Creekside Church Sermon of April 27, 1997 "Pruned for a Purpose" John 15:1-8	Rev. David Bibbee
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The only place you are likely to hear it anymore is in church. "Abide with me, fast falls the even tide." We sang this morning. One hundred fifty year-old verses written by an Anglican priest dying of tuberculosis, inspired by the desire of the distraught men to have the unknown traveler on the Emmaus Road stay with them. "The darkness deepens, Lord, with me abide." We dusted off today to touch its richness, this little word which means to remain, to be steadfast, to stay with and stand by. Is there a better word in a time when ties are so tenuous, commitments are so conditional, promises so often broken? Today, what is there greater need for than persons, families, and communities to hold fast, stand strong, and stick together?

In the fifteenth chapter of John, the word abide appears more times than in any chapter of the Bible. Ten times. "Abide in me," Jesus said on the night of Judas' betrayal and Jesus' arrest. "Stay with me. Remain with me. Abide in me and I in you." We are meant to be connected, he is saying. To be tied to him is to live. His mind in ours. His heart beating in ours. His love lived in our lives. The image Jesus uses for this intimate, abiding, organic union is the vine. "I am the vine, you are the branches, remain in me and you will bear abundant fruit." ...fruit of forgiveness, compassion, peace and joy. When branch and vine are joined, they are attuned to each other, one responds to the will of the other.

"If you abide in me and my words in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you." A good TV preacher text. "Ask what you will...just be sure to send a donation." But there is a catch to this abiding business. Israel was God's vine, all right, but each mention of this vine included judgment because Israel wasn't producing...not as God had intended. Israel was chosen not for privilege, but responsibility...to be a light to the nations. Likewise, Jesus doesn't call people to tidings of comfort and joy only, but fruitfulness as well.

Grape vines produce two kinds of branches, those that produce grapes and those which do not. Left to grow, the barren branches take needed nutrients from those with fruit, so they are cut off and burned since the wood is too soft for anything useful. The barren branch is likened to those who follow Jesus in name and not action. Speak well of him. Do little for him. Their picture in the directory, their presence not in the pew, their resources not in the plate, their hands not helping others at the plow. "Dead wood" they're sometimes called. An influence which weakens the witness of committed disciples.

The branch that bears no fruit, he takes away. But read on..."And every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes." Pruning isn't pretty. It is not a delicate process. It's radical surgery. Large sections are cut away, so much you wonder how the vine survives. Years ago when my hair was very long, I would come home from the barber and my Dad would say, "You call that a haircut?" It would have suited him more had I been pruned. Pruning seems so drastic, but the productivity of the branch depends upon it.

Years ago the master preacher Harry Emerson Fosdick was traveling through the countryside and came upon an enormous apple orchard. Always curious about everything, he stopped the car and struck up a conversation with the orchard keeper. Walking down the rows of trees, Fosdick's perceptive eye noticed that some trees bore more fruit than others. On further inspection, he also noted that the more productive trees didn't stand quite as tall, nor did their bark glisten as the others. "How is it that some of these trees are so heavy with fruit that their branches nearly touch the ground, and the ones standing straight and tall have so much less fruit?"

The orchard keeper gave a knowing nod and said, "I'll show you." Walking around one of the heavy laden trees, he pointed to the base of the trunk. "See that gaping wound?" "We do that on purpose. When trees are young and growing, they quickly shoot tall and straight and develop shiny bark and sprawling branches. But for some reason, it is only after they have been wounded that they really begin to produce fruit."

We all want to be grafted to the vine and be close to Christ when we want the fruits which intimacy offers. To be cut in order to live a stronger, productive life runs counter to our expectations of what we are to get as disciples. Yet talk to those who have made a commitment to live for him, and they will tell you wounds are the cost of following Him. What would Chuck and Debby Baldwin tell us about pruning? Their commitment to serve the Lord on the mission field required enormous effort and sacrifice. Months of fundraising. Language studies in Switzerland. Finally it all came together and their long-awaited work in Zaire began. Then came a civil war and a hasty evacuation. Their ministry came to an abrupt end. All their personal belongings left behind. Now they wait and pray for another assignment.

Are they frustrated? Questioning why such a thing happened when they trusted that God had led them there? Pruning isn't pleasant. Like Walter Wink said, "In retrospect, I see the value of the prunings I have received, but at the time I felt zero gratitude." I think the Baldwins could speak eloquently on this passage. They would tell us that abiding in Christ is a relationship of unsurpassing purpose, but that it offers no immunity from pain.

