Pruning to Optimize Production Potential

When I was growing up, one of my aunts owned a greenhouse, Brown’s Nursery was the name of it. I always thought that was ironic – Brown’s Nursery, but her maiden name was Brown, and she had a VERY green thumb. All day long, every day, she walked the aisles, picking at the plants. I don’t think I ever went in that she didn’t have a few leaves in her hand. She would stand talking to you, or a customer, and while she was talking she would be snapping off parts of the plants around her, reshaping, thinning, pruning. And her greenhouse was filled with flowers. All the plants were beautiful and blooming.

Throughout the Old Testament, Israel is described as the vineyard of God, expected to bloom and bear fruit. God brought the vine out of Egypt and planted it in the promised land. The grapevine was so prevalent in Jewish imagery that it had become the symbol for the nation of Israel. There were grapevines on coins. One of the glories in the Temple in Jerusalem was the golden grape vine. It was a great honor to give the gold to mold a new grape, or for some a new bunch of grapes onto the vine.

But then, the nation of Israel is in exile. The prophets Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Hosea and Isaiah all describe Israel as the vineyard of God that has failed to bear good fruit.

Isaiah says, “The one I love had a vineyard, a fine, well-placed vineyard. He hoed the soil and pulled the weeds, and planted the very best vines. He built a lookout, built a winepress, a vineyard to be proud of. He looked for a vintage yield of grapes, but for all his pains he got wild, bitter grapes.”

So Jesus takes this image in the last of the I Am statements to say, God isn’t finished. God hasn’t given up on Israel. Jesus has been planted in the vineyard. Jesus is the vine, and his disciples are the branches, and a harvest is hoped for.

Here’s the thing about grapevines, they are good for nothing but grapes. If you don’t get fruit that is good, there is no other use for the leaves or the branches. It is all about the fruit.

The wood of the branches is too soft to be used to make anything. Ezekiel said, GOD’s Message came to me: “How would you compare the wood of a vine with the branches of any tree you’d find in the forest? Is vine wood ever used to make anything? Is it used to make pegs to hang things from? I don’t think so. At best it’s good for fuel.” And even for fires, it was not desireable. Jesus and the disciples, and the first Century hearers of Jesus comparing himself to the vine would know the uselessness of a grapevine. At certain times of the year, the people of Israel would be required to bring offerings of wood to the Temple for altar fires for the sacrifices. And one of the rules that they would all know was that it absolutely could not be grapevine.

Jesus is the vine, cut off from him, there is no way that the branches can bear fruit. And, if they don’t bear fruit, they are useless. I read an article this week by John Pavlovitz, a pastor and writer currently serving in Wake Forest, North Carolina. The title of the article was “Dear Church, Here’s Why People Are Really Leaving.” He basically said that the church has done exactly what Jesus warned us here not to do. We have disconnected from the vine.

When worship is disconnected from the vine, people leave. People are leaving the church because of worship – not because of what happens, but because of what doesn’t happen. People come to worship to encounter God, not to be entertained. What happens on Sunday needs to make a difference on Tuesday and Thursday, at work and at home, when life gets messy and painful, or people are going to sleep in and stay away. What worship offers that concerts and motivational speakers and basketball play-off games don’t offer is God. If we don’t offer God, the concerts and speakers and Grizzlies ball are going to offer better entertainment than we do. But when you leave a concert, when the speaker leaves the podium, when the game is over, you are no better equipped to face tomorrow than you were before the event. Worship that is connected to the vine, worship that has its roots in the Word of God, that grows out of Christ, nourishes you.

Pavlovitz also says people are leaving because of our language – spiritualized, big churchy words and terms about eschatology and theology don’t resonate in people’s ears. Our words are like big, green, bushy leaves, when people are looking for fruit. They are listening for real talk about love and joy, forgiveness and death and peace and God. And I think they are listening for more than talk…our actions speak louder than our words. One branch of a grapevine is weak. It can’t hold up under the weight of the growth and fruit and the weather…it will snap off. We are a lot like that. We don’t just need to make sure we are connected to Jesus, the Vine, we need to intertwine our lives with the other branches so that we are able to withstand the weight of life. The people that Pavlovitz says are leaving because of our language, I think, are leaving because of what they don’t hear and see us saying. They are looking for real answers to real questions, and real support through real crisis, because without those answers, the weight of the questions and the crises cause them to droop and not get enough nutrients and wither away in the scorching sun.

Sometimes our language causes people to leave because we use flowery language with no fruit. We say things like, “Let justice roll down like a river” and I wonder, “What does it really mean to work for justice?” It sounds nice; we pray for justice every Sunday. But, what do I do in Germantown, Tennessee to work for justice? I feel like there are too many leaves. Does it mean to follow the healthcare bills and write to senators? Does it mean to be active in the school voucher legislation? Does it mean to get involved with the Governor and Mayor’s efforts to cut poverty in Memphis from 27% to 17% over the next 10 years?

Because if all our words are just leaves, the plant never bears fruit. I was reminded of my aunt picking the extra leaves off, so that the leaves underneath wouldn’t take the nutrients when they wouldn’t be able to get enough sunlight as I read his third reason people are leaving the church. People are leaving because our vision can’t see past our building. He is not talking about the physical building, he is talking about our comfort zone. We focus on “Come and see” instead of “We are here with you.” We spend time and money and energy on drawing people to us rather than going to reach people where they already are. Fruit comes when we partner with amazing things already happening in our neighborhood, in our city. People are leaving because we wait for God to come and tell us what to do instead of looking around to see where God is working and figuring out how to be a part of it.

I studied a little about viticulture this week, the growing of grapes. And it seems to me that in the life of the church, one of the things that often hinders a good harvest is overcropping. Overcropping will greatly lower fruit quality and vine vigor. It is better, especially on young vines, to do some cluster thinning in years of heavy fruit set. Thinning to one cluster per shoot (a single shoot may carry three or four clusters), is the simplest way to ensure that those remaining will develop into larger, more fully ripened clusters.

We cannot address all the needs of the world at once. So, we need to be strategic. What resources has God given us and what needs has God placed in front of us? Where those match, we go to work.

Because the fourth reason that Pavlovitz gives for people leaving the church is our willingness to fight lousy battles. We fight the small ones – the easy ones like I am going to protest something on moral grounds, and my protest will constist of not buying this brand or not watching this show. But we pass by our neighbors who have been wounded by poverty and racism and violence.

Here’s what it boils down to: the fifth reason that Pavlovitz says people are leaving church – our love doesn’t look like love. Our grapes are not edible.

The point of being a Christian is to bear fruit in the world. There is no fruit if there is no connection to the vine. There is no fruit if the branches don’t grow from the vine, intertwining with one another for support. There is no good fruit if the branches waste energy and nourishment on lots of leaves and grapes instead of focusing on producing the good, large, sweet fruit that comes from pruning and tending the branches.

Jesus said, “I am the vine. You are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love.”

May our love look like love, and may we bear much fruit. Amen.