fruitfulness

from my sermon on 2/21/10 from John 15:1-8, beginning sermon series on the 5 practices of fruitful congregations.

Fruitfulness. At Perkins School of theology, I was a part of the seminary singers. Each of us was given a white piece of cloth upon which to put a symbol of our faith and wear as a stole. You see the one I chose....it it from this morning's scripture where Jesus says I am the vine and you are the branches. I root it in the first words of the Hebrew Bible, In beginning, God Created....and it has places where I am being pruned...and thankfully there is some fruit....we find here the fruit of the spirit from Gal. 5.

Fruitfulness is a significant metaphor in the Bible. Listen.

Scriptures to be read in this order on Feb. 21

LYNN--From the book of our beginnings…

READER 1 God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it .

LYNN--From the wisdom literature from Psalm 1…
READER 2 Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers; but their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night. They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season
LYNN—and from Proverbs 11…
READER 3 …the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life
LYNN—from Matthew’s gospel…
READER 4 Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit.

LYNN—from Mark’s gospel…

READER 5 Other seed fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.” And he said, “Let anyone with ears to hear listen!

LYNN—from the letter to the Galatians…

READER 6 the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.

LYNN—from the very last book of our bible, the Revelation to John…

READER 7 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

From the first book of the Bible to the last, we were made to be fruit. And not just any fruit, but good fruit. This next week I will be at the Bd. of ORdained Ministry where we will interview candidates for ministry, including our own Abby and Jim. Let's be in prayer for them. Sometimes a candidate will say something like "I am really passionate about evangelism." We might ask them to describe how they have led someone to follow Christ or be converted. Sometimes, they may stumble around and not come up with a single example of ever doing evangelism. They just failed the fruit test. Jesus said they you shall be known by the fruit that you bear.

What kind of fruit are you producing? Not just as individuals, but also as community. I think we bear some good fruit at times....like this last week when 8 of us from this community of faith went to New Orleans to do home repair. Long after Katrina has faded from the headlines, the UMC is still there bringing hope to families. We worked on 3 houses. The one I was on involved putting down laminate flooring, installing baseboards, hanging doors, lots of finish work. On Ash Wednesday, we got to worship with Aurora UMC in Algiers, LA. The pastor came down from the pulpit and said, Thank you for being here. How far did the group from Glen Falls, NY, come? We drove 24 hrs. How far for the group from Midland, MI? We drove 2 days. How far from Austin? Nine hours.

It was amazing. We were all connected. All part of the vine and branches. As I was marked with the ashes on the forehead with the words, "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return," I was struck by the raspiness in my throat from all the saw dust. Later over supper I talked to the pastor, who is from Zimbabwe, by the way. He said, we have received so much from others, we need to give, so this summer we are going on a mission trip to South Carolina. We have plans to go to Haiti.

I am so proud to be part of this kind of church and fruitfulness.

I like it that Jesus says, Apart from my, you can do nothing. I need to hear this over and over again. I get exhausted when I try to do things in my own time, and power, and way. Jesus also says, that my Father is glorified in this that you bear much fruit, and so become my disciples. We can bear fruit because we are connected to the vine. We can bear fruit because God is fruitful.

I want to set up an analogy. I am probably only one of two people in the whole USA who doesn't have an iPhone. I am amazed at how profilic they are. Everywhere I go, I hear something like this: I wonder what the temperature is....there's an app for that....at Home Depot in New Orleans looking for sheet rock screws there was a sign, "Can't find the tool or part...there's an app for that"....what was the UT tennis team outcome...there's an app for that. I found out that app stands for application. With the iPhone has come an outpouring of creativity, of fruitfulness with all of the applications.

God is like that. You are having trouble in your marriage. The Lord God of the Universe says, "There an app for that." You suffer from depression; God says, "there's an app for that." You struggle with addiction issues; yep, God says, "There's an app for that." Big problems like Haiti; there's an app for that too.


Even when a sad person flies a plane into an IRS building here in Austin, God says, "there's an app for that." I was flying into Austin Thursday evening watching that on the airport monitors. The next day I read in the papers that there happened to be a window contractor who was driving by in his pickup with a 20' foot ladder right after the tragedy. He stopped, set up his ladder and got 5 people out of the building. The Travis Co. emergency responders were doing a training right across the street from the building at that exact time. All of a sudden, it was no longer a training but an actual rescue.

I was reading in the fine print of the article that the wife of the man who flew the plan was named Sheryl Housh. Oh no! Sheryl was the first person I hired at St. John's to be our music director. We worked together 6 years. She has served as substitute organist here at this very organ. I read her statement the next day. It was so full of grace, of forgiveness, of healing, of faith. Yes, even here, God has an app for that. Even in the most barren of soils and siturations, God is able to produce fruit.

What fruit is God producing in you as an individual ...as a community? The good news I have to share is that you were made to produce good fruit. Amen.