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Fifth Sunday of Easter, May 3rd, 2015
Acts 8:26-40
Psalm 22:25-31
1 John 4:7-21
John 15:1-8
Jesus says that He is the Vine and we hear that we are the branches. In baptismal language, we have been grafted into Jesus’s family as branches to His vine. Jesus and us too, are not the same since the grafting. We are dependent upon Jesus to be able to be nourished and produce fruit. The vine needs branches that are kept pruned, in order to produce fruit. It is in our baptism that we are grafted into the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus, our True Vine.
To some, it might seem gruesome to consider Jesus’ death and resurrection. But we are an Easter people and to have the eternal life, there was a death suffered by Jesus and there is His resurrection, so we might have everlasting life. The death and resurrection is a love so deep, we cannot begin to understand. The love of God, God as love is revealed in the incarnate God upon the cross, not because Jesus has to allow his crucifixion but because He chooses to allow this, for you and me, for all of humanity God’s love is revealed.
As we hear in the gospel, whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch that withers. The vine needs branches that are kept pruned, in order to produce fruit. Jesus also says that we will bear fruit by only abiding in Him. If you have not figured it out yet, we are entering a danger zone. Producing fruit sounds a bit like works. Those that abide in Jesus will produce good works, fruit. For the fruit to be produced, great care must be taken in the pruning of the branches. There is a time of cleansing so that the branches can produce fruit. It depends upon the season of the year, but sometimes there is more fruit than others. Some years are better than others. In Ecclesiastes it says, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:” [1] We are cleansed in baptism. We are cleansed, made new and pruned so that we might produce fruit.
Our baptism is a cleansing through water and Word and you have heard today that we have been pruned in our baptism to be the branches of the Vine to produce fruit. We each are given gifts in proportion that the Father deems good for the Vine and us. Sometimes it takes longer for some branches to produce, than it does for others.
In order to be cleansed, to be pruned to produce, we need the baptism of forgiveness. This baptism is available for all who believe, no matter how great or how small, even if a flicker of faith exists in Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word, the Son of God, baptism is made available.
Here is a story I was given by a fellow seminarian student, about her father’s baptism.
When my father was ten years old, his father moved the family from Chicago to a ramshackle farm in Wheeling, IL. My grandfather was a pseudo-intellectual, who was also an atheist. My grandmother was half Swedish and half Norwegian, and was raised in the Lutheran church. When she was a young woman, her father suffered a stroke and could no longer work. In those days, churches made a public posting of the giving of each family. My grandmother was so angry over the public shame and humiliation forced upon her parents by the church that she never went again.
Therefore, it was in this context that my father met the boy on the next farm down the road. As boys do, they talked about their animals, their brothers and their lives. The boy asked my father what church they went to. “What’s church,” my father asked. The conversation continued, “Haven’t you ever been baptized?” When the answer was no, the boy continued to explain to my dad what that meant, “Want me to do it?” He asked. “I can do it now in the pond.” Dad said yes, and in response to that yes, the two little boys stepped into the pond, and the young preacher baptized his new believer.
Fast forward. In the spring of 1967, my dad and mom were young parents to their fifth child. One evening after supper, there was a knock on the door and Rev. Bob Bender, the new pastor at St. Mark’s UCC church was invited into the living room. I don’t remember the conversation, but I remember him sitting with both of my parents in our living room. It wasn’t long after that that we started going to church. My dad started saying prayers with my sister and me at bedtime, we started saying grace at meals, and one warm Sunday morning my parents brought my baby brother to the front of the church to be baptized. But, while they were up there in the front, and before Billy was blessed and sprinkled, it was my dad’s turn. I remember feeling proud of my dad and that he was special for standing there in front of everyone having water poured on his head. You see, Dad and Rev. Bender had discussed lots of things, including my dad’s faith, his desire to know more about God, and that baptism on the farm by the neighbor boy, and dad asked to be baptized, in case that first one didn’t count.
I believe the Holy Spirit was present with the two boys in the pond. I also believe that the Holy Spirit brought the Reverend to our door that evening, and I believe that the Holy Spirit moved my dad to commit his life to Christ and wanted to “seal the deal” with water and word. It was a moment that altered my dad forever. Being a part of the community called church was forever after important in Dad’s life. He developed a relationship with Jesus Christ that had been missing and he became the religious, if not spiritual head of our family. The story of who I am and my own life in faith is intrinsically tied to my dad’s yes that day. His yes to God drew the rest of us into a life with God and into the community of the church.
The cleansing took place early in the life of my friend’s father. The fruit came slowly and much later in life. Sometimes it takes a long time to produce good quality fruit. What is important is that the branch abided in the vine and was pruned to produce fruit, rather the branch that withers without fruit and is cast away.
Today, I again want to ask you to do something that might be out your comfort zones. I would like you to bow your heads and close your eyes. Think about your baptism for a moment and how you have produced fruit. Keeping your heads bowed, I would like you to raise your hand high above your heads. If you have not been baptized yet and want the Spirit to be invited into you to cleanse you and make you new in Jesus the Vine, keep your hands up and those that have been already baptized, please lower your hands now.
Everyone can now lower their hands and open your eyes and lift your heads. Today, God the Father invites all those seeking to be joined into the vine of Jesus and to be cleansed through the power of the Holy Spirit, to come forward and receive the baptism of forgiveness.
The Vine abides in you, go and abide in the Vine. Be the branches, made new in baptism and pruned to produce fruit.
[1] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Ec 3:1.