Sermons

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Life in the Family
April 2, 2000
Sermon Series on the Gospel of John
Pastor Dan Baumgartner

John 15:1-17

I’m going to let you in on a family pattern from our household. Occasionally, Anne or I take a separate out of town trip. A few months ago, Anne went away for a weekend retreat. Last week, I went to Spokane for a class.

As I got ready to go, I had a good laugh over how differently she and I get ready to leave town. I tend to be scrambling, making sure things aren’t left hanging at the office, making sure I’ve packed the right clothes, and most importantly, I always have to make sure I’m all caught up on paperwork at home. I’m usually up the night before I leave, paying bills, or balancing the checkbook.

Anne takes a much different approach…a much better one, really. Much more people-oriented. She scurries around to make sure that she has made every possible provision has been made for each of the kids…and for me…during the time she’s gone. So she writes out a nice calendar of exactly who has to be where, and when. She sets up play dates for the kids, makes sure there are good things for school lunches, and that their clothes are all laid out. She walks me through the good, healthy food available in the refrigerator, and makes me promise not to take the kids to Dick’s every night. She even reminds me to eat fruits and vegetables…I LIKE fruits and vegetables But Anne wants to make sure that in her absence, her family has everything they need, that we know everything that’s important.

That’s the point we’re at in the gospel of John. We’re reading the really important things that Jesus wants to make sure his followers know when he leaves. He knows he has only a few days left to live, and he is preparing his disciples for life after he is gone. This is a sort of “Emergency Training Manual.”

Now, the last words of chapter 14 were “Come now, let us leave.” So Jesus and his disciples are going somewhere, though we don’t know exactly where. But it’s easy for me to imagine that Jesus and his disciples were walking, and perhaps passing through a vineyard. Vineyards were extremely common in the Palestine of Jesus’ day, as grapes were a major agricultural crop. And Jesus is so good, throughout the gospels, at noticing his surroundings, and using it to teach. In Palestine, grapevines were pruned twice a year. The first time, in February or March, they were pruned quite severely…and so, it’s very possible that Jesus is walking past newly-pruned vines or stalks, and he stops and points and says to his disciples: “I am the TRUE vine, and my father is the gardener.”

Now, the Old Testament is filled with analogies using vines and vineyards…in Jeremiah, in Ezekiel, in the Psalms, and in Isaiah…and the vine always represents the people Israel. But the interesting thing is that in every single reference, like the one Tony read from Isaiah 5, the vine Israel…has messed up. The vine is diseased, is fruitless, is empty, has run wild…is always under judgment for infidelity, or for fruitlessness. Not a real vine, as vines are supposed to be. And so Jesus walks with his disciples, knowing both the agriculture in front of them, and the scriptures inside of them, and says “I am the TRUE VINE, and my father is the gardener…I’m not a vine that has messed it up, I’m the REAL vine, the true vine.”

This is the last of the great I AM statements Jesus makes in John. Six times we’ve heard Jesus say “I AM” the Bread, the Light, the Shepherd, the Door, the Resurrection & Life, the Way,Truth & Life…but only here, in these last days when Jesus is concerned with the question “What will I leave them with?” …does he immediately link his followers directly to Himself: “I Am the Vine…AND you are the branches. And therefore, you have to remain in me.”

It’s the first lesson in the manual: Jesus counts it incredibly important that his followers must remember who they are connected to, who it is that gives them life, where their entire identity is wrapped up. The moment that the branch is cut off from the vine...It is dead. Sweep it up, and throw it into a bonfire…grape-wood had no value at all. Oh, it may stay green for a little while. May even keep a leaf on for a few days. But the moment that the cut is through…it’s over. If you are going to follow Jesus, you MUST stay connected to Him.

I still remember vividly the day years ago when I took a group of high schoolers hiking up in Canada on a Beyond Malibu trip with Young Life. Our guides took a considerable length of time teaching us how to go on ropes down a sheer rock face, how the safety ropes hooked on with the caribeaners, where they were tied and who would be holding them. Then it was time for all of us to take a turn stepping off that cliff. The idea was to rope up, then turn around and go off the cliff backwards.

