Sermon: Vital Vine, Budding Branch

Text: John 15:1-17

Date: April 3, 2005

Rev. Dee Eisenhauer, Eagle Harbor Congregational Church

            I was watching the movie “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?” on TV a few weeks ago—one of Johnny Depp’s early films.   Maybe some of you have seen it.   The story is set somewhere in the Midwest , in one of those one-horse, dead end towns.   One of the characters does odd jobs, but longs for something better, some job with a future.   He becomes enamored with the idea of opening a Burger Barn franchise in their little town.   He spends a long time talking about what a great thing it will be for him and the town.   One of the things that really appeals to him is that when you buy a franchise, the company sends the burger barn building already complete, so you just have to find a place to set it down, hire a crew, get some burger-and-fry supplies, and you’re open for business.

            The Burger Barn arrives on a flatbed truck during a funeral out at the cemetery on the edge of town.   Gilbert’s brother in the movie is developmentally disabled; he has a young man’s body but a very childlike spirit.   When he sees the Burger Barn going by on the road he interrupts the somber words of the burial ceremony with an explosion of joy and excitement, jumping up and down, whooping and hollering, “The Burger Barn is here!   The Burger Barn is here!”

            I’ve been thinking a lot about the pioneers who built our church here on Bainbridge Island over 100 years ago.   I’ve thought about how hard they must have worked and sacrificed to build this fine building.   I’ve wished I could talk to them to find out what motivated them to give so much of themselves to erect a church here.   They gave land, money, time, and labor; they borrowed money from the national church; they put their best efforts over several years into creating this building.   Why did they do it?   Was it anything like buying into a Burger Barn franchise—were they looking to set a branch of the Christian church down here for their own enrichment?   Maybe they wished sometime during the building process that they could have ordered a church already built that would arrive on a barge into Eagle Harbor .  

            I wonder if the settlers and natives that didn’t participate in the founding and building of the church received it with joy and exuberance—“The church is here!   The church is here!”   Did they see it as a positive addition to the community—as important as having a school here?   Or did they conclude that it had nothing to do with them and the living of their lives, and just step around it?   Was the establishment of church here essential to the community?   If so, is it still?

            One of the most disquieting things I’ve heard in a long time was a comment by one of our members a few months back that if this church folded, it would be of no consequence to the island.   This person speculated that few people would even notice if we were no longer open.   I don’t know exactly what gave rise to those comments—disappointment in the church,   perhaps, or a feeling that churches like ours have simply been sidelined by the culture and are relatively unimportant.   Maybe you have had similar thoughts cross your mind.   During this season in our church life, when we are experiencing increased demands on our time and resources, it’s natural that we would ask ourselves what it’s all about.  

            It’s clear that if we weren’t here, there would be a cleared-out space for another condominium development or coffee-n-candle shop.   It’s clear that there are plenty of other Christian churches with room in their pews for the folks that currently occupy ours.   Unlike 1896, we aren’t the only church in town.   If we weren’t here, I imagine the other churches would take up the slack.

            But such speculation assumes that we are ones who get to decide whether we have a church here at the corner of Winslow Way and Madison.     Such talk implies that the Christian church is a franchise operation like a Burger Barn which people decide to invest in so that they can take advantage of a market opportunity.     This model, drawn from the world of commerce surrounding us, puts all the emphasis on human beings making a rational decision to create a church that will be beneficial to the participants and the rest of the community.

            The Bible points us to another dimension altogether.   In our gospel reading today, the emphasis is rightly placed on God’s action.   John 15:16 says pointedly, “You did not choose me but I chose you.”   You did not choose me, Jesus says.   I chose you.   You did not decide to participate in a church franchise in downtown Winslow; I invited you into the life of discipleship and planted you here.   Jesus goes on to say in this chapter, “I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.”   It may feel like we are making choices, and we do have to choose to cooperate in the work that God wants to accomplish through us.   But the initiator is on the divine side of the equation.

            Listen again to some of the phrases from this chapter of John’s gospel.   Listen to the way Jesus puts the accent on his action.   “I am the vine, you are the branches…apart from me you can do nothing…As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you…Abide in my love…You are my friends…You did not choose me but I chose you…I appointed you…I am giving you these commands so you may love one another.”   

