Time to Prune the Orchard? – A Sermon by Bobbi Dykema

Preached at Whitestone Community CoB, May 21, 2017

John 15:1-8 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

15 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. 2 He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. 3 You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. 4 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. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. 6 Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.

When I was in seminary, I took a course entitled “Pottery and Proclamation.” Our preaching professor had learned to throw pots on the wheel during a sabbatical year, and she felt it had a lot to say to her preaching. So she developed this class, co-taught by a ceramics artist, that introduced seminary students to the art of clay and connected it with the art of preaching.

I shared about the class with a friend who was not in seminary at the time, and he said, “Oh, that’s wonderful! We should start a seminary that has practical courses on all the metaphors of the Bible: sheepherding, growing grapes, making wine, pressing oil…” And honestly, in a world where the majority of people live in cities and think their apples come from the grocery store and beef comes in plastic-wrapped packages, that might not be a bad idea.

Which is why I was so excited to preach on John 15 to this congregation. This is a community that knows exactly what the evangelist is talking about when he describes branches that are “gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.” As I’ve been driving around the Okanogan Valley these past several weeks, I’ve seen and smelled many a brush pile burning those unproductive branches. It’s part of life here.

My friend Joseph, who is now a Jesuit priest serving a Catholic parish in Missoula, Montana, grew up on a farm in upstate New York, where he learned to prune Gala apple trees. In an article for the Jesuit School magazine New Wineskins, Joseph wrote:

My father and I spent long hours pruning the vertical growth from dozens of trees in the north pasture orchard and painting the trunks white to prevent sunscald. Though the trees were quite old and I was quite young, I knew well that Gala apples were juicy and sweet and came only on woody branches – the branches I was taught not to prune. ‘Why are we cutting the suckers?’ I’d ask. ‘The sunlight needs to reach the lower branches and a tree full of suckers just isn’t healthy,’ Dad answered. ‘Well, why does a tree produce suckers then?’ I asked. ‘Trees can spread with suckers, but only when they are bent horizontally and laid under the soil,’ Dad answered. Then he’d add, ‘if you take an apple and plant it, it won’t produce the same exact tree; apple seeds don’t breed true.’ Not really sure what it all meant, I just kept cutting. I’d cut the branches I was taught to prune, and I remember that they didn’t even feel like part of the tree at all. They were like whips that jutted out of the tree, not sturdy or solid, and they smelled funny when the clippers snapped. Hour after hour I’d work, only vaguely aware that this long process would be well worth the effort, with quality and quantity of fruit produced.  

Since most of you have many years’ experience doing this kind of work, let me just ask you: is this an accurate description of why and how to prune? (Because, you know, maybe they do things differently in upstate New York…) I’m seeing nods – apple trees are apple trees, wherever they grow.

The Bible has nearly 300 references to fruit. A lot of these are literal because fruit is an important part of people’s diet and has been since there were people. It starts off in Genesis, with the one fruit tree in the middle of the garden that Adam and Eve are forbidden to eat from, along with all the others they are permitted, and goes through Cain’s offerings, and many blessings and command to “Be fruitful and multiply” – thus, children are considered the fruit of human life and labor, just as apples are one of the fruits of orchard life and labor. Throughout Leviticus and Deuteronomy, there are instructions for how, when, how much, and how often to offer the fruits of the harvest to God. The Psalms celebrate fruit both literally and metaphorically: the fruits of one’s vines as well as the fruits of one’s spiritual and physical labors. Proverbs talks a lot about the fruits of both the righteous and the unrighteous, and the Song of Songs compares the beloved to a fragrant fruit tree and its produce. The prophets promise that when the people are faithful and the Babylonian Exile is ended, the people will enjoy the fruits of their vineyards and orchards, of their own land. Our passage from Isaiah today is one of these, where God promises that a thirsty and parched people will be shown pools of water, and be in a place where there are beautiful trees: cedars, acacias, myrtles, cypress, plane trees, pines – and the trees that bear what probably was and is the most important fruit in Palestine: olive trees. Jesus’ teaching about bearing good fruit appears in all four gospels, and Paul really likes the metaphor of spiritual fruit, as well. Fruit is pretty important in scripture!

I shared this text with my youth group in Seattle Thursday night and asked them what they thought Jesus meant by bearing good fruit. They were silent for a minute, so I asked, “Do you think he meant it literally – that we would have apples coming out of our fingertips?” They didn’t think so, but they still thought that might be a good idea if we could figure out how to make it work. So I asked again, what kinds of things might Jesus mean by “bearing good fruit”?

