Morning Prayer: Tom Lyda Choral Amen Hymn of Faith *Faith, While Trees Are Still in Blossom* Witness of Scripture: John 15: 1-17 & I John 4: 7-21 Anthem *See What Love* Felix Mendelssohn. Chancel Choir Sermon *(Com) Passion Fruit David Spain
Recorded on April 28, 2024
If you spend any time in the fresh fruit section of the grocery store, you may observe some unusual behavior. People will pick up the merchandise, shake it, thump it, squeeze it, even smell it. Each little test is meant to provide clues about the suitability of the fruit, because you can’t know for certain what is on the inside. All our tests notwithstanding, buying fruit employs both faith and hope.
A long time ago, Jesus talked about faith as vine and branches and fruit—John’s 15th chapter recounts that story. Reading these words brought to mind a long-ago, late-night conversation around a campfire. Friends were enjoying a pleasant evening, talking about all kinds of things—sports, family, work. Eventually the topic of religion came up, and the tone changed—there was a general disparaging of religion for its too often angry, judgmental, exclusive aura. Someone countered that there are many good things that come from religion as well, so don’t label all religion as bad. Another person remembered Jesus had said, “You will know people by their fruits,” which given the mood around the campfire, evoked hoots of laughter as several people pounced on that saying that religion produces a lot of fruits—bitter fruits and nuts. To be sure, religion through the centuries has failed to live up to its foundational ideals. There has been and continues to be a distinction between its founder and its followers. We hear of Christianity that people like Jesus but don’t care for many of his followers. The hypocrisy label is readily used, and it is not without justification—there is distance between the ideal and the actual. True as all that is and with ample evidence to support the criticism, it is also easier to stand at a distance and offer critique than it is to stand up close and offer compassion.
We admit the obvious—it is challenging to live a fruitful life, and perhaps no one knew this
better than Jesus and his disciples, which is perhaps why Jesus gives such a compelling image of the life of faith. What is the Christian life like? Jesus does not give 10 bullet points to follow; he does not offer a doctrinal statement of belief that can be posted on a church’s website. Instead, he said, “well it’s like vine and branches and fruit.” We remember when Jesus said this it was just after he had washed the disciples’ feet and just before he was betrayed and arrested. Jesus knew he would soon be leaving, so he said to his disciples “I am the vine and you are the branches.” It
wasn’t the first time, in John’s gospel telling, that Jesus had said ‘I am.’ “I am bread of life, I am living water, I am light of the world, I am the good shepherd.” When Jesus used those images, he was describing the indescribable by telling his disciples how God lives in and through him providing wonder bread so that people will never hunger or quenching water so that people will never thirst or light that can never be extinguished or care and claiming that can never be co-opted. What is different about this ‘I am” statement is that this is the only time Jesus pairs “I am” with “you are.” “You want to know who I am? I am the vine grown by God and you want to know who you are? You are the branches on that vine. We are as much together as God is together with me,” Jesus is saying. We are all part of this great, God-designed, life-giving system. Karoline Lewis has written that when Jesus says “‘You are the branches,’ he sets in motion the disciples’ purpose. While the branches cannot live without the vine, the vine doesn’t have much to give without the branches. This mutual need between Jesus and his disciples is an often over-looked component of discipleship in John. Yet, without the disciples, the fulfillment of John 3:16 cannot come to bear…How can God love the world without the disciples…without us?” Remember the Samaritan woman at the well? Yes, she needs Jesus who is living water; and he needs her to give him a drink and then to be his first preacher to the people in the village where she lived. Vine and branches and fruit. (SermonBrainwave WorkingPreacher commentary for April 28, 2024). The image is not a threat or a judgment; it is an affirmation of good news that to be connected to Christ is to bring life and to share love.
