Fifth Sunday of Easter (A)
Sixth Sunday of Easter (A)
May 5, 2002
by Joe Parrish

In the middle of the yard where I grew up my father had grape vines arrayed on a small fence. Every year the vines would bear a number of big, purple grapes. And every year in the fall I was amazed to see my father nearly cut the vines to the ground in several places, and he would cut some vines back to the heavy branches. But sure enough when spring came, the vines would regenerate and a bounty of new grapes would appear. I always thought my father was being cruel to those grapes every fall, making them have to replenish their vines each year. But in fact he was just being a good vine grower, pruning the necessary leafy vines that had not produced fruit and those that had produced only a small amount of fruit. That cutting favored the outgrowth of vines that would produce more grapes than average. I learned that the parable of the vine in today’s gospel lesson really works! At least it is an accurate depiction of how vintners tend theRepoines from year to year. The cuttings removed from the vine would not bear any fruit. The vines had to be connected to the parent plant in order to produce grapes.

I don’t know about you, but when I hear this parable of the vine, I get just a little bit worried. What if I am not as fruitful as I could be. Would God cut me off? Wow, now that is a scary thought! I am hoping I would just be clipped a little bit in the fall so I could come back strong in the spring. Heaven help the one who just gets “thrown away.” Think of that. Who feels they are in danger of being “thrown away”? It really makes us think of how fruitful have we been recently! How many have we invited to church? How many have we shared our faith with recently, say this past year? How many have we had a Christian influence on? And how are we becoming hopefully more fruitful Christians?

The essay I wrote for the Parish Notes this month speaks about “Making Relationships”, “Mak14 Relationships”. That is one way of saying, ‘how do we get others connected to the vine of Christ, to our community of Christians?’ Are we even making any attempt to bring others into a saving relationship with Christ?

We have a Friends Committee that plans and carries out the potlucks and cookouts here at St. John’s. These community gatherings are planned so we can have an easy opportunity to invite someone new to church and then enjoy the delicious food afterwards. But it takes you to invite others to these cookouts and potlucks. Of course you do not have to wait until we have a cookout or potluck to invite a visitor to join you and us. Any week would do. Our faith is not just a private affair. We are told, almost even scolded it seems, to be fruit-bearing disciples. Whether we take this advice to heart is what we need to reflect on today. How can we be more fruitful disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ?

One Christian psychiatrist noted that our problem is that we have learned to fear man rather than God. Elbert Hubbard said, “to avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.” I think some of us take that advice to heart. We fear the judgmental glance of another who thinks we are a bit out of it for talking about our faith with someone else. I have heard many people respond to me when I ask them to come to church, “Oh, I am a member of St. Rocco’s or St. Adelbert’s or some other church. But when I ask them how often they attend, they oftentimes say, 'well, a few years ago I attended.' And the occasional person will say, “I attend at least Christmas, Easter, and weddings, and of course some wakes or funerals.” Some wag said, do not wait until six strong people bring you to church, meaning the pallbearers at one’s own funeral. But people will smile at that humor and still refuse to come to church, or they will come only “off and on.” But what does the Lord require, as the prophet Micah says at Chapter 6, Verse 8, but to “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.” Some think 'walking humbly with God' only means not buying all of our groceries on a Sunday. But the people wandering around out there on Broad Street surely are not visibly walking humbly with anyone but themselves. How do we get them to come on inside and experience the joy of the Resurrection? That is the million-dollar question. How do we attract someone to at least sample the word and work of the Lord?

Then at some of our services I see several people come in from Broad Street, sit down for one or two minutes in one of the back pews, or just peek into the church Narthex doors, maybe make the sign of the cross, and retreat back to the street to do more Sunday shopping. I guess that is a bit like the little red aphid insects I would see on my father’s grapevines. They would appear only when there were grapes to be eaten. But the little red aphids would be of no use to either the vines or to the grapes! They would only munch a while on the sweet fruit. Cultivation was not their interest.

Witnessing is not always a piece of cake either. It was reported that when the Nicene Creed was being drafted in the fourth century, of the 318 delegates attending in Nicea, fewer than a dozen had not lost an eye, or a hand, or were lame because of torture for their Christian faith. Now, how many would be witnessing their faith in the city of Elizabeth or any city if they feared losing an eye, or a hand, or the full use of a leg? But I do not think we are in such a situation in this city, at least not yet. But if we shy away from our duties as Christian evangelists, the day when being a Christian is a danger to our life may not be so far away after all.

I am always amazed at how many fortuneteller establishments there are. I saw one a couple of days ago that had the advertisement, “Astrologer. No waiting. Come on in.” How many of us would hang a sign on our house or apartment saying, “Christian council available. Come on in. No waiting.” At the very least we are not so skilled at marketing our faith. And to think the Church office will do it for us is not really realistic, unless you think we are the only “vines” of Christianity in town! Hopefully, you are the branches of Christ as well. So we look to see how many new faces you bring in each week. We obviously need more new faces every week. If you just brought one new person in each week, we would quadruple our size in less than a month. But so far it has taken us about thirteen years to quadruple our size. That calculates out to say we are working at about a two percent efficiency as a congregation. If we got that sort of efficiency with our cars, we would be getting less than half a mile a gallon!

