The Well Tended Vineyard

As our nation observes the civic holiday of Mother’s Day, many of us undoubtedly think back to mothers and grandmothers now of beloved memory. My grandmother Hugenot would be putting out her flowers this time of year, asking my little sister and myself to help with watering the plants. (She paid us in cookies, so it was a good gig.)

Grandmother’s gardens grew smaller, as she got older, yet despite her age, she still was partial to tending her geraniums. It puzzled many in our family, why of all the plants on God’s good earth did the geranium matter so much to my grandmother. She took delight in them, perhaps a delight you or I could not claim to share. As far as she was concerned, these geraniums were her year-round delight, the plants she placed with pride on her back porch in the summer sun or inside in a warm comfortable place to ride out the winter. They were not just “plants”. They were hers to love and tend.

Imagine if you will that same sort of love and delight is at work as God tends a verdant, fruitful vineyard. God is in the same delightful work spoken about in Genesis as creation springs forth over six days so wondrous that even God needs a good day’s worth of time to rest up. The vine rises up, green and healthy, thanks to good soil, good water, and good care. A great vine with many branches has grown up with God’s handiwork, as God prunes, nurtures, and helps the branches bear good fruit. As he shares this imagery of a well-tended vineyard, Jesus claims this is what life with God is all about.

Jesus says, “I am the vine; you are the branches”. I marvel at the imagery that Christ is our source and we, the many people called “Church”, draw our life and our connection from him. Christ seeks disciples, his branches, so that they may find life and become part of the new life Christ wishes to share with the world. Like an old grandmother fussing over geraniums or a vineyard worker toiling endlessly, God tends us with delight.

One thing you might want to know, however, is the hard work it takes keeping up a vineyard. You have to invest yourself wholeheartedly to keep the vineyard productive otherwise the vineyard falls apart. I have been to a vineyard that was abandoned, and it was a sad scene. During my high school days, my dad was asked to bale about eighty acres of hay up on a hilly area of Kansas. (It is not all “flat” like you have heard.) Up on the hilltop, a small vineyard had been set up, part of an effort to grow grapes for a local jelly company. The little company was doing well, and the owners opted to grow grapes themselves, rather than buying from wholesalers.

When we first arrived with our equipment to start bailing hay, the landowner pointed to the abandoned vineyard with a sigh. “They gave up,” he said. “They didn’t know it would be so hard. Y’all can pick as many grapes as you want.”

The vineyard still produced grapes, even without any intentional work. We picked about a dozen five-gallon buckets’ worth of grapes. In turn, my mother made enough jelly that we did not worry about buying a jar of jelly for years. Also, the birds on that hilltop were the happiest and fattest birds you have ever seen. (When I tell this story to my cats, they always ask me to repeat this part.)

The grapes were wonderful, producing a splendid array of jellies and jams. The vineyard, however, was not long for the world. Without anybody to tend it, to keep up with pruning, tending, watering, and “fussing over” the vines and branches, the vineyard held on, but only for a little longer. The vineyard needs its workers if it is truly to flourish and live up to its potential.

Like the diligent vineyard worker, God will prune the branches back so the plants will yield greater fruit. Throughout the history of the Church, times of growth came on the heels not of success upon success. Instead, Christianity had times where things seemed to go fallow or the branches stopped being fruitful. Nonetheless, when it seemed like all was about to fall apart, the vineyard worker called God demonstrated a flair for gardening, as mystics, reformers, traditionalists, and contrarians rose up to push the faith in fruitful directions.

Consider the origins of Christian monasticism. A man named Anthony withdrew from the noise of the fourth-century’s cities and led a simple life out in the Egyptian desert. Out of a desert sprang forth one of Christianity’s most enduring and rich traditions, providing women and men schooled in prayer and great wisdom. Alternatively, consider the Reformation as Protestants reformers, including a group of “radical Reformers” who founded our own tradition 400 years ago, rekindled the faith. Consider the witness of Letty Russell, a contemporary era feminist theologian, who called for a new approach of being Church, one less concerned with maintaining institutional dominance and embracing a more vulnerable, egalitarian, inclusive, and justice-seeking way. (Here, I am indebted to the theological implications raised by this week’s gospel entry of Feasting on the Word, Year B, vol. II.)

