"The Power of Connection"
John 15:1-8
May 14, 2006
St. Paul UMC
Rev. John A. Fleming
I'm no master gardener. My dad, literally is. Before he moved to Conway, back in Tennessee, he took classes over the course of several weeks. Now he has a certificate that hangs in his house that allows him to say that he truly is a master gardener. Daddy didn't need the classes or the certificate to prove it. My dad has always had the gift of having near perfect flower beds. Weeds would not dare grow in his yard.
The spring begins with a brilliant display of daffodils or as my dad likes to call them, jonquils. They bloom with shades of yellows and bright orange. Next comes the azalea bushes with their beautiful pink blossoms or red ones. There are also white ones. Dad plans the yard in such a way that there are pinks here, whites there, and reds over there. If there is a hybrid plant, one that looks a little different from all of the other ones, my dad is one of the first to have it planted in his yard.
Dad has a way of combining things like hosta and barberry and cone flowers in such a way that everything seems to fit. There are hundreds of others plants, of course, that add to the majestic display of color. Only the great artist Thomas Kincade could paint the flower beds to do them justice. When I go home, of course, I get a tour of the backyard. There is always something new that he wants to show me. We walk along the beds and daddy reels off the names of his plants. Dad knows the common name, but he often impresses me with the formal name of the plants and flowers.
I go home with garden envy. I did not always feel this way. When I was a kid, one of my jobs was to keep things like basketballs and footballs out of dad's flower beds. Lord help me if I crushed a rose or knocked off a few blooms. When I did do that (and I did do that), I would go over to the flower or the plant, pick it up, put it in my pocket, and then try to discard the evidence. Dad always knew. He may not have always said something, but he always knew when one of his plants had been damaged.
Now that I am an adult, I like doing more than weed eating and mowing. Somehow my dad's love for the garden has made its way to my heart and life. But here is the problem. I am not a master gardener. I am not good at gardening at all. Dad had almost thirty years with his flower beds in Jackson. He knew what grew well where and what did not have a chance. Me? I haven't lived anywhere long enough to acquire the instinct to know which plants will thrive where and which ones will not. I have no idea what kind of soil and sun light is required.
When Susie, Annie Grace, and I moved into the parsonage some four years ago, you all planted new plants. There were azalea bushes and box woods. The azaleas are doing all right. I killed all of the box woods. One of you was nice enough to notice that and replaced the box woods with more azaleas. I have killed a couple of them, too. There is also a thread leaf maple that bit the dust late last summer.
Believe me, I've tried. I have bought books on the subject of gardening. A couple of pages into each of them, I have given up. They are like the theology books that I had to read in seminary. They are very confusing! I am no gardener. I can mow the lawn. I can edge with the best of them. I can plant bushes if there is someone to supervise. But a master gardener I am not.
A saint of a woman in the Harmony Grove Church had beautiful rose bushes. The bushes were more than fifty years old. They had been in her mother's yard and had been moved to Margaree's yard. In the spring and summer, Margaree provided the flowers for our worship services each and every week. I often stopped by her house on my way home. One day she gave me a lesson on rose bush pruning. I will not soon forget it. She told me that a rose bush, left on its own, will get straggly and tangled. Such a bush would produce some roses, but not splendid ones. According to her, rose bushes left on their own, would get in their own light. She told me, "I try to help them out. I point them towards the light." She pruned them every year. In the spring, they looked like sticks stuck in the ground. In the late spring they were beautiful, full of splendid roses. Margaree said something like this, "I prune the rose bush to help it be true to itself." I am no master gardener, but that makes perfect sense to me.
As I understand it, the same kind of thing can be said of vines. Vines, too, need to focus their energy and attention on producing good, quality grapes, rather than a few second rate ones. Vines, too, need help to go towards the light instead of getting tangled.
I am told that if you visit London and make the usual tourist stops, you will go to a place called Hampton Court. Hampton Court is a few miles outside of the city and has been the country estate to kings. Growing out there is a grapevine that some have guessed is a thousand years old. Some of its branches are more than two hundred feet long. It's single root is at least two feet thick. I have not been to London. I have not seen it, but the description of it leads me to think that it is impressive. Because of skillful pruning by more than a dozen gardeners, that one vine has produced grapes for a thousand years. I am told that even today the vine produces several tons of grapes.
Now let's turn back to our scripture lesson for this morning, taken from the fifteenth chapter of John's gospel. The thirteenth through seventeenth chapters of this gospel are called Jesus' farewell discourse. Beginning in the upper room and then coming down from it, perhaps on their way to the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus gives his disciples words that will help them continue what he began.
