John 15:1-8

”I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”

The summer we started the Grace Garden here at church, I planted something that is still in the garden today — I planted grape vines. Unlike everything else in the garden, which is destined to be distributed to our food pantry clients, my vision for the grapes was to make wine out of it to use in worship one day (maybe literally for one day).

I planted three vines that first summer, but only one survived to the next year. I didn’t know how to care for them and I still don’t know why one survived and the other two did not. The next summer I didn’t want to do anything to lessen the chance for the vine’s survival, so I didn’t touch it. By the time the third summer rolled around, I realized I had a bit of a problem because by never pruning the vine, it had grown out of control. Pruning was supposed to be done in the winter, but it was too late and I could only watch as the tangle of branches produced large leaves, but never a single grape.

This year I put it on my calendar to prune the vine in February. I was full of doubt about the process. Is this really what I’m supposed to do? Am I doing it right? Would it make a difference? Is there a chance I could kill it by removing so much of its growth? Pruning shears in hand, I nervously set about snipping off long branches and wayward growths, reducing the vine to a stub with only two branches splitting off in either direction. I looked at the end result and thought for sure I had killed it. Today, however, it looks healthy and has buds on it’s two remaining branches. In a few months there just might be some juicy grapes growing on it.

All that to say, this year as I read about Jesus’ spiritual teaching about the vine and the branches, I connected more with the story than I had before. I had a deeper connection to the illustration of removing branches from the vine as well as God’s promise to bring fruit forth from the vine. This time around, the story convicted me of my reluctance to prune away branches...both the literal ones in the garden as well as the figurative ones in my life.

I was hesitant to prune the grape vine because I didn’t actually know how to care for the vine. I was ignorant.

Also, I was so grateful to have one that survived that I couldn’t imagine taking a blade to it in any capacity. I was scared it wouldn’t live.

And finally, I was sure I would mess it up. I was full of self-doubt.

Ignorance, fear, and self-doubt are three things that prevented the grape vine from flourishing. Ignorance, fear, and self-doubt are also three things that prevent me from flourishing spiritually, emotionally, and physically.

Ignorance. Why is it that we so often lack the knowledge necessary to take care of ourselves or others? Do we realize that we have to remove branches from our lives that bear no fruit? Are we even aware that there are branches in our lives that do not bear fruit--that is, things in our lives that redirect and waste valuable time, energy, and resources from the truly good things in our lives?

Fear. What are we afraid of? Is it truly possible for us to fail if we are attuned to the presence and direction of God in our lives? Would God let us prune away too much? Would God allow us to sever the wrong branch? Would God prefer simply to chop us down entirely rather than carefully tend to our needs?

Self-doubt. Why is it so difficult to love ourselves and be filled with God’s grace? Why do our inner monologues seek to tear us and others down? Why do we cling to resentments and disappointments? Why do criticisms from others remain with us longer and demand more energy from us than compliments? What is it that prevents us from trusting that God is a master vinegrower and we are valuable vines?

Close your eyes and imagine a garden that is tended to by someone who is full of ignorance, fear, and self-doubt. What do you notice about what is or isn’t growing in the garden? How does it make you feel to look at that garden, to walk among it?

Ignorance, fear, and self-doubt ruin more than just gardens, of course. They can also ruin lives. Ignorance, fear, and self-doubt will prevent a human life from reaching its full potential. Yours, as well as those with whom you are in relationship.

The antidote to ignorance is knowledge. The antidote to fear is courage. And the antidote to self-doubt is faith.

Close your eyes once more and imagine a garden that is tended to by someone who is knowledgeable, courageous, and faithful. What do you notice about what is or isn’t growing in this garden? How does it make you feel to look at this garden, to walk among it?

The difference between the two gardens is that one has been pruned.

When Jesus tells us that God, the vinegrower, will prune the branches that do not bear fruit, we are to hear this as a promise, not a threat. This speech Jesus gave to his first followers shortly before his crucifixion is not a warning about the fires of hell for those who fail to profess Jesus as Lord. Rather, it is an invitation to trust that God will prune the fruitless and wasteful branches of our lives in order for us to flourish. And with enough knowledge, courage, and faith, we will begin to identify those fruitless branches ourselves and do a little self-pruning. If the notion of self-pruning sounds a little too awkward or painful, you could also call this process “discipleship.”

Knowledge, courage, and faith are good gifts that come from God. We do not earn or create these gifts; but we do encounter them and become more aware of them in prayer, scripture, and acts of loving service to others.

Knowledge grows as we admit we do not know everything and approach life with an open heart and an open mind.

Courage grows each time we engage with others from a position of vulnerability and honesty.

Faith grows each time we seek out and wrestle with God’s presence in the midst of this world that God loves and redeems.

May you be filled up with wisdom about who God is, whom God created you to be, and what wasteful branches in your life should be pruned away.

May you be courageous and bravely set out to make a positive impact in the world, even if it comes at great personal cost.

And may you be faithful to the God of love who is, at this moment, using his followers to redeem, restore, and reconcile the world and one another.

Amen.

Luke 24:36b-48

Jesus himself came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”

And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence.

Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you – that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”

It’s been awhile, but I’ve had stitches three times in my life. Every incident and accident happened by the time I was in 3rd grade. The first was right smack-dab in the middle of my forehead. I think I was three or four years old, and jumping on the bed with the neighbor kids, when I bounced off and cracked my head on the corner of the desk in my room. The second time was in the driveway of the church parsonage sometime after that. Alan Heinz, who was older than me by a few years, pushed me, I slipped on the ice, and split my chin open. The third time was on a road trip with my grandmother, without my parents, when I fell down the steps on some rickety, rusty old metal swing-set. I sliced the skin near my eye enough that they had to sew me up.

