10th May 2009, 5th Sunday of Easter.
Bearing fruits
Acts 8.26-40; Psalm 22.25-31; 1John 4.7-21; John15.1-8
May I speak in the name of the Holy Trinity, Father Son and Holy Spirit, One God, One Saviour, One Spirit from all eternity, Amen
Here in Alsace we are used to seeing the vines spreading over the foothills of the Vosges. If you go for a walk through the vines in late autumn you will see that the vines have been severely pruned to ensure that the harvest is plentiful and good. In the September we can see the fruit bulging with goodness ready to be harvested and made into that wonderful alcoholic beverage called wine.
Vines were and still are plentiful in Palestine. Like the vines in Alsace they were severely pruned and the branches that didn’t bear any fruit were pruned so far back that they would no longer sap the vine of its strength. Even the good branches were well pruned so as to bear more fruit. In the First Testament, the vine is used over and over again to portray Israel. For example the prophet Isaiah writes: “The vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is the house of Israel”(Isaiah 5.7). The vine had become the symbol of Israel. It is not surprising that Jesus uses this well known symbol to describe himself. It is Jesus himself who becomes the new symbol of Israel. He is the true vine; the real and genuine vine.
God is the vine grower and Jesus is the vine. We are the branches and we are either branches that bear fruit or branches that don’t bear fruit. As we have all come together to Worship God this morning, we will assume that we are all good branches, which may need to be pruned severely, but which nevertheless have the possibility of bearing good fruit. Today, I would like us to reflect on the nourishment needed to ensure a rich harvest and then to think about what these fruits may be.
In the Gospel we read:
“I am the vine and you are the branches,. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing”’John15.7.
And in the epistle:
“”God is love and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them” I John.4. 16.b.
The theme here is mutual indwelling; us abiding in God, abiding in Jesus and the Father and the Son abiding in us. This is the nourishment that we need. That’s all very well, but how do we achieve this mutual indwelling? After all we don’t always feel very near to Jesus. In the first instance I would say that we must and can count on God’s grace, for as we heard in the Epistle:
“In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his only son into the world that we might live through him”. He dwells in us because of his great love for us.
But what can we do to abide in Jesus? Well we must stay close to him and we do this in many ways. I invite you to explore with me something of what we do and what God does in our act of worship.
We confess our faults, we receive forgiveness and this is what reconciles us to God. Confession and Absolution contribute to this mutual abiding and helps us to be one with God. We pray and as we pray we enter into a deeper communion with God through Jesus but we can also remember that Christ continually prays for us and this is his prayer:
“Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one….I made your name known to them…so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”(John 17)
” We sing songs of praise and thanksgiving and then we listen to the Word and as we listen and reflect we are drawn into the presence of God and of his Son. Jesus becomes present in the reading of the gospels for when it is read or preached it is heard as the Word of Jesus. There is a real presence of Christ in the Gospels and in this we move nearer to him and he moves nearer to us.
Then of course there is the ministry of the sacrament. The book of Common Prayer uses these words at the receiving of the sacrament:
“The body of our Lord Jesus Christ which is given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life; take and eat this, in remembrance that Christ died for thee and feed on him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving”.
Here is indwelling. John MacQuarrie says,
“The Eucharist is an effectual sacrament in the sense that it mediates to us the life of Christ, the true vine, life which comes ultimately from the Father, the vine grower”.
In the Eucharist we receive the very life and grace of Jesus Christ, Son of God and in this we become at one with him.
We are nourished by Jesus, the vine, through forgiveness and reconciliation, through prayer and praise, through the Word and through the Sacrament and so we are brought to abide in him and him in us.
This bears fruit in our personal lives and in our Christian community. Because we live in Christ and he in us, our lives can be richer, happier and more fulfilled as we live in hope. We can begin to love. We can love ourselves and our brothers and sisters as we grow in Christ. We can love one another and as we love one another we learn to love God more:
“No one has ever seen God; if we love one another; God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us”.
We can begin to bear the fruits of the spirit; love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self control (Galatians 5.22). If we live in Christ and he in us, Jesus will pour out his Spirit on us and we can bear the fruits of wisdom, understanding, inward strength; all these things which build up our lives and the life of the Church.
But our reading from Acts tells us that bearing fruit is not only about our personal lives or not only about the Christian community. Speaking about the wonderful benefits of abiding in Jesus and proclaiming the Good News is another way of bearing fruit. We see this quite clearly as Philip obeys the call to go south to Gaza. He goes to tell the good news, to testify and speak the Word of the Lord; he extends the possibility of knowing God through Jesus to others. He takes risks, setting out on a deserted road and approaching a complete stranger. The Eunuch he approaches is trying to make sense of the Prophet Isaiah. He is looking for understanding, for something in the text which will make sense of his life. Today’s world is full of people like the Eunuch; full of people seeking something profound to strengthen and give meaning to their lives. Many people have a real sense of spiritual longing and it is our duty to set out, as Philip did, to spread the Gospel so that they too may know the joy of abiding in Christ and to know the joy of Christ abiding in them. How to go about this will need much prayerful thinking and working together but we cannot escape the fact that bearing fruit is about spreading the good news and of obeying Jesus’ command:
“Go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28.19).
We have seen that there will be fruits in our personal lives, in the life of the Church and in its ministry to the world but there is one last fruit that this indwelling brings. Jesus says:
“My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”
As we bear fruit, growing in our selves, in the Church community and in the world we give back to God the fruits that we bear with songs of praise and thanksgiving. Giving glory to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit is the ultimate fruit of mutual indwelling. Each small fruit that we bear, if we offer it up to God so that he will be glorified, hastens the coming of the Kingdom of God, when the whole of his creation will worship and praise him, giving him the glory that is his.
Amen.
