Wadhams United Church of Christ
2569 County Route 10, Wadhams, NY 12993
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Sermon by Steve Smith Order of Service
How Wild the Vine
April 27, 2008
Prepare to have your world turned upside down again. Just when you thought you could come to church again without having another weight-bearing joist pulled out from under your pew, I’m about to shake your world again. This will probably be incredibly stressful for you, so we’ve prepared some coffee and comfort food to help soothe your nerves after the initial shock. I know I was pretty shook up when I read this, but then I used to have some preconceived ideas that I knew what people were talking about when they were referring to ancient professions, with one profession in particular claiming that they were the oldest.
I put a pretty big dent in that argument several weeks ago when I uncovered evidence that shepherding as a vocation dated to the days when our pre-human ancestors crawled out of their caves and began to domesticate the wild animals that provided milk, and hides, and meat. Now, I’m ready to deliver the knock-out blow. Whatever you might have believed, I feel compelled to correct you and convince you once and for all that there may well have been an even older way of making a living, and it had to do with grapevines.
I can tell by your stunned silence that this is a completely new and different way of looking at your world. As you regain your composure and allow your brains to begin to adapt to this new reality, allow me to state some of the evidence that is redefining the way we look at the world around us. Scholars have theorized for decades that one of the necessary steps in humanity’s progression from brutish cro-magnons (you can recognize them by their stylish simian ridges, and they have been featured in Geico’s caveman commercials) to today’s ultra-evolutionized super-smart human species is the ability to develop and maintain a steady source of food and drink. So while the domestication of animals was a huge step, the domestication of wild fruits and vegetables was just as significant.
I did extensive research on the topic, which admittedly comprised a couple of internet connections and comic book versions of scholarly works with a lot of difficult words and complicated explanations. Anyway, their unanimous conclusion was that the grapevine has been a part of life in the Middle East since people first thought to record their lives and deeds for posterity, or what we now refer to as “the beginning of recorded history.” See? I told you they used difficult words and complicated explanations. Since the beginning of recorded history, then, there have been references to grapevines and the skilled people who tend to this finicky fruit. I used the phrase “finicky fruit” because apparently you can’t just put a grapevine in the ground on an impulse, and expect it to give you fruit without a second thought.
No, from everything I read about the subject, you have to choose the location of a grapevine with considerable care. It needs just the right amount of exposure to the sun, or else too much sun will cause it to wither, or too little sun will yield puny grapes that don’t taste very good. On top of that, it needs just the right amount of moisture and drainage. If it gets too much water, it will essentially drown, and if the drainage isn’t right, the roots will rot, or something horrible like that.
When Jesus drew his picture of the vine for his followers, he knew what he was talking about. The vine was grown all over Palestine, and had been grown there for hundreds, if not thousands of years. In fact, when Moses sent spies into the Promised Land to see what it was like, the spies came back with one bunch of grapes that was so huge that it took two strong guys to hoist it and carry it back into camp. The climate there is peculiarly suitable for the growing of the fruit, with the country’s bright sunshine and the heavy dew of the late summer nights. The best location of a vineyard so that it can take advantage of that sunlight is on the gentle slopes of a hillside. The slope also allows for the proper drainage.
It is a plant which requires a great deal of attention, or fussing over, if you’re going to get it to yield its best fruit. The vines require several years of watchful cultivation before they bear fruit, and a vineyard calls for harder and more regular labor than any other form of agriculture. When the master or mistress of the vineyard wasn’t fussing over the vines, they had to keep a watchful eye out for the wild beasts and the conniving thieves who wanted to help themselves to this luscious fruit. So they built watchtowers out of the stones they hacked and hewed out of the ground or the hills around them, and from these vantage points they had to keep watch for wild boars, or foxes, or birds, so that they wouldn’t lose their precious crop to hungry or thieving marauders.
