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Sermons

"SQUEEZING GRAPEFRUITS,
TAPPING WATERMELONS"
GOSPEL SCRIPTURE TEXT: JOHN 15:1-17 (NIV)

DAVE RING, PASTOR
LOS ALAMOS 1ST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
SUNDAY MORNING, AUGUST 23, 2009

SCRIPTURE TEXT: 1"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2He 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. 3You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
5"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. 8This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
9"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. 11I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command. 15I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit-fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 17This is my command: Love each other.

PRAYER: "Lord Jesus, we would learn more of You this morning. We would deepen our understanding of what You desire of us. Guide us in our journey through Your Holy Word. Amen.

MESSAGE: My wife, Fran, has a habit that I'm sure has raised an eyebrow or two among supermarket produce managers. She's a very demanding shopper for fruit in the produce section. Grapefruits, oranges, lemons, and such are always given a good squeeze or two before Fran puts them in her bag. Cherries and grapes are hand selected, one by one, prior to purchase - none of this pre-bagged stuff for Fran. Watermelons and cantaloupes are always "tapped" sharply a few times as she listens for the quality of resonance produced.

Some years back, while we were visiting my parents on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, we stopped at a local food store there, looking to buy a watermelon. I just walked up to what appeared to be the biggest one, and hefted it onto my shoulder. But Fran, after "tapping" here and there on the available melons, picked a smaller one and said, "Put that big one down. This one's a better buy." And -- she was right. The melon Fran selected turned out to be one of the sweetest watermelons I'd ever eaten. My wife's a tough inspector when it comes to selecting fruit, but her grapefruit squeezing and watermelon thumping pays off.

One of the favorite analogies used to describe human lives in the New Testament, employed by Jesus, Paul, and others, was fruit -- and fruit-bearing. The climate of the Holy Land is quite similar to parts of the American Southwest, and so, with irrigation, the people of Jesus' time and locale were able to grow a broad assortment of fruit. The Bible repeatedly mentions such fruits as figs, plums, apples, grapes, melons of several kinds, pomegranates, olives and pears. So when Jesus and His early followers in and around Israel talked about fruit and fruit-bearing, they were easily understood.

The people of Israel of that day knew, for example, that if a fig tree failed to bear figs for three straight years, as in Jesus' parable of the unfruitful fig tree, it was unlikely to ever do so again. Thus, it should be cut down, and something more promising planted in its place. They understood how grapevines of various types could be grafted onto a single host plant, and that sometimes the grafts held and succeeded, and sometimes they did not. So when Jesus' early apostle Paul spoke of grafting a variety of wild grapes -- the Gentiles -- onto the Jews' special covenant with God, they quickly picked up on the idea being presented -- and the obvious implications thereof. They could inspect the trunk of an apple tree even in the dead of winter and predict from its appearance whether the tree was likely to produce wholesome or diseased fruit in its proper season -- again, a practice from which Jesus derived a teaching of spiritual principle.

As Jesus told "fruit stories," the people to whom he spoke had little problem making the obvious translation of his teachings -- moving from fig bushes, or grape vines, to human lives. They knew that he wasn't teaching a course in botany when he spoke about non-productive fruit trees, but that he was really concerned about persons whose lives produced nothing of value.
In today's text, Jesus speaks of himself as a vine -- and of his followers as branches thereof. In doing this, he was unmistakably inviting his hearers to graft themselves onto -- and to tap into -- the boundless life energy his Spirit -- the Spirit of the Living God -- wished to supply to all who believed in him. And when he stressed the need for those who claimed to believe in him to remain and bear fruit, he obviously wasn't talking about growing watermelons.

There's little that's hidden, or mysterious, about today's text, nor about any of Jesus' "fruit stories" in the gospels. Fruit production was an ordinary, commonplace activity for the people of Jesus' day and time. Thus, in using "fruit" analogies, the Christ was meeting them on their own terms, in the ordinary activity of their daily lives. It's simple, direct. "You want to call yourself my follower?" asks Jesus. "Fine -- then bear fruit!"

The problem with the common, the ordinary, the obvious -- such as Jesus' "fruit" teachings -- is that today's people are more interested in the extraordinary, the unusual, and the uncommon. I know that's true for me. Skydiving certainly sounds more exciting than office work. Flying to Europe is a lot more interesting than cleaning the house. Today, even though most of us still lead fairly common, ordinary lives most of the time, we can always easily escape to the realm of the exciting and unusual through books, magazines, and, most especially, through that one-eyed door to the land of unreality, the television.

TV, more than anything else, grants us instant access to the vicarious living of strange, exciting, unusual lives. How else can you experience three marriages, five affairs, raise six kids, and travel twice around the world -- all in the space of 60 minutes? You can be shipwrecked, shot at, blown up, hijacked, ski-jumped, tornadoed and torpedoed -- and live to tell about it -- all within 90 minutes of a made-for-TV movie.