Every generation experiences the growth and the pruning. The challenge is to refrain from thinking a less producing year is a sign that the vineyard is dying or left unattended. First Baptist recollects in its own living memory a time where we counted average worship attendance in triple, not double, digits. As a person growing up in churches since the 1980s, I heard more often than not, the adults talking about the church seemed to be dying, or at least a paler shadow of its mid-20^th century glory. Down through the ages, we see the “organic” nature of the Church and the wisdom of Jesus’ image of the vine and branches. Things change, and some ways wither and fade while other ways rise up and help create a new era of fruitfulness. We have to trust that God is preparing the vineyard for yet another season of fruitfulness and in turn learn to recognize and celebrate those signs of new life.

This sort of organic hope is evidenced in the midst of a television show about the Church. A British comedy The Vicar of Dibley, airing on local PBS stations and available via Netflix, shares the story of a country church in England and its delightful vicar, the Rev. Geraldine Granger. In the first episode, delight was not the first reaction of the local parish council when Geraldine arrived. Airing in the mid-1990s, the first episode reflected the difficulty of women’s ordination gaining acceptance in the Church of England. In fact, the parish council chair, David Horton demands that the vicar be replaced immediately and sends a note to the bishop decrying the thought of placing a woman in the pulpit.

Jump forward ten years. It is the tenth anniversary of the vicar’s ministry in Dibley. On Christmas Day, the parish council gathers at the vicarage to give their priest holiday greetings and gifts. David Horton is asked to give a few remarks. With gratitude, David says, “Because of you the church is full, not empty. Because of you, our lives are full, not empty.”

Ten years prior, David Horton thought the church was done for, thinking nothing good could possible be found in this new development. Over the course of the series, the congregation learned to be a different sort of parish while still being a place where all the cast of characters could sing and pray together.

In the language of John’s gospel, the vine kept growing, the branches were pruned back a bit, and the well-tended vineyard continued to grow, bear fruit, and show signs of new life.

Each week under this roof and in the midst of this people, change is happening, slowly but surely. Non-profit organizations find a place here to work with our community in need. For example, healthcare and advocacy for the uninsured is being offered here on a weekly basis. Bright and early this morning, three congregants got on a plane to head for New Orleans for a week’s volunteerism. Yesterday, the mission committee met to talk about what more we could be doing, rather than talking about reining in during a tough economic year. Vacation Bible School is getting ready for the fourth year in a row. Now, some folks are talking less about the pews feeling emptier and more about the challenge of finding parking (and not just on Sunday mornings! Some weekdays are getting fairly challenging to find a space). Most important, we welcome a new member into our fellowship today, the seventeenth person to join this congregation since my tenure began in 2006. Perhaps it is not the track record of the 1950s, when a dozen or more joined each year (or upwards of 90 people in a big year back in the 19^th century), but can give ourselves, the fifty to sixty adults who comprise the present-day “active” congregation, over to the joy of continuing to grow, if even “little by little”? Today, we welcome Carol because she felt welcome and able to be part of the fellowship here, and we hope that we help in her spiritual growth as she helps us with our own.

This past week, two articles appeared in the Bennington Banner regarding the new surveys demonstrating a deepened religious disinterest among Vermonters. The reporter asked for comments from local clergy, and I offered the following comment:

“Churches don’t need to have control of the culture, the politics, and the ideas of the day to have relevance. Dialogue, interfaith cooperation, a bit of humility will do some of our Christian movements a world of good. And I would say if you’re going to make a difference in Vermont, those are some building blocks you need.” (Bennington Banner, “Religious Leaders Find Ways to Reach Out”, reported by Mark E. Rondeau, May 4, 2009)

The church as you knew it, the church as I knew it, is in the midst of being pruned back, the chaff is being discarded, cultivating for a new season’s yield is underway. In humility and joy, we affirm so it has been with the Church and so shall it be.

While it might feel like less can be taken for granted, we are being given this gift of turning over a new leaf, seeing a new path, embracing our future while taking along the best of our heritage, and learning yet again that the Church is never left untended. God is indeed tending the vine and its branches and new life shall be its fruit.