            Did the pioneers who built this church have a choice about whether to build it?   They had a choice about whether to participate.   But it was God, called the Vinegrower in this reading, who wanted to plant a church here.   Do we have a choice about whether to continue the participating in the life of this church?   Yes, we have a choice.   But the life of the church is still in God’s hands.   We are still a branch of the Christ vine; our vitality ultimately depends on our connection to divine love, not our efforts or our money or anything else.   We have deep roots in this community that go back 123 years.   But the genuine taproot goes back at least 2005 years, to the earthly life of Jesus Christ; we are grafted into that vine.   As much pride as we might like to take in our efforts to sustain a unique church, apart from being rooted in the divine life we’d be nothing but a dried up heap of sticks ready for the fire.  

            As hard as this is for us rugged, self-directed individualists to grasp, whether this church lives or dies is not really a decision we would be empowered to make.   Oh, our bylaws probably cover a procedure for disbanding.   But the life of the church comes from outside us, thanks be to God.   This church will fold up when the Vinegrower decides to prune it, and not one day before.   It would be disobedient for human agents to cut off a branch before its time—and it seems pretty clear that there’s life in the old branch yet.     

            The image of the vine was one that the people of Israel were used to; they had compared themselves as a people to a vineyard that God had planted for years before Jesus taught this lesson.   They all knew there was one reason to have a vineyard, which was to have grapes to make wine.   The purpose of wine was, according to Psalm 104, to bring joy to human hearts.   That’s a nice way to think about the purpose of churches, today’s branches from Christ’s vine.   We exist to bring joy to human hearts, joy through connection to the love of God, connection to the community of love in congregations, the joy of peace and justice as we progress toward the ideals of God’s kingdom.

            One of the movies that was very popular this last year was called “Sideways.”   It’s about two buddies taking a trip into the wine country of California before one of them gets married.   There’s a scene in it where the character Miles, who is a wine snob, is asked why he loves a particular kind of wine made from a particular kind of grape—Pinot---more than any other.   He says,

  I don’t know. It’s a hard grape to grow. As you know. It’s thin-skinned, temperamental, ripens early. It’s not a survivor like Cabernet that can grow anywhere and thrive even when neglected. Pinot needs constant care and attention and in fact can only grow in specific little tucked-away corners of the world. And only the most patient and nurturing growers can do it really, can tap into Pinot’s most fragile, delicate qualities. Only when someone has taken the time to truly understand its potential can Pinot be coaxed into its fullest expression. And when that happens, its flavors are the most haunting and brilliant and subtle and thrilling and ancient on the planet.

I wonder if you might be able to say something similar about being in a branch of the United Church of Christ in this day and age.   It’s a hard church to grow.   It needs constant care and attention.   The churches that seem to be thriving everywhere right now—the “cabernet” churches—are conservative churches, “answer churches” that provide clear cut directions for uncertain times.    I wouldn’t say those churches don’t belong in the vineyard—a vineyard is made up of a tangle of vines that can hardly be separated from each other that are all tapped into the root.   But our kind of church belongs in the vineyard as well: a church with an extravagant welcome for all kinds of people, a church that helps people discover their questions as well as suggesting answers, a church attentive to God’s word that doesn’t make an idol out of the Bible, a church that believes that God is still speaking.   A church like ours doesn’t automatically flourish in today’s climate; it takes special care, nurture, resources, and patience.   Like the Pinot grape, “only when someone has taken the time to truly understand its potential can [it] be coaxed into its fullest expression.”   And when that happens, if I can borrow Miles’ words again, the flavor of church life is among “the most haunting, brilliant, subtle, thrilling, and ancient on the planet.”  

            We’re part of this branch because we’ve tasted the unique wine of joy that comes out of this kind of church life.   We’re persuaded that it belongs in God’s vineyard here on Bainbridge.   What then, are we to do?   The Vinegrower wants our branch to flourish here, but our cooperation is needed in order for this corner of the vineyard to stay green and vital.    Jesus offers these directions to the branches in John 15: “Abide in me as I abide in you…Abide in my love…Keep my commandments…Love one another as I have loved you…Bear fruit, fruit that will last.”  

            I am convinced that staying fruitful here will depend on our sense that God is ministering through us.   We need to stay aware of God’s love for us as individual twigs and as a branch of God’s family.   We both rest in that love and stay responsive to what love calls us to do—that’s what it means to abide in God’s love.   Keeping the commandment to love is a multi-faceted, endless task and joy that reaches into our whole lives, from our to-do lists to our budgets to our daily interactions with family and neighbors.   Even our imperfect attempts to love as Christ has loved us will bear fruit in our lives and the life of our community.       Christ is the vine, we branch out in love.   We will rejoice and be glad to be part of God’s vineyard!