Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

Title: "Branching Out"

Text: John 15:1-8

Of course, Popeye hardly was the first to declare, "I am what I am." Many of us learned in high school or college that a Frenchman with the unlikely name of René Descartes once declared (in his Discourse on Method, 1637) that "Je pense, donc je suis," – "I think therefore I am." – more commonly known to most Americans in its Latin translation, cogito ergo sum. Speaking of Descartes, perhaps you know the familiar story,

Descartes is sitting in a bar, having a drink. The bartender asks him if he would like another. "I think not," he replies, and vanishes in a puff of logic.

Of course, neither Popeye nor Descartes was the first to deal with the "I am" problem in philosophy and life. Twelve hundred years before Descartes, Saint Augustine had wrestled with the "cogito" problem in his fifth-century work, The City of God. He saw the issue of "being" as a gift from God, whose grace gave life and meaning to all creatures – even in times of great doubt and disaster, such as the Roman Empire was suffering in those days.

Going back three centuries more, this morning’s Gospel lesson provides two important instances of "I am" statements. In verse 1 and again in verse 5, we read the last two of the twelve instances in John’s Gospel of the predicate nominative form of the "I am" statements. In case you have forgotten, "The predicate nominative is the noun following a linking verb that restates or stands for the subject. Typically, a predicate nominative has the same value or grammatical weight as the subject" (The Tongue Untied; http://grammar.uoregon.edu/nouns/predicateN.html).

I imagine that the twelve predicate nominative "I am" declarations in John’s Gospel are familiar to most of us. Listen, and see how many you have heard:

"I am the bread of life" (6:35) and "I am the living bread that came down from heaven." (6:51).

"I am the light of the world" (8:12 and 9:5).

"I am the gate [for the sheep]" (10:7 and 10:9).

"I am the good shepherd (10:11 and 10:14).

"I am the resurrection and the life" (11:25).

"I am the way, and the truth, and the life" (14:6).

And, finally, "I am the [true] vine" (15:1 and 15:5).

These last two "I am" sayings are unique in that both contain a secondary element that goes beyond Jesus’ self-description. All of the other "I am" sayings are limited to the qualities of Jesus alone. But here, in verse 1, we hear that "my Father is the vinegrower" and in verse 5 that "you are the branches."

To appreciate what is going on in this section of John’s Gospel, we need to recall that this fourth Gospel was constructed rather later than the so-called Synoptic Gospels. Probably written in the city of Ephesus in the late first century, at a time when Jewish Christians were in conflict with local synagogue leaders, John’s Gospel is understood by New Testament scholars to be divided into two major sections. These sections are separated at John 13:1, where it is declared "Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father." The first part of this second section – known as the "Farewell Discourse" – runs from the beginning of chapter 13 to the end of chapter 18.

Here, in the middle of this "Farewell Discourse," Jesus begins to go beyond himself in these "I am" statements. Gathered with the disciples for their final meal together, Jesus begins to speak about the state of the world after his departure to be with the Father. In this context, the disciples and others who believe in him learn that they will bear the responsibility for sharing the "good news" with the rest of the world. The theme throughout is one of "abiding love," not one of abandonment. They will not be left to die on the vine, but will continue to be cleansed and pruned in order to bear new fruit.

Saying that "I am the vine, you are the branches" takes Jesus and his disciples beyond a separatist "I am who I am" and "You are who you are" way of seeing and interpreting the first-century world in which they lived. This proclamation forced the disciples to re-evaluate their role as active elements in his ministry. No longer could they just follow along beside Jesus, observing in wonder and amazement rather than acting with power. They had to prepare themselves to carry out Jesus’ ministry until he would return in triumph.