It’s quite an undertaking, which is why people like me are forbidden to come anywhere close to a vineyard, especially if I’m carrying pruning shears or anything sharp. The pruning and training don’t stop after the vine matures, of course. For as long as that vine continues to produce fruit, the vinedresser will continue to prune and fuss to ensure that it continues to yield good fruit. Since we live in apple-growing country, you might have noticed a similar process taking place in the orchards around us. When the apples are in the process of maturing, the owner of the orchard (or someone who knows apple trees) goes around and marks the branches that don’t have any fruit on them.
As the growing season draws to a close, the skilled laborers go around to prune those branches, because they’re taking up valuable space while producing nothing for the grower. The same is true for the vinedresser of the grapevine. But while the branches from the apple tree can be used in a cooking fire, and are actually prized by some because of the sweet aroma of the burning apple wood, the branches of a grapevine are literally worthless when it comes to a cooking or heating fire. The wood of the vine is so soft and pulpy that it can’t sustain any heat. The only thing it’s good for is to burn in a quick-flash bonfire, and then spread its ashes around to serve as fertilizer fodder for the next growing season.
Speaking of ashes and fertilizer fodder, that brings us to the application section of this spell-binding treatise on the care and treatment of vines. Or was that mind-numbing treatise? I can never keep the two straight. Anyway, if you need some fertilizer fodder, please let me know, and I can provide you with any number of my old sermons. They’re excellent for quick-flash bonfires, and they grow strong vines in at least three different ways, since the aesthetically pleasing sermon traditionally has three points. I can’t promise, however, that the aroma of my burning messages will be particularly sweet, at least according to my editor-in-chief.
While we might like to think of ourselves as that ultra-evolutionized and super-smart species, I have observed a few select members of modern society who I believe have had their simian ridges surgically removed. Unfortunately, these people tend to gravitate toward positions of power and influence, and not just in the political realm, either. They have had to adopt the bare minimum of social skills, so that they can behave in a disarmingly civilized fashion while they are plotting how they can relieve you of your accumulated wealth and persuade you that it’s for your own good that they are systematically dismantling the way of life that you have grown accustomed to.
While these folks might serve the greater purpose of helping the rest of us feel morally and intellectually superior, their brutish approach to the taking of wealth and political power makes it delightful to ponder the kinds of rewards they might reap come judgment day. Therein lies something of a problem. While most of us have been socialized not to assert ourselves in such an aggressive fashion, the reality is that there is something of the untrained vine in all of us. All of us want to have our own way, at least some of the time, if not all of it. A good many of us really do believe that the world would be a better place if the majority of the people in it would only think the way we do.
When we go shopping for a presidential candidate, we’re not looking for someone who is going to challenge us, or stretch us, or occasionally even contradict the basic values or beliefs we hold dear in life. No, we’re looking for someone who thinks the way we do. In many ways, we are just as finicky as the vines that the vinedresser spends his or her life training to the pole. Here, I’m not just talking about politics or the megalomaniacs who run the corporations which make the world go around. I’m talking about the day-to-day lives we lead, where we prefer to do things our own way.
We prefer to think for ourselves, to make our own decisions about issues great or small, to define God to fit our own personalities, our own likes and dislikes, and our own way of looking at the world. We feel confined and restricted if someone suggests that we may want to consider looking at our world or our God in a way that is completely new and different to us. We feel threatened when someone disagrees with us, and we often feel put out when things don’t go the way we expected them to or even wanted them to. At some level, we even bristle at the notion of God wanting to constrain our wild impulses, and we chafe at the idea that there is anything about us that isn’t perfect and downright adorable.
I can’t speak for you, but I prefer to spend my life on an even keel, or at least in a downhill mode, so I tend to grumble when it seems like my path keeps taking me on an uphill course. Sure, the grapevines might do well on those tiered slopes of the Middle East, but I keep thinking that doing the right thing should somehow be easier or more rewarding. When someone is critical of something I’ve done or said, I tend to get defensive and even angry. When someone respectfully suggests that I might make better use of my spare time than staring out the window or drooling into my lap, in my mind I question their motives. When my doctor tries to convince me yet again that exercising is in my best interests at many different levels, I’m mentally rehearsing my compelling argument that the world needs couch potatoes, too.
