Bearing Fruit

John 12:20-36

 

John the Gospel writer annoys me and the more I read him the more he does. He always has to explain the very thing he just wrote as if those reading it are too thick to get his meaning. And when I am feeling like this I get to thinking he may be right.

 

We are too thick to get what he is writing.

 

The Fathers of the church and scholars through the ages have taken much of what has been written and interpreted it in such a way that the life of Jesus is seen primarily as God’s response to original sin. Apparently we are all inherently bad and need a sacrificial lamb without spot to cast our sins upon for redemption. 

 

“Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit”

 

This is how this verse is often interpreted. Jesus dies so we can live. But we add bits that aren’t there. We add sin and the need for an angry God to be propitiated for our humanity. We add the ghastly event of Good Friday to this, not as a testimony to the commitment of Jesus as the fully conscious human being who stays with the demands of the Kingdom of God right until the end, but as a bloody sacrifice for sin.

 

John, perhaps, captures the natural process of evolution and reminds us that when something individual dies it is reborn somewhere within the species, it leaves behind something to empower, embolden and to add to others. This is the process God chose for creation and it is the process John refers to here.

 

Jesus is just like the significantly insignificant grain of wheat, on its own it contains the essence of daily living, but when it dies it gives birth to much more than it could ever achieve individually. The death of Jesus, as the fully alive sentient being, the culmination of all evolutionary creation to this point is the catalyst for change, for another way of being in the world and for wholeness.

 

This is what is born in the idea of much fruit. Jesus is not specific about what the fruit looks like – is it spiritual, is it social justice, is it found in mystics, activists, lay people or monks, is it found in one strain of religious thought and practice, is it confined to one particular set of dogma, orthodoxy or practice over against another? Jesus simply says it will bear much fruit and just like the grain of wheat cannot give fruit from a pineapple, the essence of the one who dies will be the signifying essence of the fruit. In other words it will be found in the form of other fully alive sentient beings who live for wholeness, justice and respect at the gentle and not so gentle prodding of eternal love.

 

Like gives birth to like . Not like in particular but like in essence and Jesus is bearing fruit throughout this world in all lives in tune with urge for wholeness embedded within all creation by the Source of all love.

Seeing Differently

Mathew 3

Grand Canyon by David Hockney

Today we meet the hermit from the bush. The bloke who ignores the social requirements for appropriate dress and, by the smell of him, for the use of water for something other than drinking, a man who is on the outside looking in, John The Baptist, so named after the rite he made his own.  It is interesting he wasn’t called John Camel Hair or John Who Needs A Bath or John the Vegan, but he wasn’t. He is John the Baptist.

 

John is also remembered for his aversion to sin. His baptism was predicated on repentance, the recognition of sin by an individual who then takes steps to repent of that sin through the cleansing and renewing act of baptism. Now sin got a bad name when I was growing up. It seemed to include everything that was enjoyable – eating too many lollies, drinking too much soft drink, getting your sibling into trouble, dipping the pigtails of the girl who sat in front of you in the inkwell and many more mortal acts. The last may very well have been mortal if she could run faster than you at recess!

 

Sin has been trivialised to many normal and ordinary acts of being human and it seems it is still in that place. Yet John the Baptist’s idea of sin was much expanded on that of our parents, nuns and the morality police of our youth. John refers to the systemic sins maintaining the status quo, the sins of entitlement due to right acting, of doing what was expected of you and reaping the rewards. It was the sin of identifying clearly the status of each individual, their rights and their responsibilities. It was ensuring those born into privilege maintained that privilege. It is about exclusion of others from the benefits you have based on class, skin colour, health or otherwise, gender and age.

 

²“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” In other words, the possibility of instituting the promised kingdom does not belong out there, to others or to the future. It belongs here, in you and now. It is calling you and I to make it real – to put love into action and respond to the covenant requirements of kindness – respect, justice and compassion. It is not a task of people like John or even those whom he spoke harshly about; the first is just one man and the latter group won’t change until they have no choice. It is up to you to ensure they have no choice by you own love in action for yourself, others and the world.

 

John wasn’t interested in who stole the cookie from the cookie jar, but who stole the cookie jar and who allowed the cookie jar to remain stolen. He was particularly tough on those in privileged positions and saved his strongest words for them, but he didn’t let the ordinary folk off the hook either. John’s expectation was that is if you recognised your complicity in this corporate sin, then you needed to show evidence of a change of heart, mind and action. He says: “⁸Bear fruit worthy of repentance.”

