Several days before Jesus was arrested and crucified, he was spending some quality time with his disciples; the ones closest to him, those who had left behind lives full of work and people and purpose. They had dropped everything to go with Jesus – to be with him. And they stayed with him, wherever he went, whatever he went through.
So during these days leading up to the end, an end he knew would be coming, he spoke a lot to these disciples about all the things that seemed most important for them to know. It was a very tender period in their lives together. One evening, he took a towel, filled a basin with water and knelt before these men to wash their feet. To their bewilderment and discomfort, he said, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.”
Later that same evening they all sat at table together and Jesus shared bread and wine with them, which is something we remember every time we share the sacrament of communion. And as they dined together he said to them, “Little children, I am giving you a new commandment now: that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.
“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Jesus told them other things as well, including this: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit.”
I am sure that these words, like so many of the words he said, were not fully understand at that time. But later, in the light of the resurrection, they could see it all more clearly. And they began to understand what it means to be a resurrected people in the world.
Many years ago a friend told me that she used to feel jealous of the first disciples because they got to see Jesus. And we poor souls who were born too late missed that opportunity. But now, she said, she takes comfort in the realization that she and everyone else has access to him always and everywhere. I thought, yes this is true. But still, most of us have a longing for Jesus in the flesh.
It is like the story about the child who woke up crying during the night because of the thunderstorm outside. His mother came to him to comfort him, and she said, “You never have to be afraid because you are never alone; Jesus is always with you.” And the tearful child said, “I know that, mommy, but I need Jesus with skin on.”
We are all just as much a scared little child, needing the human, flesh and blood, connection with the kind of love Jesus brings. We want him to open the scriptures to us, like he did for the two disciples walking with him on the Emmaus Road. We want him to assure us that we need not be afraid, like he did for the disciples in the upper room. We want to sit with him over breakfast and have a little one-on-one encouragement, like he did for Peter one morning after fishing. We want all this and more.
And there is a way for us to have this. It is the church. The church is the post-resurrection life of Jesus, and in the community of the church we share Christ with one another.
But there are some caveats.
If you have been around church long enough – any church – you will know that it doesn’t always look like Jesus.
I once served a church that had gone through a brutal conflict. It happened that a cohort of members had what they saw as a deeply spiritual experience. They were changed … converted … full of the Holy Spirit. And as a consequence of that they started running around the church trying to exorcise demons from other people who had not experienced the same kind of conversion they had. They argued vociferously in meetings and they schemed in secret. And they developed a habit of saying to those who disagreed with them, “I don’t see Jesus in you.”
The sad truth of the matter was no one else could see Jesus in them either.
During this difficult period, none of the sheep were being fed or cared for. No one’s spirits were being tended. Many in the flock walked away from a place they had once loved but now seemed like a spiritual wasteland.
The war was officially over before I got there. A wise and experienced interim pastor had guided the small remaining flock into remembering who they were, whose they were, and how to love one another. Pastor Wiley was a good and faithful shepherd for them. And then I came and served them as their pastor for two years.
These were tough times for several reasons, including the fact that it was a very difficult period in our denomination. The PCUSA was in the midst of its own war about loving our gay and lesbian and transgender neighbors. We were fighting about who should be permitted to be ordained or married in our churches – even about who could be baptized. And there was shouting, there was name-calling, there was scheming.
Over the years we have seen other denominations go through the same kind of war. And in the end of our battles, we all come away a thinner version of ourselves. No denomination gets through it without seeing a large portion of our membership getting peeled away.
I don’t know if this is a part of the pruning that Jesus is talking about, I really don’t. I only know that I have to remind myself often that it is God who does the pruning, not us. And God does not ask us to pick up the pruning sheers. God only asks us to remain faithful, to abide in Jesus.
And I realize that if we were able to abide in Jesus always, we would not have these church wars with shouting and name-calling and scheming. When we do abide in Jesus we look more like Jesus – washing one another’s feet, sharing bread and cup, and loving one another just as he commanded us to do.
To abide with Jesus takes a little effort for us, some discipline. Individually and communally, taking time for prayer and meditation to deepen our personal relationship with him. And serving one another, just as he served us.
What God desires – what Jesus desires – is that the risen Christ be visible in the church. That anyone who walks through our door could see Christ and know Christ in our midst. That any one of us could go out into the community and be the embodiment of Christ for someone who really needs to see him, to be a channel of renewal and healing in this broken and hurting world.
There may be a lot more pruning needed before we look the way God wants us to be. Each of us, personally, might suffer having a few branches removed that are not bearing any fruit. But, beloved, always remember this one thing: do not ever cut yourself off from Christ or his church. Seek to always abide in him who is the vine, the source of all life.
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