"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you," Jesus said. Comforting words. But look at Jesus' life and ask HOW God loved him. Was his an easy, painless life? Hardly. But God brought Jesus through the pain, and ultimately through the death to the resurrection. Do not hear me saying that God sends us pain to prune us. God did not create a civil war in Zaire. Being God's people in the world will create its own trouble, but God does not send it. There is nothing in suffering itself that is redemptive. How we respond to it, can be.

I met a couple that had tried unsuccessfully for years to have children. They prayed, and their prayers were finally answered through the adoption of a beautiful baby girl. Their church welcomed the baby with such love. But when she was just a year and a half, it became clear something was wrong. At Riley Hospital, her parents were given the dreadful diagnosis...AIDS. As if this blow was not enough, the loving family of God that had welcomed them months before now said she couldn't be with the other children. Arms that had embraced now were used to keep a distance. They were devastated. When she was just three and a half, their daughter died. What came next, however, was not, "God, why?" but "God, what? What do you want us to do now?" The last I knew this courageous couple was speaking in churches about ministry to those with AIDS. They became fruitful after their daughter's death in ways they had not been before.

Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit. Yielding a harvest is a test of our discipleship. If we abide in Him, tangible results will be evident in our lives, and also in our church. What are we doing which defines us as disciples? A church does not exist of its own accord. It cannot be connected to Christ and not produce. Once it ceases to produce new disciples and reach out to others in His name, it ceases to be the church.

One of the findings of our discernment process is that a significant number of you said the morale of the church is not what it was just three years ago. There is a degree of uncertainty and lethargy present. I see it as a pruning of the congregation. There is no escaping the fact that our church, like so many others, is not nearly as strong as it was thirty years ago. It was a time of bounty in numbers and ministries. Today is very different. The church has gone under the knife of adversity. There was conflict. There was an arsonist's fire...an event which affects us still. There has been no second staff for a year and a half, no directions for creating innovative, quality ministries.

This is a challenging time, a crossroads moment, a time of opportunity that won't last indefinitely. We must reclaim what it means to be the church and not repeat what used to be because there is no going back. We are being called to take faithful risks. To try what's not been tried before. To try like we've not tried before. No running from change. No pretending the issues don't exist. Snip. Snip. Cut. Cut. Obedience to Christ will put us in situations where there will be challenge and pain. It is always been that way when disciples remain in Him and work at staking an outpost in the world for Him.

This is a hard, but necessary time for the church. We can become a branch that bears a bounty of growth, healing, witness, and outreach. We can. But not as a branch unto ourselves. "A branch cannot bear fruit by itself...neither can you unless you abide in me," Jesus said.

My task is to challenge you like you may not have been challenged before. I'm willing to do it because I'm confident of what can be done in union with Christ. My confidence isn't in my ability, but God's. The more we abide in Jesus as He already abides in us by the miracle of Easter, the more likely we will grow through the pruning and on to the purpose to which we are called.

I want to give you an image that is descriptive of our union with Christ. In her book, The Writing Life, Annie Dillard tells the story of a man and a log. It happened on a desolate stretch of beach on the Oregon Coast. The old man looks out over the water and sees a yellowish-covered log far from shore. He recognizes it as Alaskan Cedar which is excellent for building. The old man hops in a little eight foot pram and rows out to fetch it. He ties a twenty foot rope on to it and starts to row for shore. But he now has a problem. The tide catches him. Listen to Dillard's description.

The tide started going out, and it caught that log and dragged it south. Ferrarr kept rowing back north toward his house. The tide pulled him south down the strait from one end to the other. He might as well have tied onto a whale. He was rowing to the north and moving fast to the south. He wanted to be going home, so toward home he kept rowing.

When the sun set, at about nine o'clock, he'd swept south the length of the beach, rowing north all the way. When the moon rose a few hours later, he saw he had swept south out into the channel between the shore and Stuart Island. He had been rowing through those dark hours. He continued to row away from Stuart Island and continued to see it get closer.

Then he felt the tide go slack, and then he felt it coming in again. The current had reversed. He kept rowing into the half moonlight. The tide poured in from the south. He kept rowing north for home--only now the log was with him. He and his log were both floating on the current, and the current was bearing them up and carrying them like platters.

It started getting light at about three o'clock, and he rowed past the island's southern tip. The sun came up, and he rowed all the length of the beach. The tide brought him back on home. His wife, June, saw him coming; she had been curious about him all night.

Tied to Him. Abiding in Him. Against the tide of the time. Toward the fruitful purpose to which He calls us.

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