One brave guy named Steve volunteered to go first, and he got all roped up and headed for the edge of the cliff. But on his way there, he tripped and fell right over the cliff! Imagine how appalled we all were watching! We sort of crawled over and peered over the edge. Now fortunately, the ropes were ready, and they caught him about six feet down…there he was, hanging over a 150 foot sheer rock cliff…upside down. NEVER has anyone been so glad to be connected!

Jesus says “Remain in me.” Eugene Peterson writes it as Jesus saying “Live in me…make your home in me.” Stay connected. Don’t cut yourself off from who you are. Who you are is this: a branch off of Christ. Someone Christ has chosen, loved, trained, led, forgiven, taught. That’s who you are. We need to be continually plugged into that relationship. And so all of those things we DO as Christians…like pray and journal and read the scripture and meditate and write poetry…we DO them not because that’s what religious people are supposed to do…it’s much more personal. Those are things which can help keep our connection, keep our hearts close to Christ’s heart…help us make our home in him.

I told you I went to Spokane last week and took a class. It was held at Whitworth College, in the chapel. The class was on Spiritual Formation in the New Testament. I had five days to read most of the New Testament, looking for how each writer described what it meant to be a follower of Jesus. Each day, there was a rhythm of worship, and time to just sit in Christ’s presence, to journal, pray, read, think. No agenda, just quiet reflection and prayer. And I can’t tell you, over the course of five days, how that sense of just being with God, of being connected…began to build. And it’s carried all through this week as well. Jesus says, here’s something critically important for you to hear: Remain in me. Make your home in me.

The second thing in the training manual is this: Jesus’ desire for you, for the branches is very clear: that you bear fruit. There is no way to read this passage without hearing some of the missionary call in it. Bearing fruit means living changed lives, and it means planting seeds in God’s Kingdom. Jesus says in verse 16 “Don’t forget…you didn’t actually choose me…I chose you!…and I appointed you to GO and bear fruit…the same GO Jesus uses in Luke 10:3 when he sends out the 70 to spread the gospel. Go! Bear fruit! Make a difference. Introduce people to life. To real life. To ME. There’s a whole world full of people out there, and they’re stuck living fruitless lives, building little kingdoms, keeping up with their neighbors, accumulating junk that can’t bring happiness…go out! Share your lives, invest, engage people, offer them a different kingdom…MY kingdom.” Jesus is so very clear in this passage…He’s looking for fruit.

And that brings us some awkward questions, as branches. First: am I bearing any fruit? Look across your life…family, work, neighborhood…am I making a difference? Is the Kingdom of God a little closer? Are people being intrigued, or engaged, in who Jesus is, because of the way I live or speak or make decisions? Now, if we’re bold enough to answer the question, some of us will have to say No, or No at different times. If the answer is NO, then for many of us, our first reaction is: “I’ll try harder. I’ll volunteer more, I’ll be more disciplined, I’ll give more time.” But that misses the point. If you see no fruit, then the next question is: Are you really attached to the vine? Have you given your life, or just some convenient pieces?

But the hard questions aren’t done. If it seems that there IS fruit in your life, or if others see it in you…Jesus still has a question. Are you willing to be pruned in order that you might be more fruitful? Will you trust that Jesus really wants to mold what’s there, wants to shape you so that you will bear more fruit...and fruit for the long haul. Not just one bumper crop that makes the headlines, but fruit over a lifetime…and beyond. “Every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.” Even the good stuff gets pruned…not trimmed, but really pruned!

I took care of a bunch of yards in my neighborhood in high school, and I had one customer who had a wonderfully healthy grapevine, Mr. Sawyer. He taught me how to prune it. Boy, was I scared at first! I’d just snip the branches a little, like a haircut. But my boss would have none of it. “Nope, you have to cut these wild shoots OFF…all the way down, and throw them away. If you don’t, they rob the water and the nutrients that will go to the grape clusters. Chop them all the way off!”