I recently heard Reverend Bryan Collier of the Orchard, a United Methodist congregation near Tupelo, Mississippi, preach on this text. He was in Arkansas at an event called Vital Signs. Bryan reminded us that if you have a Bible that has the words of Jesus printed in red, these chapters in John's gospel are almost scarlet red.
Jesus teaches these lessons. Jesus gives these words and uses a wide variety of ways to make sure that the disciples understand the teachings. You will remember that in the Upper Room, Jesus used two common things. He used bread and wine to help the disciples know that he would be with them forever. In that same room, he used a towel and a basin to teach them the lesson that we are to be servants. You will remember that Jesus came around the table and washed the feet of the twelve. The task was usually performed by a servant. Jesus' lesson is that we must all serve one another.
Then, somewhere between the Upper Room and the garden, Jesus saw a grape vine. Most likely it was out of control, growing everywhere. Jesus reaches for it. Perhaps he lifts it up for the disciples to see. Then he says, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit." Then Jesus uses an old fashioned biblical word. The word is abide. Don't look for the word in a modern translation of the Bible. you won't find it there. Editors use a different word for abide in their translation because they believe that abide is too old. Most of the time, you will find the word remain instead. The word remain is not powerful enough. In these eight short verses, abide is used eight times. Remain does not capture the power of the image. Abide means more than to remain. It means to stand with. It means to be faithful to. It means to stand firm. It means to never leave.
And here says Jesus, if we don't abide with him, we cannot do anything. Now I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, "Come on, preacher! I know a lot of people who don't have a significant relationship with Jesus and they do a lot of things; they are doing just fine. They are very productive!" They are and I know that. What I am saying is that they are not doing anything of eternal significance if they aren't connected to Jesus.
Jesus tells us that God prunes all of the branches that are fruitful so that they will produce more fruit. Jesus knows about grapes. He knows that to get more out of the grapevine, you have to go against its natural tendency. Its natural tendency is to produce more growth than grapes. A mature grapevine must be pruned drastically every year.
Now the sermon could take a nasty turn at this point. We could talk about all of the things that needed pruning in our lives, all of the things that need to be cut off. Things like our tempers and our habits. Words that we have said and ones that we have left unsaid. We could talk about things like our addictions to buy things that we cannot afford and the quality of the shows that we watch on television. All of the things that we don't want to cut out of our life but should be snipped.
I won't go there this morning. This morning I would like to talk about the power of abiding and being connected to the vine. I am no expert on vines, that is for sure, but one of the things that I read about this week is that the strongest place on the vine is where the vine and the branch are joined together. If you pull on a branch that goes into the trunk of a tree, it will break. On a tree, the place where the branch and the trunk come together is the weakest place. But on the vine, that place is the strongest point.
The urgent questions this morning are these. How do we stay connected to Jesus? How do we remain in him? What would something like that look like? We must all stay connected to the community that Jesus began. This is the community who loves him and celebrates Him as our Lord. Staying connected means coming to worship. Staying connected means being a part of a small group. Staying connected means studying your Bible to discover the things that Jesus said and did.
One of the things that I do for myself is that I am a part of three small groups. All three groups are with minister friends of mine. One group meets every week. I have told you about them before. Two other groups meet once a month. We talk about our personal lives. We talk about our struggles. We begin with John Wesley's historical question, "How is it with your soul?" We cannot go it alone. We must be a people of prayer and a people of worship. We must be a people who know that we need one another. We must be connected.
Just this week I ran across the story of a farm house that was one of the first houses in the community that was wired with electricity. All of the other houses were dark at night except for the light of candles. Every night, when the sun set, the owner of the house that had electricity flipped on the switch and then flipped it back off again. You see, there was a powerful connection there, but they did not use it. Why not?
We must stay connected to our church family and as far as it depends on us, we must also stay connected to our biological families. The older I get, the smarter my parents are. When I was a teenager, they made no sense at all. Now they make perfect sense. My parents gave me gifts. They taught me that family is important. They taught me that the church is a great place to begin to understand the importance of God in my life. These are the things that I want my girls to know. And on this mother's day, I want to thank my mom for the gifts and keeping me connected. Ah, the power of connection. Let us pray.
(Special thanks to my mom and dad for the gifts that they have given me. Thanks to Rev. Bill Bouknight for an idea or two in this sermon. The story about the vine in London is his as is the insight about the strongest place on the vine. Special thanks also to the writings of Tom Wright. His commentary series is helpful. For this sermon, I consulted John for Everyone volume two).