I hope you have all been enjoying this lovely weather this weekend. I imagine some of you have been out in your yards and gardens sprucing everything up. I invite you to picture the master gardener, whistling, wearing a floppy hat, pruning shears in hand, smiling as he cleans up his garden, snipping away the dead branches on all the vegetation he has so carefully planted in his garden. God is at work. From the moment God placed Adam and Eve in his garden, he has been pruning his most beloved of all creation to make it ever more fruitful. Nurturing. Caring. Never leaving us unattended or untended. God takes hold of me, studies me, cuts away anything that is dead or diseased so that I can flourish in his garden. Snip. Clip. I may be tempted to grab the pruning shears out of God’s hands and ask that he just leave me alone but he is the owner of the vineyard and he is in charge! He wants us to bear an abundant fruit so that he might be glorified.
And, God has grafted us on the true vine, his son, who has glorified his Father – our heavenly Father – by the work he has done according to his Father’s will. We are celebrating the completion of that work during this joyous Easter Season. After laying down his life according to his Father’s will, Jesus has conquered death and given us all the hope of a place at the eternal banquet. In the meantime, we remain in God’s garden here on earth. In today’s Gospel, we hear God’s son call us to remain in him because we cannot bear fruit on our own but only by allowing his life-giving power to feed and nourish us.
We gather around our Lord’s Table to be nourished – both by the true word that we hear proclaimed and the life-giving Body and Blood that we receive in Holy Communion. Like the water and nutrients that plants in the garden require, we need this nourishment to bear much fruit and become disciples of our Lord. That’s why we rejoice in such a special way that some among us will be receiving Holy Communion for the first time this evening. Congratulations to you; welcome around the Table of our Lord!
I want to draw your attention to where this Sunday’s Gospel passage is found; it is part of the Last Supper discourse just before Jesus is crucified. Pruning leads to what vine-growers call “bleeding” of cut surfaces or wounds. Although it may seem to be cruel, it has a positive effect on the vine. Soon, liquid pouring from the cut heals the branch. Then, the branch will be able to draw up water with enormous force. This is an excellent metaphor for our Lord. Jesus, the vine, stretches his arms out — on the cross – and is cut off from life, but only for a time. In his Resurrection, the new life that he offers springs from him and lifts us up to new life, allowing us to bear fruit.
The second reading underscores this message. This is the fourth week we have heard from the First Letter of John, which is a true love-letter. In short, it says: love in deeds. God’s commandments are these: Believe and love. Saint John makes this message very clear in today’s second reading. “Children,” he says, “let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth.” In other words, don’t just spout pious niceties, but do the work of the Gospel: love God and love your neighbor, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, forgive as God forgives us. For “those who keep his commandments remain in him, and he in them, and the way we know that he remains in us is from the Spirit he gave us.”
Although this is an important day for you, those of you who will receive our Lord in Holy Communion for the first time this evening aren’t finished with your journey of initiation into our family of faith; that will happen in a few years as you receive the fullness of God’s Spirit in the Sacrament of Confirmation. It is then that you will be able to fully do the work God has in store for you. You will be empowered to do this through the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit works in us, giving us gifts and helping us to bear fruit for the sake of the Kingdom. As we all profess faith in God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in just a few moments in the Nicene Creed, we acknowledge that we, who look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come, also glorify God as the one who is holy and that heaven and earth are full of his glory. Earth is filled with his glory as much as we bear good fruit in our lives.
That’s why receiving our Lord in Holy Communion regularly is so important.
Each Eucharistic celebration offers us sacred moments when the word of God, the vine grower, prunes away everything in us that does not bear fruit. It also provides us the spiritual nourishment we need so that we can bear good fruit. As we continue to celebrate this Easter season with such great joy and rejoice with those in our midst who will receive Holy Communion for the first time, let us all recommit ourselves to receiving it regularly so that all of us, the living vine, can continue the work Jesus called all of his followers to do: to bear fruit for the glory of God!