They had some good ideas. Being kind. Helping others. Praying for others. Refraining from fighting and bad language. And these are definitely all forms of bearing good spiritual fruit, the sort of thing that happens when we abide in Christ Jesus.

Paul’s letter to the Galatians very helpfully unpacks what is meant by “spiritual fruit.” Galatians 5:22 says “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity,  faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” That’s a pretty exhaustive list! But I think we can draw a straight line between Jesus’ counsel to “Abide in me” and “bear much good fruit.” It reminds me of the story that Brethren like to tell, about the old Brethren farmer in Pennsylvania who was asked by a traveling salesman if he was a Christian, and the farmer responded, “Why are you asking me? Ask my neighbors, my wife and children, the merchants in town.” The old farmer understood that the best test of whether he was a Christian – whether he was abiding in Christ – was the fruit that he bore. If his neighbors, family and friends, and those with whom he did business knew him to be kind, generous, gentle, and patient, then he could truly claim to be a Christian.

But Paul’s helpful list of the fruits of the Spirit is not spoken to the Galatians apropos of nothing. It comes after a list of its opposites, what Paul classifies as the “works of the flesh.” This he gives in Galatians 5:19-21, before the listing of fruits of the Spirit: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these.

Remember that in Paul’s day, writing letters was not nearly so simple a matter as dashing off an email or a text message. You had to get hold of papyrus or parchment, as well as ink and a quill to write with. Depending on availability, part of a letter-writer’s skill set might need to include knowing how to make these things yourself! Once the letter was written, you had to find and probably pay a messenger to deliver it – there was no postal service. So people didn’t really send the equivalent of vacation postcards – “Having a good time, wish you were here.” Because letter-writing was an involved process, it was reserved for things that it was quite important to say. So we can assume that the items on Paul’s list of works of the flesh includes behaviors he had heard the Galatians were engaging in, or at least that he had encountered in other churches he was working with. It’s not a random list.  And interestingly enough, nearly every item on that list is something that human beings, including Christians, struggle with today.

A few weeks ago in Sunday school, we were talking about Jesus as the Good Shepherd, and I shared a story I had heard from a woman in one of the sheep-raising families in my community growing up, while she was having coffee at our house with my mom. She said, “You know that story in the Bible about the Good Shepherd going after the one-hundredth sheep that strayed? Well, that sheep didn’t see some glorious vision on the horizon and go running after it. No, she just munched herself away.”

This is often the problem with works of the flesh, also known as sin. They are insidious – bad habits that are easy to fall into. I see this often enough with my youth group in Seattle. A few of the guys got in trouble last week because Pastor Jeff heard them using all kinds of profanity while they were playing basketball at the elementary-school playground across the street from Olympic View Church. Some of them didn’t really understand why that was a problem; they hear it all the time at school with their friends, in the music they listen to, and so on. The words themselves have become almost meaningless to them through frequent use, and they don’t understand how those same words sound to someone who has not let himself or herself fall into a bad-language habit. The guys think that dropping f-bombs is a way to be cool.

There are other kinds of bad-fruit behavior that we slip into almost unconsciously, and trying to be cool and impress your friends doesn’t end with graduation from high school. We might bait someone in front of our friends, or put them down in ways that really are not very kind, but don’t seem like such a big deal. We might tell jokes that are questionable in content or let ourselves get riled up and speak out of turn on something we don’t really understand very well. “Enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions”? We’re pretty good at falling into these kinds of community-wounding behaviors, at least from time to time. Some of us might be perfectly kind to someone if we’re just talking face to face with them one on one, but that might change if we have friends or peers present, or if we get behind a keyboard to type up an email, social media comment, or text message.

It’s a challenging situation, because in some ways, teasing one another, or “gassing” as the kids at Olympic View call it, actually is often a sign of affection. We might say things to one another that we wouldn’t say to people we don’t care about or know well. Husbands and wives might good-naturedly tease one another about silly habits, or brothers and sisters, or good friends; maybe about the way we drive, or what time we like to get up in the morning. But sometimes it can be hard to distinguish between affection and something said in jest that is truly hurtful.