 

Bearing fruit can be as little as sharing the troubles of those who live next door, advocating for a fairer share of society’s wealth for all, ensuring those who on the outside get to come in side. There is no prescription for bearing fruit and there is no particular type of fruit – love, justice, compassion, kindness, advocacy, giving and more – all work if that is what the situation needs.

 

Ben Witherington suggests: "Repentance, or metanoia, to use the Greek word, refers to far more than a simply being or saying one is sorry for past sins, far more than mere regret or remorse for such sins. It refers to a turning away from the past way of life and the inauguration of a new one, in this case initialised by an act of baptism."

 

And this isn’t easy. Those who describe the Christian life as easy and a cop out haven’t tried to live it! It is incredibly difficult to live in such away that each day is a further step toward wholeness and another from stuff we have held onto and has held onto us. It is being prepared to shed our previous static identity and accept the uncertainty of unfinished business.

 

Crabs and other crustaceans do not grow in a linear fashion because of their hard outer shell. Up to 20 times in its lifetime a crab moults, in effect moves out of the old shell and grows a new one. This happens 6 times in the first year. It is a difficult and excruciating time, not to say a vulnerable onee. If your shell is your protection, wandering naked around the sea floor is not a comfortable place to be. Yet it must happen if it is to grow into maturity.

 

Repentance requires we shed our tough and hard formed identities both as a society and as individuals. What served us well in another time and place no longer does. What we have come to accept as the way things are, no longer is appropriate and we have to change structures, ideas, ideologies and religions.

 

John the Baptist calls that the coming near of the kingdom of God – the ever evolving recognition of a new way of seeing. David Hockney, the wonderful English artist, paints what he sees but what he sees in isn’t always what is physically there. He suggests we see two ways – physically and psychologically; physically by recognising objects, like a camera. Seeing psychologically is different. If we look at a scene we will focus on one particular element that takes our eye in that scene. Because we do, that tree, face, animal, colour becomes clearer and larger in our view and seems to be larger and more significant than the rest of the scene. There are a whole lot of reasons why this happens but we rarely if ever see what is there. We see what we see.

 

In art this works well, in community and individual life here is a glitch to be aware of. What we think is the case may not be so because we are seeing, hearing, engaging with it as we see the world – focusing on what is important to or has a specific meaning or interest to us. We may miss what is really happening. We are not called to see physically or one dimensionally as a camera but we are to be aware of the psychological pre-determinants affecting our response to the world.

 

John the Baptist calls us to confront society and ourselves to engage in the very difficult process of moulting, like the crab, and to recalibrate our seeing. In this way we begin to recalibrate the world by helping to break it out of its restrictive shell and welcome in relational wholeness empowered by love - the kingdom of God.

 

Oh and this won’t get easier when Jesus enters the picture. It gets harder, because he increases the requirements and calls more from us. “¹¹He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” Seeing through the eyes of Jesus changes everything.

 

John’s repentance is the ongoing reassessment of self and society required of all who profess faith. It requires action and outcomes and can’t be avoided. It is our vocation. How will you see differently when you leave here this morning?

Is Christianity A Progressive Faith?

John 15:1-8

Do you remember when sending a letter by post was not called ‘Snail mail’ and when a human being said ‘you’ve got mail’ they meant something in the mailbox (remember them)? Today the post box at the post office sends you an email to let you know there is mail waiting for you. Cars were once only powered by a petrol driven motor, now you can buy a car that runs on batteries - the Tesla has recently been released in Australia. Why some people would say that the only constant is change and hint that change is not always progress. I would suggest that humans are wired for change and progress. Even in their faith.

Christianity is a progressive faith. It is never stagnant nor regressive. It’s very essence is to move into life not into death.  Each action, comment and teaching of Jesus is about transformation and resurrection.

 

We do not, cannot, must not, stand still.

 

For many years my father worked in a vineyard. He worked in the cellar nurturing wine for the winemaker. His product was a growth industry. The grapes grew on vines that had been well pruned and cultured. Then the grapes found their way to crushers separating the skins from the juice and then the juice sat in large vats sitting on top of the skins for colour and taste. This was a  journey and process of transformation that began with the secateurs of the vineyard staff.

 

Jesus uses the very same image here and it is a positive image. This is not about punishment and reward. If you fail to bear fruit you will be pruned and left to fall barren to the ground. Pruning is an imager of encouraging and enhancing transformation. What is dead is let go, what is alive is encouraged to be more alive, more fruitful. The pruner looks for the signs of life and ensures that it is given all it needs to produce.