As a kid those stories were fun to tell, once the healing had come. After the doctor visits and the stitches and the healing and what not, the scars were little badges of honor, I guess, with funny stories behind them. They don’t amount to much now – the scars or the stories – but at the time, there weren’t many 3rd graders who’d been stitched so prolifically as far as I knew. And my friends, my brother, my parents, my grandmother, and Alan Heinz, were all witnesses to my wounds.

Jesus was big on showing off his wounds, too. “Look at my hands and my feet.” “See that it is I, myself.”

And he said, “…the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”

“You are witnesses of these things.”

Ugh. “Witnesses.” Haven’t we heard enough from and about “witnesses” these days. “Witnesses” in that courtroom. “Witnesses” in the streets. “Witnesses” inside that school in Knoxville, or near that alley in Chicago, or outside in the parking lot, or inside of that FedEx building, right here in Indianapolis – eye-witnesses, expert witnesses, character witnesses to all sorts of sadness and struggle and death and despair.

So, even though this world does its best to make it so hard, I want to wonder with all of you, with whatever of Easter’s joy we can still muster, what it means that Jesus would call us to be witnesses on this side of his empty tomb: witnesses to a Messiah that suffered and was raised from the dead on the third day: witnesses to the fact that Jesus got up from the grave, showed up for his friends – ate some broiled fish in their presence, just to prove it was true – and reminded them about their call to be “witnesses.”

What does that mean, exactly? To be “witnesses?”

Those first disciples sure had a lot to tell – not unlike some of the “witnesses” I just referred to. The disciples had witnessed a murder. A friend had died. A son had been executed. An injustice had been done. So much pain and fear and frustration and anger and despair were a part of all they had seen, heard, shared, and “witnessed.” So they had a story to tell, for sure.

And I think it’s so meaningful and deliberate that Jesus starts with his hands and his feet. Jesus uses the wounds from his crucified body – following the resurrection – differently than I did as a kid. I don’t get the impression he was proud of them or wore them as a badge of honor, I mean. Or that he enjoyed the story they told, necessarily.

But, remember last week, when he showed up for most of the disciples and then to Thomas? The holes in his hands and the wounds on his sides were evidence of his identity. Today, the same is true, for the disciples who saw him – the holes in his hands and the ones in his feet were proof that he was, indeed, Jesus – their friend, their rabbi, their Messiah, who had been crucified, had died, and had been buried. And who now ate some broiled fish just to prove he wasn’t a ghost.

But I got to thinking that Jesus’ wounds were more than just evidence of his identity or proof of life, even.

I think, in showing his wounds – in revealing where he had been hurt and suffered and struggled so mightily – Jesus was showing his disciples – and us – what it means to be witnesses, ourselves.

“…the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations … You are witnesses of these things.”

See, we are witnesses, you and I, not just to the resurrection and the forgiveness, the good news and the joy of it all. But we are witnesses to the suffering and the hard work of repentance and the struggle of it all, just the same. And I wonder if being a witness like Jesus invites us to be means showing off our own scars, revealing our own wounds, and not hiding the broken pieces of ourselves from each other or from the world.

And that’s hard. And terrifying. And takes courage and vulnerability and faith. And I don’t know that means for you. I’m not always sure what it means for myself – because the wounds that hurt now are deeper and harder to show off than the stitches that scarred me when I was a kid. Broken bones are like sticks and stones, as they say, compared to the broken hearts that burden us these days, don’t you think?

Our grief is a wound that is hard to lay bare.

The fears that keep us up at night are not always something we want to give voice to.

The sins we confess and long to have forgiven are not easily proclaimed.

The scars of whatever shame we carry are not readily revealed.

But I think that might be precisely why Jesus leads with his wounds. I think maybe Jesus leads with his wounds – boldly, bravely, and by example, so that we might, too, as we try to bear witness to just what God is up to in our lives and for the sake of the world.

I pray those families still reeling from what was lost at FedEx on Thursday will settle into some measure of hope when any of the thousands of families in this country who know their pain reach out to them with their own broken hearts.

I’ve seen how the family of Daunte Wright has already been buoyed by the broken, but common ground they share with the family of George Floyd.

Parents who’ve survived the loss of a child are a beacon for those who are new to that grief.

Those who’ve endured a divorce and loved well again are a light for those stumbling down that road.

When someone comes out of the closet, finds their self, and thrives – someone still hiding is encouraged that maybe they can do the same.

Those who have been hurt by the Church or doubted their faith to the point of desperation, but have managed to keep it, have a gift to offer others in that same boat.

We have – each of us – suffered or are suffering. We have been frightened or are afraid, now. We have grieved mightily, many of us, or are grieving, still, in ways that someone out there in the world would be blessed to know about.

“See these wounds?” “You are witnesses to these things.” “I’ll show you mine,” Jesus seems to say, “so that you might show someone yours.” Because, Jesus knew what he wants us to share: that God does God’s best work with the wounded, broken, hurting, fearful, desperate parts of our lives in this world.

God takes all of that and redeems it. God takes all of that and forgives it. God takes all of it and breathes new life into it. God takes all of it and heals, comforts and loves it all into wholeness and justice and hope and peace.

And so he calls us to be witnesses, you and me – brave and bold and faithful and persistent, like Jesus. Witnesses – leading with our own wounds to show that what is broken, can be made whole; bearing witness to what is hurting but that can be comforted; bearing witness to what is sinful, but will be forgiven; bearing witness to what is dead, even, but will be raised to new life in his name.

Amen

Pruning for Fruit

Witnessing with Our Wounds