Gossip is another one of those habits that walks a fine line between the loving and the hurtful. In her book about my home stomping grounds, Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, Kathleen Norris has a chapter entitled “The Holy Uses of Gossip.” In it, she acknowledges that “the pain caused by the loose talk of ignorant people is undeniable.” She gives an example: “One couple I know, having lost their only child to a virulent pneumonia (a robust thirty-five year old, he was dead in a matter of days) had to endure rumors that he had died of suicide, AIDS, and even anthrax.” But gossip has a flip side, also; Norris goes on to say that:

…surprisingly often, gossip is the way small-town people express solidarity…the tales of small-town gossip are often morally instructive, illustrating the ways ordinary people survive the worst that happens to them; or, conversely, the ways in which self-pity, anger, and despair can overwhelm and destroy them. Gossip is theology translated into experience. In it, we hear great stories of conversion, like the drunk who turns his or her life around, as well as stories of failure. We can see that pride really does go before a fall, and that hope is essential. We watch closely those who retire, or who lose a spouse, lest they lose interest in living. When we gossip we are also praying, not only for them but for ourselves.

It is because things like gossip and good-natured teasing have the potential for both positive and negative that we have to be very careful about them. Since I’ve been in this community, I have definitely heard conversations about people who have lost their spouses in the recent past, with the widowed person not present, that might qualify as gossip, but they definitely qualified as concern, attention, prayer, and love. And I’ve heard things said here and there that I would categorize as having crossed the line into unkindness.

You see, when it comes to the human heart, brain, and mouth, it’s not as easy to tell the suckers from the good branches as it is in an apple orchard. But I will tell you most definitely, that the kinds of gossip, teasing, etcetera, that do cross the line are definitely suckers. They suck the life and energy out of a community, forcing the entire group to focus on (or deliberately avoid) the contention in their midst.

I once watched a TV program that consisted of short films made by people who were primarily actors, not directors. The one I remember most clearly was made by Michael J. Fox, the actor currently battling Parkinson’s who starred in the TV show Family Ties and the Back to the Future movies. His film was called “The Iceman Hummeth.” It took place in a hockey arena. The only spectators in the stands, while the hockey game was going, on was a chamber orchestra, and they were playing a piece of music. But as the film unfolded, the aggression of the hockey players seemed to shift to the orchestra members, and the harmony of the orchestra shifted to the hockey players. By the end of the film, the hockey players from opposing teams were dancing with one another on the ice, while the orchestra members were bashing each other over the head, pulling hair, and getting into fistfights. After the film ended, the host of the program had Michael J. Fox in the studio and asked him what the most difficult part of directing the film was. Fox said, “Well, believe it or not, the easiest part was actually the fight in the orchestra. You could see that they each had people they’d had it in for, for years, and here was their chance to actually take a shot at them. I barely had to give them any direction at all!”

My friends, one of the barriers to church growth, to producing good fruit as individuals and as a community, is the cherishing of the kinds of enmities that had been going on in that orchestra. We have responded to the call of Christ to do a difficult thing: to be in community, true, deep, loving and caring community, with people that, left to our own devices, we might not have chosen to befriend – with people different from us in attitude, outlook, perspective, experience, opinions, and life choices; people it’s hard to like, let alone love.

But here we are. And we have come together again today, as this community has been doing week after week for many years, to keep at this work of being in community, peacefully, simply, together. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have differences of opinion, and that doesn’t mean we are never unkind to one another or never experience misunderstandings. What it does mean is that we have to be especially good orchardists. We need to keep a close eye out for the suckers, for the kinds of gossip and teasing and division that cross the line from affection into hurtfulness – sometimes without that even being our intention.

In the Roman Catholic tradition, Christians are encouraged to confess their sins to the priest before they receive communion so they can come to the communion table worthy to receive. Before going to confession, Catholics do something called an “examen”: they reflect on what sins they are guilty of, both of commission and omission so that they don’t forget anything when they sit down with the priest. While the Brethren don’t practice this kind of formal confession, I think it would be a good spiritual practice, if you’re not doing something like this already, to periodically take some time to reflect on how your words and actions might be perceived by others. If a traveling salesman asked your friends and neighbors if you were a Christian, what would they say? Is your spiritual tree ready to bear a bumper crop of sweet juicy Honeycrisps, or is it full of suckers? If we truly want to see spiritual growth in this church family, is it time to prune the orchard?

Devotional/Application Questions

1. How does the use of vine imagery in John 15:1-8 compare to Psalm 80:8-16; Isaiah 5:1-7?
2. What are the spiritual benefits of abiding in Christ?
3. How do you understand things like good-natured teasing in light of the fruit of the Spirit?
4. When have you cherished enmity? (Be specific.)
5. How have you experienced God’s pruning?
6. Like what might ecclesial-level pruning look?

Bobbi Dykema is an educator and pastor in the interstices of art, religion and history, worship and the arts, and the work of the artist in the community. She teaches Humanities and Religion at Strayer University and pastors the White Stone Church of the Brethren.