Are there things I’m doing in life, places I’m investing time…even on GOOD things…where I need to be open to God’s pruning? Can I trust the Pruner?

Finally, there is a third lesson in the emergency manual. Jesus talks very plainly about something that will be very, very important while he’s gone: how his followers treat each other. Not “those people out there,” but THESE people in here, in the family of God. So, he says, I have a command that I’m going to give you right now. Some of you say, aha, here comes the command, it’s what I’ve always hated about organized religion, the big list of commandments, of do’s and don’ts. But Jesus has this really short list. Love one another. Love one another? Isn’t that too basic? What about taking the gospel to the ends of the earth? What about doing great things for Jesus. I think Jesus would say “That’s great. But let’s start right here in the family: Love one another.”

But it’s not as simple as it sounds. Some of us in the family don’t spend time together. And we think that loving each other looks like avoiding, or not dealing with each other. CS Lewis once said that he went to a local church each day at lunchtime to take communion “because it forces me to be around people I spend the rest of the day avoiding.” Some of us don’t even know each other. Even here, we come to worship on Sunday, and we come the next Sunday, and we may even recognize the people we sat with the week before. But if we’re serious about loving each other, below the surface…we’ll have to know each other. It’s why we do things like the Lenten small groups in neighborhoods. It’s why do Soup and Bread, it’s why we want to build home groups. If we are serious about what Jesus is serious about…we have to invest in getting to know each other.

But there’s a whole other layer to this. Jesus doesn’t just say “love one another.” He says “Love one another…as I have loved you.” He said the same thing in chapter 13: “A new command I give you: love one another as I have loved you.” What’s so new about that? We’re told to love each other all over the Old Testament. The new part is loving as I have loved you. It’s where we should get real quite. We have to stop and think about how Jesus loved. Certainly in giving up his life for others. But it goes even beyond giving up life. Jesus gave up his life for the sake of people who don’t care. Jesus’ love & sacrifice covered people who betrayed him, who deserted him, who fell asleep in his hour of need, who ran away from being identified with him. When Jesus says “love as I have loved you”, it’s the furthest thing from just loving people we are drawn to, people we like to spend time with, people who have shown us love.

Some of us in God’s family don’t even like each other, or just ignore each other, or put up a wall of silence. But the love Jesus talks about here, AGAPE love in Greek, is a very INTENTIONAL love. Much more than a warm fuzzy. It’s a love that “consciously reaches out for its object.” It’s the love that Jesus calls us to in the family. When Jesus is nearly ready to go, and he thinks about what his disciples need to hear…he says “love one another as I have loved you.”

Have you ever known a really passionate gardener? Some folks...some of you, here…just totally enjoy the garden. I had another lawn customer years ago, Mr. Burns.

Mr. Burns was passionate about his garden. He lived right at the top of Bertona, near where I grew up. He was getting on in years, and had some health problems, and so he’d hire me to work in the yard. I’d show up and mow and edge and trim and weed and turn over the earth in the garden. And when I was done, Mr. Burns would put a lawn chair out in the back yard, under the apple tree. And he’d sit with a glass of lemonade and just take in the smell of newly-turned earth, and cut grass. He absolutely loved it, just took delight in it.

I think God is that kind of gardener. When God created the world, way back in Genesis, the earth, the plants and everything else…He stopped and said “This is good.” And when He created man and woman, and put them in this lush garden, he stopped and looked and said “This is very, very good.” I think God is like that today. When He looks at people remembering who they are as branches on the Vine, connected to Jesus Christ…When He looks at the fruit being born out in peoples’ lives…When He sees His people, His family, loving each other the way that Jesus prepared them to…Like a passionate gardener, God looks and smiles, and says: “This is good. This is really, really good.”