 

In Jesus the vineyard worker is interested in the here and now. What is going to bear fruit in this place and time. It is earthy realism. Life lived in the present world. That is the Christian faith. It is about bringing justice and peace, God’s dream for the world, into being right where we are.

 

Over the years Christianity has, like other religions, been focussed on the other world, heaven in what ever words used to describe it. Early Christians saw it as their duty to be martyred so as to go and be with the Jesus in heaven. For many this was the goal up until relatively recently in historical terms. For some fundamentalists this is still the goal. To go and be with Jesus as soon as practicable.

 

Unlike Christianity, Islam is other world focus. As a result of the strict adherence to the Quran, history stopped with the death of the Prophet. Therefore there is nothing to live for here. Everything is focussed on their understanding of heaven and of martyrdom. In this sense, Islam is not a progressive religion and will, without a major reformation always struggle to be one.

 

For Christians, faith is an embodied experience lived in the here and now. Incarnation is key to a disciples understanding of the world. Faith is not an escape but an invitation to live here & now, in & of people and creation for that is what God did in and through the life of Jesus. The incarnation of Christ values our humanity. Jesus became like us so we could become like God.

 

The idea of working out our salvation here on earth is that we become more and more God-like and less and less ego-like. It is not that our works save us, but that our works validate and authenticate our status as children of God. Our works give evidence to our faith. We are on the journey to becoming one with God, what Julian of Norwich calls –‘one-ing’. Our lives are combination of little deaths, transformations and resurrections every day.

 

We grow and change, live and die to experiences, make mistakes and endure failures to learn and grow. Thomas Merton suggests that the only person who is inconsistent is the person who is all was consistent, whose views never change, whose perspective on the world always stays the same. He suggests we should not trust such a person because they have never experienced life or have experienced life and failed to reflect, contemplate and process what they have experienced.

 

This is the process of the vineyard John has Jesus use here. Life, in all its joys and sadness, success and failures, slowly cuts away the dead wood in our lives to allow us to leave behind the false self of the ego and to discover the true self of God within us. Marcus Borg suggests that the word repentance refers to going beyond our mind, the mind we have at this moment.  This idea suggests that sin is in some way attached to how we see the world through our ego, that it is all about our self.

 

What was seen as the norm in the past no longer is because we have gone beyond the mind, the thinking we had then. The world is round, not flat, the world orbits the sun, not the other way around, slavery is wrong, women are to be treated the same as men and more show us we have repented and continue to do so.

  

The events of the last few days in Bali point to the fact that this process is continuing and needs to continue. Some 52 countries in the world, including the US practice the death penalty. Nowhere in Australia does but there is still such a statute on the books in NSW. How we treat others who are different to us and come to this country for refuge asks us to repent and go beyond the mind of fear and control.

 

A life lived in Christ:

·      Values past experience – builds on the past, is grateful for what has been done by  and the example of  Jesus

 

·      Focuses on the now – values self, others & the experience of love in the present moment

 

·      Welcomes the future, but lives fully not dies gradually, for it.

 

Each Sunday, in the Great Thanksgiving we remind ourselves of the mystery of our faith, which is not exactly a mystery. The so called mystery of faith reminds us that we are a people of the past, of the present and of the future, not as separate categories but as a whole.  God’s time or kairos breaks in on us, not in a linear or horizontal way, but vertically, cutting through all categories of experience at once. We know Christ has died to deal with the fear of death in all its forms, that Christ is risen and present giving life and resurrection now, and that he will come again to herald in God’s dream for the world, the just and peaceful realm of God.

 

Let us repent and take on the mind of the incarnated God who through the life and death on the Cross embodied the dream of God in this world. Amen

  

A Single Grain, Much Fruit!

‘Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.’ (John 12:20-33)

It was here the storm destroyed the crop.

I grew up on a wheat farm. The year was organised around ploughing, sowing and harvesting. I watch the quality of the soil. The meticulous attention to the sowing of both the wheat and the clover and then the wait for the crop to begin to grow, the beseeching of the rain to come at the right time and the joy of the harvesting. The journey of the seed through death, germination and life was vital to the existence of the farmer, the vitality of the soil and the continuation of an ancient ritual.

Those listening to Jesus under stood this image. They knew about farming and harvesting. They had watched as the farmers  worked to produce a living. Yet they struggled to understand it in the context Jesus retold the story. John and his fellow Gospel writers understood it. Hindsight allows us to see what those involved in the story were unable to.

