Readings:
Sermon:
Many of us I’m sure enjoy gardening programmes, with favourite presenters like Monty Don, Alan Titchmarsh, Carol Klein, etc. All of them so knowledgeable, giving every plant its Latin name and telling us how to look after it to get our gardens to grow and thrive. An important tip is always when to prune – and that brings me to our Gospel reading: ‘I am the true vine,’ says Jesus, ‘and God is the vine grower. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to bear more fruit, but he removes the branches that don’t bear fruit. A branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine and neither can you unless you abide in me.’
We are the branches and we have to be attached to, or abide in Christ in order to bear fruit – in other words we can only share the good news and bring others to know Christ if we are embedded in him ourselves. The branches that do not bear fruit and are cut off from the vine, gathered up and thrown on the fire, are those who reject God and Christ. They cannot thrive and grow in his redeeming love to experience salvation. So our lives depend on our attachment to God and Jesus, without faith we are ultimately worthless and our lives futile, which means we cannot be passive in our faith, we have to exert ourselves to follow Christ’s example of pastoral care and compassion for everyone and everything including being outspoken about caring for the earth, conserving energy and minimising waste.
We are reminded the benefit of these efforts is that we can ask God for whatever we wish and it will be done for us. We don’t have to be especially green-fingered like the gardening experts – God creates each of us with different gifts and talents. What will please him most is seeing us put these to good use in the best way we can. That will reflect our love and desire to live purposeful, fruitful lives.
We have a choice – if we reject God in Christ we risk being cut off, thrown aside, or we can abide in Christ and be fruitful, remembering there is a harvest to come when we will be gathered in by God, forever into his heavenly kingdom.
Questions:
- Do we always experience asking for whatever we wish and it being done for us? If not, how might that challenge our faith?
- Jesus came to redeem the world – everyone can or will be saved – even those who reject him?