Bearing Fruit

by Robert Hamerton-Kelly

We are in the world of the great metaphors the Fourth Gospel uses to tell us who Jesus really is. Last Sunday he was the “Good Shepherd,” and we were the sheep, this Sunday he is the true Vine, and we are the branches.  He is also the Bread of Life, the Water of Life, the Resurrection and the Life, the Way, the Truth and the Life. Last Sunday’s metaphor told us that Jesus cares for us like a shepherd owner and not a hired hand, because we belong to him, and today’s metaphor tells us that we are part of him, an essential part, like the branch that stands between the roots and the fruits in a grapevine. 

There are few sources like the Gospel of John in the NT that make such apparently direct claims about Jesus’ ultimate importance. In the other gospels much of the communication about him is indirect, via parables, miracle stories, narratives and sayings. We have to deduce from this material, who he is. So when we come across a clear claim beginning with, “I am…” we feel relief and expect a clear answer to our simple question, “Who really are you, Jesus?” We are disappointed, however, because the answer we get is another parable, compacted this time to its densest concentration as metaphor. “I am (like) a vine,” he says, “and you are (like) my branches,” and thus we are left where the parables leave us, to figure out for ourselves on the basis of the metaphor who Jesus really is.

Metaphor is the essence of poetry and so I invite you to a poetic reflection on this image, asking, “What does it disclose to us about the person of Jesus on the one hand, and our relationship with him on the other, to be told that he is to us as the vine is to its branches, and that we are to him as the branches are to the vine?” Set your mind free to play with this image; don’t work too hard just be with it and let it disclose its meaning to you. What does it mean that Jesus is a vine, I am a branch of that vine, and, as the opening verse says, that God is the farmer who tends us?

As I turn the image over in my mind I compare it with last Sunday’s image and see that the Good Shepherd and the True Vine tell of two kinds of belonging. The shepherd owns the sheep and lavishes the care of ownership on us because we belong to him as to an owner; the vine incorporates us into itself and we belong to it as branches to a bush, (or limbs to a body). If in the first image the sheep need the shepherd to survive, in the second, the vine needs the branches to bear fruit. We need Jesus to guide us and watch over us, Jesus needs us to conduct the power of new life to the point where it becomes fruit to nourish the world. So my first insight is that Jesus needs me.

What does he need me to do? Does he want me to do heroic good works? Does he want me to search for him far and wide? No, he wants me simply to abide in him, in the most intimate possible way; like a branch in a vine, like a hand in a wrist. “So, such intimacy is possible!” I say, astonished. I really can be one with him in this total way? Yes, because he has already drawn near to me, has claimed me for his own when he stood forth as my Good Shepherd, when he laid down his life rather than let me go astray from him. So my second thought is that am his already and all he wants me to do now is to abide in him, continue in his love, faithfully.

How shall I abide in him? “As long as you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for whatever you desire and it shall come to pass for you (15:7).” I shall abide in him by letting his words dwell in me, and I shall abide in him by prayer. It is vitally important to keep in mind the link between his words in me and my prayers. My prayers become his prayers when his words abide in me, and for that reason my prayer will always come to pass; because it expresses his will and his words. I have become one with him, and his life giving power flows in my prayer to bear fruit in the world. I am just like the branch of a vine, along which the fruit bearing power flows from the roots, up the stem, along the branches until its blossoms forth as fruit to nourish the world. He needs my prayer according to his words to bear fruit in the world.

Where shall I hear these words of His that I must have dwelling in me? Here we come to a point of possible disagreement. A Catholic would say that we hear the words of Jesus in the church, especially in the Mass or Eucharist, and they are brief, powerful and to the point: “This is my body, this is my blood.” The preaching and the reading of the Bible are interpreted through the lens of the Sacrament; not in the reading of the Bible alone, nor in the private experience of Christ’s presence but in the fellowship of the church we abide in him and his words abide in us. Against this there are Protestants who say that the church is an optional extra when I have the Bible and my personal experience of Christ.

