The St. John's Blog: Pruning Vines

In Kara's sermon this morning, she read an email she received some months ago from Vicki Westerhoff, who delivers the produce from Genesis Growers to St. John's every week. The email was so remarkable that I asked Kara if we could share it here, too.

Happily, Kara sent the whole sermon:

Every morning, when I was a little girl, my mom brushed and combed my hair and braided it into two tight braids behind my ears. She knew a woman who was fifty and had never cut her hair, and that was my mom’s goal for me. I hadn’t bought into her goal, and every morning I complained, sometimes cried, even screamed, “It hurts!” It did hurt!

It will not surprise you to know that when I grew up and had girls of my own I tortured them in the same way. “You have to brush your hair to keep it healthy,” I said. “A little scratching of the scalp with a comb is good for it, as is combing out the hair that is damaged and broken. Pay no attention to the clumps of hair caught in the comb. It’s good for you!”

This Sunday Jesus tells us that he is the true vine and that God is the vinegrower, or “husband” in the old English version. God removes every branch in him that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. Sounds like my theory of keeping healthy hair, and just as painful.

There is no question that the theme of this week’s readings is Love. The word appears 26 times in the first letter of John. But while last week we heard about how God loves us as a Good Shepherd who guides and comforts and protects us, the love of God in this reading from the gospel of John is tougher, even frightening.

I tried to reassure our Wednesday reflection group. “God just prunes away the parts of us that are dead and damaged, the parts that are hurting us,” I said in my most motherly, soothing voice. “But it says, 'Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.'” said Suellen, “That’s not part; that’s the whole branch!” I began to realize why some priests thought it would be dangerous to let lay people read the scriptures: they might quote it back at you! And then John H. said, “Have you ever seen how vineyard keepers prune their grape vines? They cut away about 90% of the branches and only leave a very small branch with a few green shoots on it.” I looked back at the reading again, “Gosh, even if you are bearing fruit, you still get pruned, to make the vine more fruitful. No one escapes the pruning knife.” Ouch! It hurts!

I don’t know much about gardening or growing grapes, but this conversation brought to mind an e-mail I received from our farmer, Vicki Westerhoff, who grows the vegetables and fruits delivered here each week. Last fall she had to let go of all but one of her farm workers, because of lost profits. I wrote to say how sorry I was to hear the news. She wrote this back to me:

“I have learned to trust in God. There are easy times. There are difficult times. Both are necessary to life. I learned a great spiritual lesson from my plants that has helped me so often when things get tough. If I raise a plant, such as a tomato, inside the greenhouse where it is protected, it will grow up to be weak in stature. The stem is thin. The leaves are spaced out. The plant easily breaks when a wind or hard watering occur. But, a plant that is raised outside where it experiences the stresses of life, such as wind, rain, storms, insects, etc., it grows and strong and sturdy. The stalk is thick. The leaves are tougher and spaced closer together. It becomes resilient to the storms of life. Where the coddled plant will bend and break, the battered plant stands strong. It takes a monsoon to break it. Anyway, the moral to this story is, life requires hard times so that we can grow strong and resilient. A coddled human will whine and cry at every mishap. A seasoned human stands strong, grows and matures into a much better person who can smile even when adversity comes their way.”

For many of us, life presents difficult situations that force us to mature; for others the tough love of a mother or father shapes and teaches us, urging us to bear good fruit. All of us are invited to abide, live in, trust, rest in, the love of God, the great source of life. Alone, we cannot live or produce good fruit; we will be cut off and wither and die. If we are willing to remain connected to the vine, even when it is difficult or painful, we will find strength and energy, a life rooted and growing in Love.

During Easter season we are using a Communion prayer from “Enriching Our Worship,” a supplement to the Book of Common Prayer. The goal of the new materials is to enrich our language of God, using feminine imagery — which is found in Scripture but not often used in worship — as well as masculine imagery. In general I think this is a wonderful idea, but I find myself stumbling over one line that I have to say in the communion prayer. In recounting God’s work in the world it reads, “As a mother cares for her children, you would not forget us.” Every harsh word, every forgotten duty, every evening away from home plays through my brain as I say it. I want to edit the line and shout out, “Like a mother on a good day, you would not forget us!” or “You love us as an ideal mother, not as a imperfect human mother.” I think of mothers who hurt their children, or those like me, who inflict pointless hair-pulling in the name of “it’s good for you.” I don’t want people to get the wrong idea about God!

I think of the picture that one of the children living at Lydia Home drew for our Martin Luther King celebration. She drew a mother and a child next to her with tears in her eyes. “Love hurts” was written in the heart shape between them. Ouch. That hurts.

Our God is like a mother, like a father, but God’s love is perfect, endless, without condition, tough when tough is required, gentle when gentle is needed. That is why Jesus invites us into relationship with God, the root and source of love. “Abide in me as I abide in you.” The first letter of John echoes Jesus’ invitation “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.... There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.”

Do not fear. Love your mother, love your father, love your children, your friends and your enemies. If that love abides in God, it will be perfected in God.