the way the branch is shaped and disciplined so it may bear more fruit.  But keeping the commandments is not the same as bearing fruit.

            In other words, Jesus does not come to announce and impose a new law, a new set of written instructions, the diligent obedience to which itself constitutes salvation.  He does give us commandments and he expects those commandments to be obeyed.  But these are a matter of shaping the disciples so they can do something else.  His commandments are a means to an end, which is what he calls bearing fruit. 

            Christ’s energy, which flows from God, through him, into his disciples, as from a vine to its branches, is love.  Keeping his commandments enables the disciples to “remain in” his love.  That is, his love flows from him into us.  The connection is maintained.  The point of keeping the commandments is to remove any blockages, and stay focused, so that his love fills us, and enables us to bear fruit.

            And the bearing of fruit, finally, means that this love is expressed and done and accomplished, first of all, within the gathering of disciples itself.  The disciples are to share and live this love, which they receive from Jesus, with each other, even to the point of giving up their lives for each other, as Jesus is about to literally give up his life for them.  In other words, what comes to the disciples as an energy from the Lord Jesus, and then shapes them by their obedience to his commandments, is then embodied and expressed in real actions in actual relationships among the community of believers.

            “This is my commandment,” he says, “That you love one another as I have loved you.”  All the writings of the early churches that were taught by the apostle John, have in common this preeminent concern for the love that disciples have for each other.  I think the main message is that if we who follow Jesus can develop communities of love, if we can learn to love each other with Christ’s love, that in itself will shine like a light into the world.  That will be attractive.  It will attract new disciples, and, as chapter 15 goes on to say, it will also attract the world’s hatred.

            But the point is to build this community, this collective, energized by the love of Christ, all connected to Christ, in which we express that love by showing love – which means generosity, patience, forgiveness, humility, forbearance, empathy, affection, and even sacrifice – for the good of the other participants in the gathering of disciples.

            If we bear such fruit first on the vine, then the vinegrower will take the grapes and use them to spread and share love to the whole world.  That is, God will take the love that we have for each other in the gathering of disciples and use it as a way to heal, redeem, and save the whole world.

III.   

            Not that the world will necessarily appreciate it.  Jesus reminds us that the expected reaction of the world to the love the disciples have for each other is hatred.  Jesus’ disciples should expect the world to react to them the same way it reacted to Jesus.  That is, the fear, anger, shame, rejection, and violence.

            Nevertheless, the disciples are charged with testifying by the power of the Holy Spirit, who is still to come.  Jesus refers to the Spirit as the Advocate, “the Spirit of Truth who comes from the Father.”  The Spirit testifies on behalf of Jesus, and inspires the disciples to testify as well.  They have been with him since the beginning and they know the whole story.  Now they are empowered to tell it.

            We are now the disciples, of course, and what we are to testify to is what the original disciples were to testify to, which is God’s love revealed and poured into the world in Jesus Christ.  So this testimony is the outward expression into the world by the disciples of God’s love.

            We testify to what we have experienced and know together.  We do not testify to hypotheses and theories; we do not testify to hearsay; we do not testify to wishful thinking.  We testify to what we have experienced in the gathering of disciples, which is to say, the church.

            You’ll notice how a lot of this hinges on what happens among the disciples in the church, in congregations.  This is the place where Jesus’ command to “love one another” takes place.  This is where we are supposed to experience God’s love in the love we have for each other.  If we don’t experience God’s love here, with these people, then we aren’t likely to experience it anywhere. 

            Every time the word “you” appears in John 15 it is plural.  We receive God’s love as individual branches tapped into the vine, Jesus; but the branches are a single body with the vine.  And the way we experience God’s love is when we share it together.  In fact, we don’t really experience it at all until we share it.  Until it flows through us to someone else, we don’t have it at all.  And the first place where this happens is in the congregation of believers.

            This means that an awful lot depends on how we relate to each other in this fellowship.  And how we relate to other discples of Jesus.  For the church of Jesus Christ is not like any other group of people.  We are different members, but of one body.  We are branches connected to the same vine, which is Christ.  We have identical spiritual DNA, as it were.  Any sense we have of being separate and independent is superficial and illusory.  We can only think that if we forget that we all receive our life and energy from the same vine, which we see when we are fed at the same table with the One Lord’s body and blood, coming from the one cup and the one loaf.

IV.

            So, Jesus calls us to be one.  He calls us to love each other just as he loved us, whole-heartedly, unconditionally, without reservation.  By the love we have for each other, the world will know that we are Jesus’ disciples. 

            What can we do to cultivate this love for each other?  What can we do so that the world will hear our testimony?  What can we do to express the truth that we are all branches of the One Vine, Jesus Christ, in whom the love of God is revealed?

            I do think we can help each other keep Jesus’ commandments.  We can encourage each other when the world gets us down.  We can correct, teach, support, and heal each other.  We can listen to, accept, forgive, and welcome each other.  We can laugh and cry with each other, pray with and for each other, and hold each other.

            We can create a safe place where questions can be asked, fears expressed, longing articulated, pain shared, and trust learned.  We can communicate with, engage, and empower each other.  And over time we can see how we are changing and growing in faith and strength, together.

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