Those who work the land as ranchers, farmers and gardeners have a knowledge base that many of us from more urban backgrounds do not. Sometimes it can be funny like the time my dairy farmer uncle asked a group of visiting school children from the city, “Do you know how we make chocolate milk? We pull the cows tails” to which the children nodded in solemn agreement. Later during the tour, he would show them that all milk comes in various shades of white depending on levels of buttermilk and that chocolate milk comes when chocolate syrup is added. That does not happen at the farm and that pulling is cows tail is not a good idea.
So, when I was living and working as a volunteer for the United Farm Workers in California, I paid attention to the farm workers who worked day in and day out in the fields and vineyards of central valley.
One of the things I learned was of the many issues that must be addressed in making good wine one that is frequently overlooked is canopy management.
The topic is relevant to any discussion that one has about the Gospel of John particularly John 15. As one of my seminary professors suggested about the Gospel “before you read, go work on a farm or ranch.” This was simply the professors point that when we jump into Biblical interpretation of the Gospel of John without agricultural background it may leave readers of passages such as today without some important clues. “He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit” could be read as some type of Texas chainsaw massacre ministry with “hellfire and brimstone.” Or we may read through the lens of privilege and power suggesting that Jesus is engaging in a ministry of possession, “either you have it or you don’t.” Instead, what Jesus is discussing is canopy management for disciples.
More on that in just a minute, but first some background. These verses are tightly packed with layers of meaning and we do not have time to go through all of it so let me point out several important pieces for our consideration this morning. Our gospel begins with the divine name, ego eimi, which is the Greek form of God's name in Hebrew, YHWH. This is the name if you remember that was given to Moses out of the burning bush, a word with an intriguing and elusive meaning, “I am who I am.”
So why this “I am” here? This “I am” is repeated frequently in the Gospel of John because the author wants it to be known that God is present in the world and his name is Jesus. Moreover, God --- this “I am” --- is present in ways that are understandable and approachable --- the gate, the door, the good shepherd, the light, and, here, the “true vine.”
Another motif of course is “the vine.” Now if you have heard about vines before in Bible study and worship that is no accident, as vines and vineyards are important images used over centuries. For instance, the vineyard, can be traced at least to the 8th century BC, as in Isaiah 5:2: “For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the vineyard of Israel.”
We also know from archaeology that the vine was a popular image in the time of Jesus. The Temple in Jerusalem was decorated with the vine theme and during the Roman-Jewish War, AD 66-70, roughly twenty to thirty years after Jesus’ death, the vine image was used on the coins minted by the Jewish rebels. Therefore, when Jesus uses the image of vine, he clearly is playing with a well-known motif.
Today with that in mind, Jesus focuses on one aspect of the vine and vineyards --- production. Producing fruit is the whole purpose of the community of faith Jesus seems to be suggesting. To produce fruit means for the author of John to follow the way of Jesus. Whoever does not produce fruit, God will “take away.” Now for Christians who like using the imagery of “once saved” this portion of the Gospel of John obviously causes some discomfort.
But let’s get back to the canopy management this gospel addresses. Let us address the issue of runaway growth. That seems counter intuitive until I did some reading and listened to those who work vineyards. Vines left to themselves will sprawl out all over the place and produce huge canopies of shoots, leaves and branches, and unless that canopy is controlled, the vine won’t yield much fruit or top shelf grapes. For all the greenery, all those leaves suggest that what we’ve got here is a very healthy vine is in fact, it’s all show and no tell.
Jesus is afraid that the disciples might face this same problem. This community of faith might become all show and no tell. Jesus was not interested in showy disciples any more than Jesus is interested in churches bursting at the seams today. Rather, what Jesus is interested in is fruit --- and not just fruit --- excellent fruit.
For example, pick up a glass of Sauvignon Blanc, and after we sniff the bouquet, swirl it around the glass, examine the claret and perform other tests in our best Frasier and Niles Crane impression, take a sip. Daniel Sogg, of Wine Spectator, says that if you catch a flavor “reminiscent of onion skin and jalapeño peppers,” you’ve just encountered the problem of canopy management. A vine with a huge canopy may be looking good, but it isn’t doing any good to the fruit.
This reminds me of the BBC comedy Keeping Up Appearances. In the tv show there was a matronly woman, by the name of Hyacinth. Her main concern in life is to maintain the illusion that she is well-bred and in touch with the upper crust of British society.
That’s why when her neighbor drives Hyacinth to her sister’s house in one early episode, she instructs her neighbor to park the car in front of a well-appointed home on one street, and after asserting it is her sister’s home, dashes to the door, then ducks around to the side, climbs a six-foot brick wall in her dress, heels, flowered hat and all, falls to the ground, brushes herself off and marches to her sister’s actual abode --- a rundown apartment building the next street over. Hyacinth according to Jesus is concerned about her “canopy,” the outward show.
But again, this lesson is not a personal, “we will know you are Christian” image instead, a grapevine is really a community --- many individual branches interconnected and intertwined, but all designed for the sole purpose of bearing fruit together.