It is tempting – and a common mistake – to think about Christ’s presence in our contemporary world as being like that of a vine connecting hundreds of main branches called denominations and tens of thousands of smaller branches called congregations. These branches, in turn, bear fruit by having millions of members. Above all of this sits the vinegrower, who is kept busy removing branches that bear no fruit and pruning the fruit-bearing branches so that they can bear even more fruit. The problem with this model is that the Church (with a big "C") takes on the role of being the vine – equivalent to being Christ’s body – and the denominations and local congregations become its essential manifestations in the world.

The fundamental error in this model is that the people become just the fruit on the branches of the vine, rather than being the branches that bear the fruit. But, if we are no more than the fruit on the vine, then we have no say in how we develop and to what purpose we are put. Just being plucked from the vine when we are ripe (or, even worse, not being picked because we are too small or too shriveled up) hardly seems to be an appropriate fate for thinking, feeling Christians.

How do we escape from this fatalistic dilemma? Perhaps if we delve more closely into the text and into our own experiences, we can see our way. First, let us return to verses 7-8, where Jesus says to his disciples:

If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.

If we the people are the branches, then the fruit is what derives from who we are and from what we do in our lives. The disciples were commanded to abide in Jesus’ love. These verses make clear that, if they do so, they can ask for whatever they wish, and it will be done for them. In this way, they will bear much fruit.

Bearing much fruit means doing far more than playing a passive role. While many of us take the opportunity to name our sons Matthew, Mark, Luke, or even John, most of us would not be willing to go as far as did a first-century Christian couple who named their son Polycarp – which literally translates from the Greek as "much fruit."

Naturally, Polycarp lived up to his name, becoming a Bishop of the church at Smyrna (now Izmir in Turkey) and writing some of the most important surviving Christian documents – all before being martyred in the mid second century in his mid-80s. During his last years, Polycarp traveled to Rome to discuss and debate the differing customs for observing the Christian Passover – what we now call Easter – then emerging among the diffuse Christian communities spread throughout the Roman Empire. The controversy was not resolved, and to this day the Eastern Orthodox Church celebrates Easter on a different schedule than does the Western Church.

As Polycarp the Bishop learned so long ago, it is hard to get churches and congregations to cooperate as if they were branches on the same vine. Perhaps this why Jesus never spoke of a Church to come, much less about denominations or congregations. As Christianity spread throughout the ancient world, house churches served not only as places of worship but also as places for believers to come together in social groups. Within a generation, as we have seen in the case of Polycarp, different practices emerged in different communities. Eventually, some groups were defined as being heretical /and vice versa), while others were considered to be "orthodox" – i.e., following proper practices and doing ministry decently and in order.

Over some twenty-one centuries, the Church has divided and subdivided many times. Some of its elements even have recombined and then split again – as Presbyterians here in America know all too well.

The difficult lessons of Christian history suggest that Jesus was right to call himself the vine and to identify the people as the branches who would bear much fruit. Whenever Christians have become too concerned about the structure and polity of the Church rather being focused on our mission to share Jesus’ love with the world, we get into trouble and we lose our way.

These days, the PC(USA), and several other mainline denominations are facing serious crises, especially related to the participation of all members in all phases of church life, including ordained ministry. Within the PC(USA), The Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church prepared a report (issued on August 25, 2005) that will be debated at this summer’s General Assembly in Birmingham, Alabama. The task force believes that its report and recommendations offer the church ways to live together that may demonstrate to a violently divided world the peace, unity, and purity given through Jesus Christ. The Reverend Gary Demarest spoke for the whole task force when he said: "The ultimate goal is not just to get along better, but to strengthen the mission of God to the world."

We must think carefully about ministry among our members and our mission in the world. Instead of asking "Where shall we build new congregations?" or "How shall we sustain established congregations?" or even "Who shall be ordained?" we should remember that we are the branches on the vine sustained by Jesus’ abiding love. In struggling to become more diverse, more, inclusive, and more embracing of transformation, we simply are following Jesus’s commandment to his disciples. In the process, we are branching out. Amen.

© 2006 Van Kemper (e-mail: rkemper@trinitypresdallas.org)