Easter 5B
In the name of God…
This year, as Spring is beginning to reveal itself, and we
see the bulbs beginning to pop up all over, I’ve been reminded of a story from
my childhood. I was in the first
grade. It was my family’s first Spring
in the parish where my father was the pastor.
It was a small town, and when the weather was nice, I would usually
spend afternoons out and about in the neighborhood.
Even the church grounds were rich with potential for a young
boy’s exploration. The church had just
finished building a new gymnasium a couple of months after we’d arrived, and
some of the ladies of the parish had painstakingly planted bulbs down the long
edge of the building. On this particular
afternoon, I came along there and saw a row of dozens upon dozens of beautiful,
newly opened daffodils. Being the
thoughtful child that I was, it occurred to me that my mother might appreciate
these beautiful flowers. So I walked
along the edge of the building and picked every one - to take home to mom.
Of course, in the end, no one could seriously begrudge a 7
or 8 year old boy who just wanted to give his mother some flowers, but I did
quickly learn that I wasn’t to do that again - that they weren’t mine to pick.
I thought of that story again this week as we heard this
parable from Jesus once again about pruning.
This is one of those stories that can, at first glance, be a little
tough to swallow. My experience of God
and the Christian message is more about building people up - not pruning them
back. And this is one of those stories
that’s often been used to justify our
“pruning”.
“He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit… such
branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.”
The problem with that, however, is that we use this text to
justify our pruning of others, when in reality, it’s meant to
justify God’s pruning. The fact is,
we’re not very good at “pruning” back God’s people. When we entrust ourselves with that task, we
invariably make mistakes. Like that 7 or
8 year old boy who over-picked the daffodils that weren’t his to take - no
matter how good our intentions are, when we do the pruning ourselves, we
invariably encroach upon the prerogative of God, taking liberties that aren’t
ours to take.
Take, for instance, the story of the Ethiopian eunuch. Here was a man, who, at an early age had been
castrated so that he could be set aside for future service to the queen. In the patriarchy of his time and place, men
weren’t meant for service - especially to women. So, for a man to be in his position, they
believed that he must be emasculated; for the protection of the queen, but also
for the broader protection of masculinity itself.
From what we hear of the Acts of the Apostles, he was a
particularly powerful man - entrusted with the queen’s treasury. He was a learned man - reading the Holy
Scriptures as he traveled. He was a
wealthy man - seated in a chariot, being driven by another; while less affluent
and less influential people would have been left walking.
But even despite his power, and learning, and wealth, he was
denied entry into the temple. He was
denied the opportunity to worship God.
Think about how long it must have taken him to journey to the Temple in
Jerusalem from Ethiopia. Even with the
benefit of a chariot, it must have been a long and grueling ride. There must have been times when he risked his
personal safety and even his life to have made this journey. Only to have been denied the opportunity to
worship, simply because of who he was.
Because of circumstances of his life that were thrust upon him, probably
even before he had agency to decide such things for himself.
He had been pruned away from the body of the faithful,
because of circumstances beyond his control.
His life bore much fruit - as a leader and a scholar, as one who
influenced the highest levels of power and authority in the world. But even so, he was pruned out by people who
decided he wasn’t pure enough or righteous enough to worship.
The thing is, it wasn’t their call to make.
When Philip shared with him the message of Christ, this
unnamed Ethiopian saw a place for himself in the story. He heard the scriptures with new revelation: they
said, “in his humiliation, justice was denied him…” Having just been denied the justice of
worshipping God, the eunuch saw in the humiliations of Christ a measure of his
own. Seeing the resurrection of Christ,
he could imagine a new life for himself, upheld by Christ.
Rather than seeing this talk of pruning as a way of denying
justice to those people we encounter who don’t fit into the mold of the ideals
we’ve constructed, perhaps we should hear, more clearly, the words of Christ:
“[God] removes every branch in me that bears no fruit”. Rather than looking for those branches that
we imagine to be unable to bear fruit in others, perhaps we should look more
closely within ourselves. What are those
aspects of ourselves that don’t bear fruit?
What are those aspects of ourselves that impede the mission of God in
the world?
That’s what needs pruning.
The first Epistle of John says, “Beloved, let us love one
another, because love is from God…”
Prune away those parts of your life that fail to meet that
measure - those parts that abide in anything other than love. Trim away the excess, and leave only the
love. I’m convinced that that’s exactly
what the God of love does in the pruning - pulling back and discarding those
parts of creation that are other than love.
Because anything other than love is other than God.
When I plucked those flowers for my mother as a little boy,
the problem wasn’t that it wasn’t a nice thing to do. It wasn’t that I didn’t have the best of
intentions. The problem was that it
wasn’t mine to do.
Cutting out our neighbors isn’t ours to do. Our only job ever is to uphold love. That’s the only way to uphold God in the
world - to uphold love. Cast aside all
that isn’t to do with love, and leave the rest of the pruning to God. Amen.
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