Year B: May 2, 2021 | Easter 5
Easter 5, Year B: John 15:1-8
Episcopal Church of the Holy Cross
May 2, 2021
the Rev. Jonathan Hanneman
To watch a video of the sermon, please visit this page (about 21:55 in).
“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.” – John 15:4[1]
Growing up, our house had a long, narrow lot roughly an acre in size. I was responsible for mowing, which took several hours each Saturday from March through November. Most of the yard was flat and grassy, but on either side grew the bane of my existence. Toward the back on the west was a small patch of untended blackberry brambles leaning in from beside a neighbor’s shed. On the east side, the entire fence line was overgrown with a thick, prolific vine which I suspected was related to the ivy that loved to climb the walls of our brick house. I felt like nature was constantly allied against me with this two-front invasion. I avoided the brambles as much as I could, but the other vines frustrated me to no end. They seemed determined to consume everything—bushes, trees, even the lawn itself. I battled their constantly creeping tendrils throughout junior high and high school, struggling to untangle them from their chain link trellis, carefully tracing each branch farther and farther back in hopes of finally striking a fatal blow to the whole plant. It was largely futile, since the fence was topped with barbed wire and the root was hidden somewhere on the neighbor’s largely abandoned lot, but I did my best.
Once I finally had the eastern front somewhat under control, I turned my attention to the overgrown blackberries. Emerging from our basement armed with a pair of large snips and some thick leather gloves, I vowed those brambles would never scratch me up again. I cut them so far back that I actually stretched under the fence onto the other neighbor’s property to chop them off at the base. Thorns finally out of sight and mystery vines tentatively at bay, mowing became much easier, and I didn’t really give much more thought to either foe for the rest of the year.
Jumping over to our Gospel reading, today we find Jesus speaking shortly after the Last Supper. Judas had already left to initiate his betrayal, and as the remaining disciples make their way toward the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus summarizes what he most wants them to remember, which is his command to love one another. He suddenly begins talking about fruit and vines, likely as they passed a vineyard along their route.
The main thing I noticed as I was going over the reading is the repetition of one particular word: “abide.” It shows up ten times here in as many verses, including a few past where the Lectionary stops. For me, “abiding” draws up images of people settled at home, maybe tending a garden or small farm. They’re busy but not too busy, content in their self-sufficiency. Peace fills the air as the sun sets while warm light and the aromas of supper begin to spill from the cottage windows. Everyone and everything feels satisfied and secure as the day draws to a close and the stars begin to twinkle. Applied to Jesus’ vine metaphor, the word suggests an almost meditative state, the embodiment of “be still and know.” As I rest myself into my connection with Christ, the root, the Holy Spirit gently flows through me. Slow breathing stills my mind, allowing me to discern and then act on only those things that are fully within the will of God. It’s a sort of serene, enlightened state, a calming world with efficiency of motion and energy where I find myself in harmony not only with my own mind and body but with the universe itself.
Both of those are nice images—I’d especially love it if I could attain that second one—but that’s not what the Bible is saying here.
The way Jesus is using it, “abide” does indeed employ something of static quality. There’s a staying-ness to the word, but it isn’t necessarily peaceful. This is a word of intention and commitment, associated more with military occupation or settling a frontier. It carries the idea of standing your ground or struggling to maintain a position, not simply dwelling somewhere in tranquility. In the context of looming betrayal and disruption of their group, it suggests something more like “stick with” than “abide in:” “You all stick with me, and I’ll stick with you.”
Compounding the active nature of “abiding,” the branches are showing a surprising amount of initiative here. Biblical Greek uses two words for negation. One is objective, a statement of fact, like where Jesus says a “branch cannot bear fruit by itself.” End of story. No root, no fruit. It’s simply not possible. It doesn’t show up very well in English, but when he continues with “unless it abides in the vine,” he’s using the other term, which is a subjective. A subjective negative suggests not simple fact but includes an element of perception or volition. So there doesn’t appear to be an outside factor limiting the branch’s potential here. It’s not that it simply doesn’t or can’t bear fruit. It isn’t necessarily weakened by disease, nor is it innately infertile. The way Jesus is talking, the branch won’t grow any grapes. It’s actively refusing.
Honestly, this makes my head spin a little bit. We have a branch emerging from its root. As the root feeds it, the branch naturally grows farther away from the trunk of the vine. It matures, starts sending out its own tendrils, and its leaves begin to help feed the rest of the plant, root included. This feels sort of like that meditation idea: a natural flow of connection that’s hard to notice unless you make an effort to quiet down and observe it. Everything grows in unison, branch and leaves, root and grapes. There’s energy in it, but it’s all comes across calm and natural, a healthy exchange that benefits not just the plant itself but eventually even the world around it.
However, at some point we have a branch that forgets about anything other than itself and turns from the harmony of production into simple consumption.
Going back to my old yard, I was neither surprised nor too concerned when the blackberries began tentatively reaching over the fence again the spring after their brutal defeat. They weren’t getting in my way yet, so I left them alone.
Part of why I had put up with the brambles in previous years was that I enjoyed eating what little I could collect from the sparse array of tiny fruit they usually offered. However, that summer the recently tamed vines surprised me with an eruption of luscious blackberries. They were juicy and rich and well worth the scratches it took to gather. My hack job must have relieved the root of the need to feed an excess of old, woody vines, so the plant put its newfound energy toward growing a quality crop instead.
That fall I saw the same thing happening along the fence across the yard—in fact, that’s when I discovered those hated vines were actually grapes! I’d never really seen fruit on them before, but I could now watch the clusters ripening as I tended the lawn. Being wild, they weren’t remotely tasty, but I felt much more kindly toward the plants once I realized they had a purpose. Clearly I’m no viticulturalist, but without even knowing what I was doing, I had played the role of the vinegrower in Jesus’ example.
Those old vines were indeed a waste. They had grown so extensive and heavy that they were presumptive about their root, treating it more like a slave than their source of life. It generously continued to send them water and nutrients, but they spent all that energy on themselves, making their particular branch as large and expansive as possible. I really don’t know if they were still capable of producing fruit—if so, it was well hidden. Once pruned, however, the branches seemed to remember why they existed in the first place: to grow grapes that birds and animals would want to eat so the seeds could establish themselves in places where the original vine simply couldn’t reach.
As I look to June and find my time at Holy Cross drawing to an end, I wonder how this church body will be grow once I’ve stepped away. With the pandemic and other destabilizing issues over the last few years, God seems to have been involved in a global pruning campaign, with no individual or community immune. Holy Cross has survived, but how might we take this experience to redefine or refocus who we are? Thankfully, I don’t see signs of the congregation drying up and withering away. But I do wonder, once we’re able to gather again, where will we direct our energy? As Christ, our root, continues to feed us, we, a branch of the greater Church, have a choice to make yet again. Will we be like the vines from my old yard, spending our time and effort on ourselves, putting on a leafy show but never really securing a future? Or will we set aside the need for fame or recognition to stick with our source and Savior, allowing his Spirit and living water to flow through us and ultimately provide a healthy—even if unexpected—harvest?
“Stick with me like I stick with you. Just as that branch can’t bear fruit by itself if it won’t stick to the vine, neither can you if you won’t stick with me.”
[1] All Bible quotations are from the NRSV unless otherwise noted.