We know it’s about Jesus, the crucifixion, the tomb and the resurrection. We know it means that without Jesus death and burial and resurrection there would not be the possibility of new life. It is all about Jesus. Or is it?

The 12^th chapter of John is a bridge between what has become before (The Signs Jesus performed) and what is to come, his farewell and the speeches he gives to usher in the end. John is setting the scene here and uses the image of the seed as a suitable signpost for what is about to occur.

 Kenneth Carder suggests there is much more to this passage than what a simple literal reading will give us. Yes the death and resurrection of Jesus is primary to our faith, but that is not where it stops. Carder says: "As Jesus gives his life in faithful participation in God's creation of a new community, disciples give their life and become part of the 'much fruit' produced from the 'single grain' (12:24-26)."

 Jesus participates as the cornerstone in the birthing of a new way of living, of a new community God ushers into a world. This is to be a community of compassion in action, interested only in being life-giving, not in what it produces. A farmer can not dictate what the outcome of his efforts will be. One year he will be rewarded with a bountiful crop, other years when he has done exactly the same thing, the crop has withered and died.

I remembered watching as the fence was cut to allow the tractor and harvester into the paddock where a wonderful crop stood, only to watch the black storm clouds rumble in and the subsequent hailstorm decimate the crop. Not one head of wheat remained. 

 We often sit and look around us and wonder where the reward for all our work over the years is. We remember the days when the church, the youth group, the children’s work was vibrant and active. We remember the study groups, the women’s and men’s groups were great in number and full of energy and life. Where has that all gone? There is a sense of failure, of regret, of what if? 

Yet, perhaps we miss something. Something very important. Just like the religious Jews missed the new thing being done by God through Jesus, we miss the new thing being done by the Spirit. Carder hints at it when he says that ‘disciples give their life and become part of the ‘much fruit’ produced from the single grain’.

We give our life in the church, not to reproduce ourselves in the place where we are sown, but to produce much fruit that goes out into the world imbued with the faith, values and Spirit experienced through our example and engagement with them. People who have been here, in our sphere of influence, take what we have shown them into the world. And while they may not replicate our practice, our understanding, our commitment, they live out of the one seed.

Henri Nouwen, Catholic priest and writer, has said that the student, the disciple, only learns what he or she has been taught when those who teach them are no longer with them. That is the fruit we seek. A life lived out of the nurturing experienced with us in this place.

Many of us grew up in the church, in the family church. We have lived in one place for a long time. We have not moved around, shifted jobs and cultures, experienced the rapid change that our children and their children have. They no longer grew up in a small community of which the church was at the centre. They live in one place, work in another and socialise somewhere else. They are not committed to one small homogenous community. My mother and father lived within 50 miles of their birth homes and worshipped at the churches where they were baptised almost all their life. That is rare today and will be more so in the future.

Why are we surprised that they understand faith and their practise of faith is less church and community centred? Why is it hard to accept that their faith is more democratic, fluid and imbued with shades and shapes ours never was, and less place and space centred? Their faith and practice reflects their work and the world.

Carder suggests that we have given our lives and we have produced the fruit of the new creation Jesus came to give birth to, but that that fruit looks very different to how we wanted it to look and where we wanted it to be seen. We wanted it to be like us, here! 

So what are we challenged to do:

•  We are challenged not to be discouraged by what we see, but to be encouraged. The young people we nurtured and fed in this place have grown into people who have given life and hope to others. They have done good things for the right reasons. What would our world have looked like if the people we shared our faith had not had the opportunity to experience that? As Nouwen suggests, when we look at those we have seen come through this place, for example, we can be confident that they have indeed learnt a new way of living and lived that out, out there. Rejoice, do not despair. 

•  We are challenged to reimagine how our church and our faith looks like in this post-modern era. We are living in a time when people have the opportunity to use their capacity for critical thinking and decision making to reshape both faith and how faith is practiced. And that is thanks to those of us who have gone before and encouraged them to question and decide for themselves.

•  We are to rejoice in the Spirit who leads us into new places and new times, even though those places may be foreign and just a little bit unsettling. We rejoice for it was the same Spirit who brought us through our faith journey to this place. Now we are being asked to open the way for the future to be as alive and vibrant as the past.

•  We are, as those who listened to Jesus and his dying seed story, on the cusp of a new faith, a new church, a new creation built on the seeds we planted in those who have shared this place, our homes, our schools, our workplaces with us over the years.

 The future is exciting and we are not told to ignore the past, but to build on what we have sown and watch something completely new arise. The Spirit helped Peter and the disciples did. There is no reason we can’t do the same.