Grace Lutheran, Mountain Home

Welcome Father Larry Spier

John 15:9-17

Today Jesus builds on his simple metaphor: he is the vine, and we are the branches. The imperative is quite clear: love. I find that there is so much in the passage from John’s gospel that is corrective to what ails the world, balm for our wounded communities, a tonic that could clear our vision. 

A few weeks ago, I noticed that one of the youth who was part of the Treasure Valley Confirmation Co-op became an Eagle Scout. There is one line in that ceremony that always makes me tear up: “I charge you to be among those who dedicate their skills and ability to the common good.” The notion of the common good is beautiful. I starting thinking about the common good in relation to John 15. 

Jesus says, “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.” In this specific case he is referencing, at least metaphorically, a specific kind of fruit—grapes. How do we know this? Because the first seven verse of the chapter are all about how Jesus is the vine, and we are the branches. The fruit we will bear if we abide in God is love, pure and simple. 

How are the vine and branches related to the common good, besides the obvious command to love? The metaphor of the vine is non-hierarchical. There is no me getting ahead. There is not even room for church hierarchy—bishops, pastors, laypeople. The vine and branches metaphor is also stark in its anonymity. What I mean is that the visual image of the branches lacks any and all distinctions in appearance, character, or gifts. The question of “how do I look out for #1?” just does not fit into the picture.

The anonymity is also a contrast to other metaphors in the New Testament itself. First Corinthians 12, with its church as the body metaphor, is irresistible in the anatomical fantasy it puts before the early church: talking feet and ears, entire bodies composed exclusively of ears or eyes or noses. The Apostle Paul points to the place that his or her individual gifts occupies in the body. Paul holds together the oneness of Christ and the diversity of gifts and members of the body. And that metaphor can be helpful and life-giving. I know. I have preached and taught this metaphor a lot. 

But that’s not our focus today, and I am ever grateful for the vine metaphor. It undercuts any celebration of individual gifts in exchange for a clear focus, a directive for absolutely everyone. There is only one measure of one’s place in the faith community—to love as Jesus has loved—and everyone, great and small, ordained and lay, young and old, male and female are equally accountable to that one standard. 

What would happen if the church were to live as the branches of Christ? Well, individual distinctiveness would give way to the common embodiment of love. The distinctiveness of the community would derive solely from our relationship to God and Jesus, not the characteristics or even gifts of its members. And the mark of the faithful community would be how it loves, not who are its members. There is only one gift, to bear fruit, and any branch can do that if it remains with Jesus. 

A follower of Jesus is someone who, in every situation, tries to respond to other people with the love of Jesus. There may be responses to the world which, in the world’s eyes, “Make sense,” or which can simply be justified by reference to, “everyone else is doing it.” But Christians are those who, through baptism, have signed on, have publicly committed themselves, to obey Jesus. And Jesus has commanded us to love. 

The practice of obedience can make us Lutherans bristle when it sounds like we are obeying so that we will be loved and forgiven.  But in fact, we are all about obedience; we obey God’s commands because God has already claimed and loved us.  

Whether our obedience to Jesus’ command will make the world a better place, or lead to deeper human understanding, or help to win friends and influence people, we don’t know. We only know, in today’s scripture as well as so many other places in the New Testament, that this is clearly what Jesus commands us to do. 

It is not always easy to know exactly what loving one another means. This is where community, those other branches, can be helpful with discernment and accountability. There are some times our love needs to be that sort of “tough love.” Yet hate, violence, revenge, and the other means through which the world gets what it wants, are not options for Jesus’ people, people who are commanded to love, to bear fruit. Whatever it looks like, love remains the imperative.  

There is a second wonderful corrective that this passage from John addresses. Sometimes, especially in the Treasure Valley, we face a binary when it comes to following Jesus. There are Christians who will ask me, “are you a believer?” For them, I think, faith is completely a matter of the heart or mind. It is about where we put our trust, or in the words of our text today, what we abide in. 

If I am feeling just a little self-righteous, I want to respond to these Christians by asking them, “are you a fruit-bearer?” What I mean is, have you put your faith into action by feeding, clothing, visiting people in prison, welcoming the foreigner? How have you been bearing fruit?

But the truth is neither of these approaches is fully faithful and today’s gospel gets right to the heart of it. We cannot bear fruit if we are not abiding with Jesus. If we only bear fruit without abiding in Jesus, we will dry up and die OR our fruit will not resemble Jesus. And, if we only abide in Jesus, without bearing fruit, we are not actually abiding. 

However, if we truly abide in Jesus, which means abiding in God’s love, we will not be able to help ourselves. Fruit will come. Acts of love will be spontaneous. The love of God will simply spring forth like a big juicy grape.

Today we celebrate an invitation to extended service to Father Larry. We celebrate a new relationship between a shepherd and a flock and the fruit bearing that will occur because of this mutual ministry. We celebrate that years ago, Lutherans and Episcopalians recognized that our branches were similar enough, and maybe our fruit could be tastier and more abundant if we recognized how intertwined we already were. And we celebrated all along that we got our nourishment from the same Lord Jesus Christ.

I trust that Grace Lutheran will find new ways to abide in Jesus’ love. You may also discover that there are rhythms or habits that have not been helping you abide together in Jesus; you can prune them. Be mindful of what helps you abide and what helps you bear fruit. Be mindful of love, not sentimentality or romance, but that sustaining abundant love that come from God. It will naturally become love of neighbor and yes, even love of self. 

We are part of a big world and it is easy to feel quite small and insignificant. But maybe especially when we feel powerless, the Holy Spirit reminds us through scripture passages like this one that all of us are already fruit bearers because we abide in the love of God through Jesus.