Advent Devotions

Today’s author is Prince of Peace’s Intentional Interim, Pr. Steve Sylvester.

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.  He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.” (John 15:1-2)

A year after we moved back to Minnesota from Dallas, my father died.  A few years after that, Jennifer’s brother Steve died.  In memory of the two of them we planted apple trees in our back yard, a Zestar and a Honeycrisp.  Several years later, in 2020, two Montmorency Cherry trees went in the ground in the same area.  They’ve been a lot of work for relatively little yield (although I must admit that I am a poor arborist, as it was was only this past winter that I gave each tree its initial pruning).  The Honeycrisp has been stubbornly unproductive, giving us apples in only one year.  The Zestar has been more dependable, but only marginally so.  The Montmorencies were the stars of our little orchard in their first year bearing last summer, with a yield of 80 cups, but this year we’re freezing one cherry for every half-a-dozen that have to be discarded because of fruit fly larvae.  It has been… frustrating.

I wonder whether we are equally frustrating for God.  In the Hebrew Scriptures, the prophets refer to Israel as God’s “pleasant planting” that just kept yielding sour grapes.  In the New Testament, Jesus talks about branches that bear no fruit as well as those that do bear but need to be pruned in order to approach their potential.  There is no mention of a perfect tree, one that produces abundantly all of its own accord.  Fruit doesn’t just happen.  It has to be coaxed out by an attentive and patient gardener.

Yesterday we started our final worship series for the summer: Overflowing Faith.  In his introduction to the series he created, Scott Tunseth writes the following: The life of faith flows from and through relationship. Relationships are not an option. They are the fabric of life. As disciples of Christ we are invited to prioritize our relationship to him, to draw nourishment from him as a branch is nourished by the vine and to bear good fruit for the sake of the world. This fruit is the overflow of faith that begins with loving God in mind, spirit, and body and overflows from our lives to the neighbors around us. Healthy relationships take work. Like healthy branches of a vine, they require cultivation. This six-part preaching series will focus on how we cultivate our faith through basic spiritual practices.”

It’s an interesting spiritual practice, allowing oneself to be hacked away at, to be willing to have the dead and unproductive parts of ourselves sawed off and cast aside while even the parts that do produce are tweaked and reshaped.  Being in relationship with Jesus doesn’t mean being coddled.  It means to be challenglingly nurtured and prodded.  It means to be pushed and pulled, often in ways that are difficult and uncomfortable.  Only in the context of that relationship with Jesus will we become the people God needs for us to be for the sake of others and for all of God’s good creation.