Following the September 11 terrorist attacks, worship attendance skyrocketed in many churches. Yet, only two weeks after the tragedy, many congregations discovered that their attendance had fallen back to the previous levels. One commentator suggested that the fault for that might lie with President Bush. In an address to the country, the President told everyone “to go back to normal.” And since “normal” for many people meant not going to church, they heeded the President’s advice and stopped going to worship! And people who drop away from church find they stay away from church.

I know it can be difficult to attend church every Sunday for some. But attending church weekly is the secret for living a success-filled life I think. In 1962 Victor and Mildred Goertzel published a study of 413 “famous and exceptionally gifted people.” They looked diligently to discern what common thread might run through all of those people’s lives. Surprisingly, the most outstanding fact was that virtually all of them, 392 or 95 percent, had to overcome very difficult obstacles in order to become who they were. So difficulty in coming to church on a Sunday is a surefire way to beat the odds of living a successful Christian life I think, if we do overcome that difficulty and still attend church every week. C. S. Lewis said the righteous suffer because they are the only ones that can take it.

The first century Roman philosopher Seneca said, ‘live among others as if God were watching you; speak to God as if other people were listening.’

A curious study by the Barna Group of Ventura, California, predicts that by the year 2010, more than 50 million people will be relying solely on the Internet for their faith rather than on a church, and up to 100 million will rely on the Internet to deliver some aspects of their religious experience. Take that prognostication with the fact that the most popular web site for faith-based information, BeliefNet, filed for bankruptcy this week. I guess the coming fifty million Internet visitors probably will not give much more to the Internet sites than they do to church if the current experience is a clue! The commentator said we should stay connected with the Vine, not just the e-Vine!

The cleansing Jesus speaks of for making us more fruitful vines is God’s word. How are we using God’s word to make us more fruitful disciples? How many are reading the two devotional booklets we have available this week? They are on the table in the Warden’s room just behind the organ over there. They cost only 60 cents each, or a dollar and a half for the large type versions. I hope you will get one today, if you have not already gotten the May-June issues, and begin to read your Bible along with the devotional guide each and every day. By that procedure you will be able to cover over forty percent of the Bible every three years. And I think that is an almost lock tight synch to lower the stress of your day-to-day life, doing daily Bible study.

Presbyterian preacher David Read said he thinks both Hitler and Stalin were listed as church members in some church. So being listed as a church member is no guarantee of how one lives one’s life.

Pastor Joe Vought says he thinks a profound identity change occurs when a person realizes they belong to God. When we come to grips with “whose” we are, then “who” we are becomes much clearer. At our baptisms we were signed as “Christ’s own forever.” But since many of us were babies at the time of our baptism, we have not heard that we are Christ’s own forever unless we listen carefully to the baptism of another baby now. Maybe our parents did not tell us whose we are. But as adults we can no longer use that excuse. All Christians are Christ’s own forever. But some of us forget to act like we are Christ’s possession forever. However we never get too far from God to return back to God again. The prodigal son story shows the loving father runs to welcome back his wayward son, as he would also welcome back his wayward daughter. We can never run away too far to be found by God and be loved by God. We only need to return to God to spiritually feel God’s loving arms around us.

Researchers at Amherst College in Massachusetts tried a simple experiment with a squash plant. When the squash was about the size of a person’s head, the researchers put a metal band around it that was attached to instruments that would tell them how much pressure the squash was exerting as it tried to grow against the constraint of the band. Within a month the squash registered five hundred pounds of pressure against the band. But it was still trying to grow. In two months, it was exerting 1,500 pounds of pressure. When the pressure got to be 2,000 pounds, a ton of pressure, they had to reinforce the band. Finally at 5,000 pounds of pressure, no reinforcement of the band would suffice, and the squash broke it. Inside, the squash was full of dense fibers that had grown to push against the band restraint. And the researchers also discovered that the squash plant had sent out over 80,000 feet of roots, 16 miles of root structures, searching for the necessary nutrients and water it needed to grow against the force holding it back.

How determined are we to keep growing? Are we to be outdone by a squash? How about our own lives? What are we willing to give up to improve our spiritual well being? Are we willing to come to church one Sunday a month, one Sunday a week, or maybe even do daily Bible study?

Deciding what we are willing to do to keep our lives fruitful and fulfilled is of ultimate importance. If we unite ourselves with Christ and his work in our world, we will always find our lives are being far more enjoyable than ever before. We are indeed part of the vine of Christ. May we also be fruit-bearing branches of our Lord and Savior. Amen.

(Comments to Joe at joe.parrish@ecunet.org.)
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