Our present-day fascination with the different and unusual -- and our opportunity to experience such so often, at least vicariously on TV, has led to some real problems for the Church in communicating the gospel message today. Jesus' simple, everyday, common sense appeal is no longer as appealing as it once was. Oh, we talk nostalgically about the old country preacher who picked cotton to support himself at the "church in the valley by the wildwood," but we really expect more of a Las Vegas style "show" when we attend church these days. If the choir doesn't sound like the Mormon Tabernacle bunch, the preacher doesn't have the force and charisma of Robert Schuller or Billy Graham, and the decor, atmosphere, lighting and sound system aren't all state-of-the-art, we go away disappointed. If the worship service doesn't "rock" us and "sock" us, we haven't been reached.

Go into any church today -- of virtually any denomination -- and ask the few youth and college age young adults present what they'd most like to study. After they say, "Sex," and you reply with "No, I mean something from the Bible," the inevitable request will be "Let's study the Book of Revelation." The Book of Revelation, because it is thought of as mysterious, unusual, and controversial, is always the first choice of contemporary young people for Bible study. Not the gospels -- they're too simple, nor the letters of Paul -- they're outdated, nor anything from the Old Testament -- that's boring, but the unfathomable, the weird -- the Book of Revelation.

And, of course, consider the phenomenal rise of the ultra-charismatic movement in Christianity in our day. The supernatural gifts of the Spirit are its focus -- tongues, prophecy, casting out demons, discernment of spirits. This is another obvious example of the contemporary public's demand for the unusual, the wild, the strange --and the Church's somewhat misguided attempts to satisfy that craving.

There are many gifts of the Holy Spirit listed in the Bible, in the same places where we find tongues, prophecy, healing and the like, but who, in our day, ever gets excited over seeking a gift from God for teaching Sunday School, or for church administration? The apostle Paul, the "darling" of those who seek the unusual gifts of the Spirit, also lists, in Galatians 5, nine fruits of God's Spirit -- and admonishes Christians, as did Jesus, that these are the true marks of a disciple. But how many people get worked up over such mundane, obvious, taken-for-granted ideas as love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, or temperance? Who cares about the fruits -- I want the gifts! Anybody can be patient, or kind, or loving. I want to work miracles! I want to see healings! I want to utter prophecies! Use me, Lord -- in an unusual way!
Fascination with the extraordinary is, in my pastoral opinion, one of the major errors of modern-day Christianity. Too many of us are looking for strange "trees" -- and missing God's great "forest" of everyday blessings.

Let's examine a second time, for a few moments, Jesus' simple "fruit story" in today's text. "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...I am the vine, you are the branches...This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples."

One of the reasons I have chosen to be part of the United Methodist segment of Christ's great Church is that Methodists don't preach salvation as the end of the Christian life of faith. Certainly, personal salvation through belief in Jesus Christ is the indispensable beginning of the Christian life for every follower of Jesus. But when I go into churches where all that is ever preached, week in and week out, is "Get saved...get saved...get saved!" I feel like shouting, "I am saved! Now, what do I do?"

After one is saved, there is work to be done for our Lord. And there is fruit to be borne, lest we miss the purpose of our salvation. "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."

And what, specifically, is the "fruit" that we are to bear for Christ our Lord? As I mentioned previously, the apostle Paul, in Galatians, lists nine fruits of the Spirit -- love, joy, peace, and so on. But in the verses immediately following today's text, our Lord Jesus emphasizes only one particular fruit: love. With verse 17 of John 15, he concludes this section of teaching on the vine and the branches thereof by saying, "This is my command: Love each other." Love is the fruit we are to bear.

"Just love? Oh, well, that's simple enough. Good sermon, preacher. I'll go home and hug my spouse and pet my dog. Thanks for reminding me."

Wait a minute! Yes, love is the fruit we're to bear, but it's not an ordinary, "garden variety" sort of love. If you really want something unusual, exciting, and extraordinary out of Christianity, listen more carefully to our Lord's command, which is also stated, with amplification, in Verse 12 of John 15. "My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you." “Love each other as I have loved you."

That's a different kind of oranges, folks. That kind of love involves much more than simply hugs, smiles, and kisses. That love's a lot deeper than three verses of "Kum Ba Yah" sung around the campfire. Our Lord's kind of love involves risk. It includes sacrifice. It incorporates all of Paul's list of other fruits -- long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, temperance, and so forth -- into itself. It's a costly kind of love. It may cost us a dollar or two. It may cost us a friend or two. It may even cost us our lives. After all, that's what it cost Jesus.

I have an unusual personal image of the Judgment Day to share with you in closing. It's a bit fanciful, but I think it's a reasonable extrapolation of today's text. I see myself pushing a wheelbarrow-load of fruit, of many varieties, up to God's throne. And I can imagine God inspecting that fruit -- carefully examining the apples for worms or bad spots, taking a "test bite" of a grape, squeezing the oranges, thumping the melons.

Let us conclude our message with prayer: "Father, I pray that all our fruits may be found worthy in your sight. Help us to bear much fruit, to your greater glory. Amen.

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