It might surprise you to hear that in this matter I favor the Catholic position, although radically recast. I believe the Word of God is to be heard mainly, normally and authoritatively in the church, and not in the private Bible reading or spiritual experience of the individual. If we wish to abide in Christ and have his words abiding in us we must hear them preached in Sermon and Sacrament. For me the Sacrament is a continuation of the Sermon rather than the Sermon one of several preliminaries to the Sacrament. John Calvin called the Sacrament a visible word that preaches the Gospel by a dramatic acting out. For this reason Jesus says that his words must abide in us, and means that we must be there where the words of human beings by the miracle of grace become the Word of God. (And even at that most emphatic eucharistic passage in John 6:52-71 where he says we must eat his body and drink his blood and disciples leave him for saying that, when Jesus asks the twelve if they wish also to leave him because of this saying, Peter answers, “To whom Lord shall we go, you have the Words of Eternal Life, and we have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God”- 6:68-69).

 The words of the Bible are not magical spells that we can use for our private purposes, they are the written deposit of the apostolic witness to Christ and to faith in Christ, which become the Word of God when they are preached and heard in the congregation of Christ’s church. Outside of this constellation of grace they can be dangerous tools of heresy and schism. That is what is called the Apostolic Succession in Protestant theology, by which traditionally the true faith comes to us, not through the structure of hierarchical bishops, but through the faithful preaching and hearing of the Biblical word in sermon and sacrament. If you wish to abide in Christ so that your prayer might be powerful and part of Christ’s fruitful work in the world, then abide in that pew where you will hear His Word and see His word, as the words of the preachers become the Word of God for you each Sunday.

 Some of us think that our private spirituality is primary and the public proclamation of the church is secondary, and ultimately unnecessary. The truth however is that Christ has chosen to give Himself to us primarily in the public proclamation of the Biblical word which the Holy Spirit causes to become the Word of God for us each Sunday. That Word of God is the Word that must dwell in us if we are to abide in Christ and so bring forth fruit. I know this sounds strange, and perhaps even arrogant on the lips of a preacher, but we preachers are ever only representatives who offer their paltry words to the Holy Spirit for the mysterious work of grace. We do not preach ourselves, and in any case if we do not preach who shall be saved, because God is pleased to save us by the foolishness of preaching (1 Corinthians 1:21)? So to abide in Christ and have His words abiding in us is to abide in that pew and wait for those many moments when the words of a human being will mysteriously become the Word of God for us.

We are easily blind to the obvious. Recently some British University identified the most popular joke in the world. Holmes and Watson are camping out. They pitch their tent, eat dinner and go to sleep. Holmes elbows Watson awake and asks him what he sees. Watson looks up and says that he sees millions of stars. “What does that mean?” asks Holmes. Watson thinks and then replies, “Meteorologically it means that tomorrow will be a fine day, astrologically it means that this is a propitious time for business, astronomically it means that we are in the northern hemisphere and theologically it means that God is in His heaven and all is right with the world.” To which Holmes responds with a splutter of contempt. “What do you think it means Holmes? asks Watson timidly. Holmes snaps back, “Watson you are an idiot! It means that someone has stolen out tent!” When you think that the experience of God is something other than those moments in church when it is easy to believe because God seems real and near you are like Watson, looking for recherché explanations, and ignoring the obvious. Christ has chosen to give Himself to us in the preaching, let us therefore pay attention and gratefully accept what he gives.  

So Jesus is like the stem and roots of a vine. He reaches into the fathomless soil of God and draws nourishment to pass on to the branches, which in turn pass it on to the fruit. If a branch does not pass it on it dies, and is cut off and burned. If it passes it on so that lots of fruit results, it is cut back, pruned to bear more fruit next year. Cut off if fruitless, cut back if fruitful! What do you think of that? We are out of time, so let me simply ask you to ask yourself, “Am I bearing fruit or have I already been cut off and am drying up?” Ask yourself, “Am I bearing fruit and now ready for the pruning? Or do I want to grow and grow until I become so heavy that I break off spontaneously?” It is a terrible thing to be cut off, and a healthy thing to be cut back. That should give us a right perspective on our Christian experience, and strengthen us to fact the occasional pruning.

Let me summarize: Jesus needs me to abide in Him and thus bear His fruit in the world. If I abide in Him and His Words abide in me my prayers are the channels by which His life flows into the world to bear fruit. His words come to me in the preaching of the church, so abiding in Christ means abiding in the pew and listening for the human words of the preacher to become the Word of God for me.

For this reason the church is essential. If you want the Life that all these great metaphors speak of, look for it in the church. At this time you have the opportunity to serve on the Boards and committees of this church in the coming year, and thus help ensure that the proclamation of the Gospel here is authentic and that our prayers are according to Christ and thus infallible. Please agree to serve when you are asked. Your experience of God is here not elsewhere, and the chance to serve actively is a blessed gift.

Amen.