While the individual branches are important, it’s the collective quality of the whole that determines whether the fruit will be labeled as excellent, mediocre or simply sold by the box. God, Jesus is suggesting, like any good winemaker, understands the need to control the canopy.
So, what does this mean for you and me? Well, the goal of canopy control among the vineyards of California is threefold:
We are to work on canopy management that makes picking and disease control relatively easy. One problem with a huge covering of branches and large leaves, is that it makes is difficult to see the fruit, hinders good air circulation and creates a problem for the future, getting access to pick the fruit.
So, one way to read this is that sometimes all that external paraphernalia, rules, accoutrements of the church get in the way --- not of growing the fruit --- but quality and access. Over the centuries churches have sometimes called this legalism. Our conventions, systems and traditions sometimes keep the world from seeing the fruit, and therefore unable to pick the fruit that it cannot see.
Now just remember Jesus is talking about a community here, not simply individuals. What this reminds us is that we grow in, with and under faithful communities, community is both critical but also one that we need to carefully prune. As we know, the world is full of people searching for the truth, for a sense of meaning for their lives. We have the love of God, by grace through Jesus Christ. The fruit is hanging lush from branches. But that message may be hidden by the very things we think should be the signs of growth, the showy and meaningless appearances of nonessential issues. Jesus called it, in another place using another metaphor, “hiding our light under a bushel basket.” The world doesn’t need shoots, leaves and branches; it needs fruit.
Another important component of canopy management is how we regulate the size and quality of the fruit. Sogg in commenting on the taste of the wine is telling us that “a huge crop buried under a dense thicket of vegetation translates into lousy wine.” There may be fruit, but God is concerned about the quality of the wine - God wants a superior product.
What does that mean for us? Perhaps it cuts to core of something I have struggled with loosely called “church growth.” Notice that Jesus doesn’t call the vine to growth, he calls it to fruit. Our mantra ought to be “church fruit.” When God takes the pruning shears to our life, or to our church, it’s not an issue of whether we are growing, but of what we are growing. Of course, there will be some fruit, but the larger issue is the quality of the fruit we are bearing; a sour grape is fruit, but it’s still sour.
But that leads to another aim in faithful community canopy control, striking a balance between growing leaves and growing fruit. Without shoots, leaves and branches, we can’t have fruit, particularly year after year. We are not people who cannot have a roof over our heads, and particularly here in South Texas some AC. It is within that faith life that the fruit grows. God wants us to get and have a life. God tells us not only to get a faith life, but to get “an abundant life.” But it must be a life under some care, a life that on one hand has some green growth, but also suited to render the fruit of the Spirit.
Now not to let ourselves completely off the hook, all this is accomplished by “abiding.” We can’t go it alone. Jesus says, “I am the vine, you are the branches.” God is the one who watches over the whole process. We are to abide in Jesus. If we go it alone, we’ll dry up, become so much dead wood. Sogg concludes that with proper canopy control, a winemaker can produce a wine that is a “friend to food.”
What Jesus is saying to his disciples is that with proper canopy control, they can produce fruit that is a “friend to the Table” to the altar.
What does that mean. Well, unfortunately for all of us we don’t have all the chapters of John in front of us. Careful readers would notice that chapter 15, our chapter today is a redactional mystery. Jesus, at the end of chapter 14, we are told just “concluded” his farewell discourse, with: “Rise, let us be on our way” (v. 31). However, instead of rising and proceeding on their way, today’s reading begins by recording another of Jesus’ “I Am” monologues that are peculiar to the Fourth Gospel. It is not until chapter 18 that Jesus and his disciples get up and go across the Kidron Valley to the garden.
So, why say “Rise up…” and not? Is this some type of Colombo moment with Jesus turning around just when ready to leave when “Oh, by the way…” to the guilty party? For me the location of this sudden interjection before rising reminds us of the location of these words, the upper room. In the Gospel of John, Jesus is saying these words around the table of bread and wine before Christ’s betrayal and subsequent trial and crucifixion. In other words, this is a kind of Jack and the Beanstalk loci where the vine represents the connection between creation and God.
Canopy management or “pruning” is not a massacre or for punishment, but so that the community of Jesus can be even more fruitful. Indeed, Jesus says that the pruning has already been accomplished and that those who remain have “already been cleansed” (v. 3).
Or to put it into our experience, when we gather around this table we not only get a taste of the fruit, we are “cleansed” --- so that we may go out there and produce even more fruit. As community at the table, tasked with judicious canopy management, we leave the table to share the message of Jesus Christ.
As people in faithful community it is important to be realistic in our assessment of our broken world, with its hatred and suffering. Yet, there's nothing to be gained, for example, by saying to a mother grieving the loss of her child, “Chin up, things will get better tomorrow.”
On the other hand, we Christians are too quick to condemn and thus rightly are pigeonholed as people who deny the fundamental goodness of all God's creation. We need a healthy balance. As vines forever attached to God by grace, let us be judicious in trimming what needs to be trimmed in our lives and community, yet let us not hide in fear in whom and what we abide trusting in the fruit of the vine. Amen.