The Vinedresser

Preached on Wednesday, May 17, 2006 at Low Mass.
(Easter 5, Wednesday: Acts 15:1-6, Psalm 122, John 15:1-8)

Since the time of the apostles Christians have had disagreements over every imaginable topic. When dealing with the disagreements that we face today and tomorrow, we can learn much from the early Christian disagreement over circumcision.

From the Acts of the Apostles, as well as from Saint Paul’s letters we know that there was a heated dispute over whether converts to Christianity who were not Jewish ought to observe the law of Moses and be circumcised. Some on each side of this dispute didn’t only want to win because they thought they were doing the will of God, they also refused to recognize those with different views as Christians. In fact, we are told in Acts that this same group was responsible for trying on several occasions to assassinate Saint Paul and in the end it was through their efforts that Paul was imprisoned for many years and sent to Rome to stand before Caesar.

Yet, Jesus himself who reminds us that we are not to act as judge against one another. He uses the image of the vine to underscore this point. He says that we are like branches on a vine. We are part of him as well as part of each other. Jesus expects that the branches which are on his vine will grow fruit, but he doesn’t want the branches to decide whether or not they are growing fruit. After all, a branch cannot bear fruit if it is spending all of its time trying to tell other branches what fruit they ought to grow. Jesus tells us not to worry about whether certain branches are fruitful or rotten because the Father is the vinedresser and he will remove the branches that are rotten.

Christians have always had disagreements and that’s ok. Every single person experiences God in different ways, but we are all branches on the same vine. When Christians disagree, a good path through our disagreements is to remember that all Christians are branches on one vine. We can spend our time trying to figure out who is rotten and who is fruitful, but in the end that only distracts us from our calling to bear fruit in Christ.