So while I’m busy convincing myself that I’m smarter than all the people around me who have had their simian ridges surgically removed, and that no one has the right to tell me what to do with my life, I have to admit to being finicky. I have to admit that if I threw off the habits and disciplines that help make me fruitful and useful to God, that I would lead such a self-indulgent life that I would become essentially useless. The vagabond tendency within me that wants to wander aimlessly through life, if left unchecked, would result in an unfulfilling and increasingly stressful life.
I know, it sounds appealing: getting up at a different time every day, eating whenever I felt like it, leaving the chores for a time when I felt inspired to do them, living to follow the impulse of the moment. But when I meet up with people who are living like this, I can feel the weight of their boredom. Their lack of initiative is troubling, and I can’t help but wonder if they’re depressed. It raises questions about the meaning, the purpose, and the value of a life lived in such a way. No, if we want to live fruitful lives, we have to crawl out of our modernized caves and start applying ourselves. If we want to be fruitful in the use of our time and energy, we have to look beyond ourselves for meaning and purpose. If we want to be useful to God and to others, we have to look at something bigger than our own needs, our own designs, and our own plans. We might even have to ask God how God wants us to use this day and this life that we’ve been given as a gift from above.
Order of Service April 27 , 2008 Back to Sermon
"NC" refers to The New Century Hymnal, The Pilgrim Press (1995)
Welcome, Announcements, Joys and Concerns
A Candle for Peace NC #591 (vs. 2)
Call to Worship
Leader: God of heaven and earth, surround us with your love. Strengthen us with your grace.
People: Spirit of truth, speak to us in this hour. Let your words soak into our lives.
Leader: Let your Spirit flow through our very being. Open our hearts and minds to hear your words and to live your love.
People: Help us to live these words we have heard so often: to love, to keep your commandments, to live in your Spirit. Guide our steps that we may be your disciples.
Leader: God of love and mercy, be with us in this hour as we express our love for you in our prayers and praises, our songs and our offerings, and in our very lives given in love.
Hymn NC #433 In the Bulb
Responsive Prayer
Leader: God, you are the gardener, gently cultivating the soil of our lives.
People: Like trees thirsting for water, our hearts long for you, O God.
Leader: Thank you for all you give us, for your Spirit who nurtures us, bringing life and strength.
People: In your presence we find life. Nourish us in this time of worship. Strengthen our arms and encourage our hearts for the tasks you lay before us.
Leader: God the vine-grower, we do not always want to be pruned. But we know sometimes it is necessary for new growth.
People: Help us to trust your care, O God, and open our eyes to see the vision of new growth which you promise.
Leader: We pray that we might give ourselves completely to you, losing our fear and trusting your love.
People: Guide us as we seek to train our branches to grow in harmony with the true vine, Jesus.
Leader: May we bear the fruits of your Spirit, O God, gentleness, kindness, and peace.
People: May we be gentle and forgiving, turning away from anger, working for peace, and rejoicing in each others gifts.
Leader: Help us to go forth, showing your love to all who search for you.
People: Speak through us that our lives and our words may proclaim your good news.
Pastoral Prayer, Lords Prayer
Hymn NC #459 Come O Fount
Ps 86:1-10, Numbers 13:17-25, Galatians 5:22-26
Sermon How Wild the Vine
Offering, Doxology, Dedication
Hymn NC #466 Unto the Hills
Benediction
Leader: Blessed God, let your love flow through us.
People: As your children, strengthened by your Spirit, we offer our love and our lives to your service.
Leader: Let your love in us be an instrument of peace, an expression of hope, a sign of your presence in the world. Go now with the blessings of God upholding you and giving you peace.
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