Listening to Jesus talk about vine and branches, we hear the word abide several times. As Austin Shelley reminds us, John and First John use abide more than any other books in the Bible —41 times in the gospel and a little over half that many in First John even though it is much shorter than the gospel. Abiding, as used in both, is not passive resting but active engagement in the mission and the work of Christ’s life. A branch doesn’t simply rest on the vine; it lives to produce fruit that can be shared and enjoyed, feeding and nurturing any who would draw from it. We are all part of an integrating, interwoven, intergenerational, intertwined plant. Shelley offers another image from a Coast Guard captain. “On a ship at sea, someone is always ‘on watch.’ When one person’s watch is finished, the person coming on duty salutes and says, ‘I have the watch.’ The person leaving salutes back and replies, ‘You have the watch.’ Fruitful ministry becomes sustainable when it is shared, person to person and generation to generation.”(The Christian
Century newsletter, 4/28/24) Vine and branches and fruit—we are all in this together—Jesus said. This is not a slogan in response to a crisis—it is the reality of abiding with and in Christ.
First Christian Church, as part of the fruit it bears to the community, shares in the work of Norman Housing Ministries, which provides money to Food and Shelter to fill gaps in funding to help people with a housing crisis. One such person is Jeromy who had been living at a campsite near the river. His health had declined and life on the street had taken its toll on his heart. He was taken to the hospital—his life in jeopardy—and while hospitalized began to address some of his health struggles. He asked for help, and after recovering from his crisis, is now housed in a sober living facility, with funds from Norman Housing Ministries helping pay his first month’s rent. Now three months later his health continues to improve, and he is making progress in his goals toward an overall healthier life. In today’s awful rhetoric about our homeless neighbors in Norman, it is important to know about churches and vines and branches and fruit and how compassionate fruit nourishes life.
What Jesus said to his disciples as John’s gospel tells is reiterated in what is called I John. Often referred to as a letter, it is more likely a sermon from about the same time and perhaps by the same author of John’s gospel. The sermon does what sermons always hope to do—strengthen the spiritual life of its hearers and proclaim that doctrine and ethics, theology and behavior are woven into the same cloth. Love, truth, faith is not so much to be argued as it is to be enacted. I John has some of the most beautiful and straightforward words about God and the life of faith. “God is love.” There you go! To abide in God means one abides in love, lives in love, shares love and shares in love. Everything God does is born of God’s nature, which is loving, life-giving, grace renewing, reconciling, restoring. I John has its own vine and branches relationship —“Beloved, since God loves us so much, we are to love one another.” The God whom no one has ever seen is reflected when love is given. In fact, I John says that love is the way God lives in people and that God’s love is perfected in us, which does not mean that disciples love perfectly but does mean that as we share love, God is fully present. Abundant life, which is what Jesus said he came to give, reflects God’s love, and we glimpse God’s love as we embody goodwill toward one another. I John’s sermon preaches life is complete as we “do love” wherever we are, in whatever moment that happens in front of us. It is a simple teaching—God is love—any questions? And yet, we know it is not easy because people are messy and situations can be hard and every person has limits. But thanks be to God, the One who is love calls us to do love.
A couple of weeks ago, our Logos children and our youth participated in the Stamp Out Starvation ministry, a food ministry program of packing meals to be taken to some of the poorest places in the western hemisphere. From kindergarteners to grandparents, everyone—donning a unique shade of a red hairnet—did their part to assemble food for families. A couple hours of work led to over 7,000 meals prepared for those who are hungry. There were a few spills because love can be messy. What a beautiful plant assembled that day in our Fellowship Hall—vine, branches, fruit. This year, during Logos opening circle as we sing songs, recognize birthdays, say our prayers, we were taught a song that some of the fourth and fifth graders had learned at camp. Accompanied by the motions of the hand jive, the words with some variations are “the fruit of the spirit is not a banana, the fruit of the spirit is not a banana—if you want to be a fruit of the spirit you might as well hear it, you can’t be a fruit of the spirit cause the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control,” and that is repeated a number of times over, which I will not try to imitate since getting the words and the hand jive coordinated is beyond my ability. But the song and the motions are on to something true. Logos means word, and our Logos children demonstrate that the best word is a loving word doing and moving in an all-together different kind of fruit section—no shaking, thumping, squeezing, smelling. Just moving with kindness and care, helping to heal the world where it is wounded. It is the kind of fruit that even those cynics gathered around the campfire would realize that when Jesus said, “You will know people by their fruits,” he was talking about people just like those generations assembling food, or helping the unhoused, or any number of countless ways compassion fruit is shared. Jesus said that is the kind of fruit that lasts, the kind of fruit that never goes bad.