fifth Sunday of Easter

Most of us have some idea about gardening, it’s becoming a cult thing now, especially vegetable growing because of the economic downturn, and there are waiting lists for allotments, when only a few years ago in some parts of the country they couldn’t get people to take them on, and so allotments were sold off for development. It seems whenever I turn on the TV, there is a gardening programme on, and in a few weeks we will have wall to wall coverage of the Rolls Royce of all garden shows, the Chelsea Flower Show.  Sue and I went two years ago and it really is stunning.

I always wanted to be able to grow good cauliflowers and cabbages, and have a vine over the gazebo where I could sit on a lazy summer day and pick the grapes ripening above my head.  Well, the cabbage root fly put paid to the brassicas, and the vine never produces big enough grapes for anything, but I suppose it looks nice. ‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower’. Jesus tells us. The true vine probably means the nation of Israel.  Israel was the chosen people of God who were supposed to ‘bear fruit’ to carry out God’s work, and live in accordance with God’s commandments, but they produced bad fruit time after time.  The prophet Isaiah told us this, ‘The vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the garden of his delight.  And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress’.

Israel had failed to produce the fruit that God was looking for, and so the challenge passed to Jesus, who refers to himself as the ‘true vine’ through who the good fruit necessary to grow the kingdom of God is produced. But what does Jesus mean when he talks about fruit? A couple of ideas spring to mind, firstly, new Christians who come to faith through our faith in God.  Which of course means we have to initiative that for it to be fruit. We have to take some action to make it happen, we have to tell our friends, our colleagues, our family members, about the Love of God, through Christ which we as Christians enjoy.  We have to bear witness to others. Secondly, the fruit is more of a personal fruit in the life of the Christian themselves, in our personal relationship with God.  And if you think about it, if our relationship with God is right, we cannot help but show it in the way we live our lives and act towards others, and evangelism is a natural by product of all that. If we are alive in Christ, and Christ is alive in us, it can’t help but show in our lives, and others can see it.

Now some would call all this evangelising, like Billy Graham, or the chap who stands in Market Square telling everyone who walks by that we are all sinners, which of course is true, we are, but don’t need reminding about it when we are shopping or going to the bank, or perhaps we do!  And the very thought of evangelism can be a frightening thing for many people, and I must confess, myself.  It seems somehow contrary to our normal human behaviour, and yet its exactly what Jesus told his disciples to do in the last but one verse of Matthew’s Gospel, ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’. But this is not a productivity drive, we don’t count the number of people we think we have brought to faith to see what bonus we get in heaven, because of course, its not us who do the converting anyway, it’s the power of the Holy Spirit that prompts a person to see the truth in the words we may speak or in how we live our lives.  We may be the catalyst which enables someone to come to faith through the power of the Holy Spirit, and we may never know it. We may never know who’s lives we touch because we have taken the trouble to speak to them, to do some little favour for them, to take an interest in them, to be concerned for them, to pray for them when they are in trouble or distressed. And we can only do this if our ‘inner fruit’ is right.  We should examine our inner fruit to see how like Jesus are we? To see whether we can see bits of Jesus in our lives.  We should not preach the Good News of Jesus our Saviour if we lead a life which does not reflect his Grace and Love for all people.  As Mother Teresa of Calcutta often said, ‘Let every action of mine be something beautiful for God’.

Now I’m not a great gardener, more an enthusiastic amateur, but I know there are two types of cutting needed to keep plants, bushes and trees healthy.  Firstly to cut out the dead branches and twigs and that carry disease.  And this is a hard lesson for us in our spiritual lives also.  There are those who would call themselves Christian, who may even come regularly to church, but have no interest in God at all.  No interest in trying to keep his commands or doing what God wants them to do. The second type of cutting is to prune .  This is entirely different to cutting out dead branches.  Pruning is a vital activity for every branch which bears fruit to make it more productive. Some may say that pruning is the difficulties we all go through in our lives, which can make us stronger in faith if we get through them.  Another way for us to think about this is that God is removing bad bits from us.  Those Christians connected to the ‘true vine’ of God through Christ and bear good fruit are needed to produce even more fruit, so God prunes us for his service. This is for our own benefit if you think about it, as we live our comfortable lives God challenges us on areas of our lives that need pruning to make us more in the image of Jesus and more able to help to grow the Kingdom here on earth.  We need to be listening to the voice of God in our lives and we need to be open to him to let that voice speak to us.  It can be a bit uncomfortable when we examine ourselves in the light of the Holy Spirit and see how much we need to change in our lives, but we should remember only good branches need pruning, bad branches are cut off altogether.  God’s desire is for us to bear more fruit, to be more Christ like in our lives.  If we want to reach our true potential as Christians we must let the Holy Spirit work in our lives, and people will see our transformation. But maybe like most of us you are not sure whether you are producing good or bad fruit.  We try to do the right thing, give to charity, open doors for people, is that enough or does God want more!!  Well verse 4 of the Gospel reading explains this to us. ‘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’. It’s obvious really when we think about it, look at the flowers in the vases around church, they look beautiful, if they were still out in the field attached to the plant they would last a long time, the natural span of their lives, but once they are cut from their plants they don’t last long, even in water.  It’s the same for us if we don’t stay connected to Jesus, we become detached from his teaching and his love and become dry Christians withering away inside and not producing fruit. So the answer is that we must devote ourselves as much as possible to God, who Jesus describes as the ‘vine-grower’, the gardener.

If our relationship with God has dried up a bit, and it does as we go through the trials and tribulations of life, then perhaps God is prompting us to put things right.  We can only start from where we are in our spiritual lives of course, but that’s always a good place to start in any case. We all lead very busy lives nowadays, and finding time for things is difficult and can lead to cutting God out of our lives, so we must make time to allow him back.. After all he is the only one who is constant and sure in all his works, unlike the bankers, the politicians, those who thought they knew better than God in what we needed.  Bigger cars and houses, as many holidays as we could get in each year, a get rich mentality that collapsed like a house of cards.

If you currently don’t pray try praying for a few minutes first thing in the morning or last thing at night, or make a bit of space during the day.  You’ll soon connect with God again and your hearts and minds will be open to his love and his desires for you. Read the Bible every day. Our ancestors knew how important it was to hear the word of God each day to set our hearts right.  I remember my Granny had a ‘Bible reading for the Day’ calendar.  I try to follow the Daily Lectionary with Morning and Evening Prayer, and it can be a real struggle to make time to do it, but if you can what a difference it makes to thank God for all he does for us.

And finally if you are producing good fruit in your lives then be open to God’s pruning.  Look at Jesus for our example.  He died for us on the Cross in order that all our bad bits could be removed and pruned to his service rather than being thrown away altogether.  Being pruned isn’t always comfortable because we don’t like to acknowledge our faults, but through it we can be confident that we will produce even better fruit in God’s service. The vital thing in all this is through our relationship with God. 

Only by staying connected to the ‘true vine’, having a close relationship with God, can we produce fruit that will live.  It is only through him that we can become the people that God wants us to be. The final word is with Mother Teresa of Calcutta, ‘Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand. Anyone may gather it and no limit is set’.  Amen.