March 5, 2006
Phoning Home: Spiritual Discipline
John 15:1-11

The image of a vineyard is a common one in the Bible. To the ancient, near-eastern mind, this image conjures up a picture of grapes that are large and juicy. It conjures up pictures of tables spread with food, of fine wine, of plenty. But the same image is also used in other places in the Bible, perhaps first and foremost in the fifth chapter of Isaiah’s prophecy, to describe a lack of fruitfulness and productivity. It leaves us with this choice when we think about vines and vineyards. Will we be fruitful? Or will we be unfruitful?

Jesus brings this image to our attention here in the fifteenth chapter of John. He’s nearing the end of his life. The last supper is actually behind him. Many of the crowds that had gathered around him regularly have now dispersed. A lot of them abandoned him. He’s in this special setting with his disciples, his most intimate disciples, his closest friends. This is a part of what John refers to as Jesus’ farewell address. He looks out over the disciples and says, “I am the vine. You are the branches. Not one of you, not a single, solitary one of you, can bear fruit unless you remain in me.”

In this image of our being connected to or remaining in Christ, there are some significant lessons for our own spiritual development. Spiritual growth, to begin with, is a process. Notice verse 2. “He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit, and every branch that bears fruit, he prunes to make it bear more fruit.”

Vines, interestingly enough, grow everywhere in Israel. Some of them grow in very fertile soil, but others grow on the rocky mountains. Vines can grow and adapt in virtually every situation. That situation might affect their fruitfulness, the amount of fruit that they produce, but they can all, in spite of where they’re planted and where they’re growing, bear fruit.

Jesus, as he looks out over his disciples, sees, I think you’ll agree, a rather motley crew. As he looks at this collection of people, he no doubt thinks to himself, “You have been planted in varying types of soil. You’ve grown under different circumstances and conditions.” But, he says to his disciples, “Every one of you can bear fruit.” I cannot, quite frankly, help but think the same thing as I look out over this large congregation. Some of you have had the privilege of being planted and nurtured in the richest possible soil. You’ve had a wonderful family life; you’ve been reared and nurtured by good teachers. You’re life has been rather healthy and strong, and, at least, with relative ease.

But others of you haven’t had that privilege. You’ve been planted and you’re growing in the rocky soils in the middle of the mountains. You don’t know what it’s like to have had a wonderful upbringing. Just the thought of supporting parents in a nurturing Christian family is allusive to you—something that you envy when other people talk about it. Or you’ve had one obstacle after another, one issue, one obsession, one habit, one struggle. Your life, your growth, has taken place in extremely rocky soil. The good news is that all of us, regardless of where we’ve been planted, can produce fruit. And be careful to note that Jesus never compares one vine to the other. He doesn’t compare Peter and John and the rest of the disciples because that kind of comparative language is inappropriate in the spiritual life. In the same way, he doesn’t compare us to each other. He simply encourages us?all of us, regardless of who we are or where we’re planted, can grow and bear fruit.

But spiritual growth takes time. It doesn’t happen over night. It’s been said that it takes God 100 years to produce an oak tree. But he can fashion a squash in just a couple of months. Which would you rather be? It takes time. There are hurtles, there are obstacles, there are growth spurts. It’s also been said that when trees are growing, new woody fiber is actually added between the bark and trunk only about two or three months out of the year. The rest of the year is spent nurturing the new woody fiber that’s added just during that short period of time.

Our spiritual lives are the same way. There are some times with unbelievable bursts of growth and other times when we feel like we’re getting nowhere. If we don’t appreciate that spiritual growth is something we’re involved in over the long haul, that takes time and there are spurts, we’ll grow disappointed, we’ll hop from one experience to another looking for this key to unlock the mysteries of our lives or this incredible manifestation of God’s presence and lose our appreciation for the nitty, gritty growing process that is, in fact, what the Christian life is all about. It’s a process.

Jesus, in this image, also suggests to us—we can see it in verse 4?that spiritual growth takes place through remaining connected to the vine. If you remove a branch from the vine, it dies, it withers, it loses its capacity to bear fruit.

Have you ever felt like the Christian life is essentially impossible? Overwhelming? The demands of God are unrealistic? G. K. Chesterton once said that the Christian life has not been tried and found wanting, so much as it’s been found difficult and left untried. And yet Jesus has the audacity to say, in Matthew 11, “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Why the difficulty? Because we all too often try to live the Christian life on our own resources, in our own strength, and in our own power. It’s like the angry person who says, “I’m going to get over my anger if it’s the last thing I do!” Or the impatient person who says, “I’m going to be patient, today!” “I’m going to get over this habit, this addiction, this obsession, this issue, this struggle.” Now don’t get me wrong–there are all kinds of things you can do in life. You can do well at your job, you can write books, you can drive your car, you can clean your house, but you can’t bear spiritual fruit on your own.

Jesus needed to remain connected to his father. And so do we. Spiritual growth takes place through remaining connected to the vine. And that, my brothers and sisters, is where spiritual disciplines come in. Stay with me for just a moment. I want to make what I think is a crucial distinction here, and it’s a distinction between a law and a discipline. A law is a regulation or stipulation imposed from outside that you are required to observe. The speed limit. Getting your taxes in on time. And on and on and on. But a discipline is an activity that you choose to engage in because of the greater good that it will produce. So as much as I might dislike running at times, I do it because of the greater good that it will produce. That’s a discipline. It’s not a law. If you live here in the United States, you do not have to run every day. It’s a discipline.

There are laws in the Bible, no shortage of them. But have you ever noticed that praying isn’t one of them? It doesn’t say anywhere in the Ten Commandments, “You must pray.” It does in the Qur’an. The Qur’an instructs people to pray five times a day, tells them what to say, and in what direction to face. It doesn’t say that in the Bible. None of the Ten Commandments or other legal codes of the Bible say you have to fast, or meditate, or study. These aren’t laws that are imposed upon us leaving us with that guilty syndrome that we all have to over come: “Oh, I didn’t pray enough today.” “I’ve got to read the Bible ten more times.” “I’ve got to read so many Proverbs and the Psalms every day if I’m going to be righteous.” That’s a legal mentality. The disciplines are ways of staying connected. Jesus practiced them.

Look at some of these verses. Matthew 4:2, “He [that is Jesus] fasted forty days and forty nights.” 28 or 36 hours is a struggle enough for me. “And afterwards, he was famished!” I would imagine he was. Or this one: “Jesus withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place?he’s practicing solitude, separating, he did it all by himself. Or how about this one? “Jesus went up to the mountain by himself to pray.” Or, “In the morning,” (I don’t like this next phrase!), “while it was still very dark,” (I’ve often heard that there’s no such thing as a good morning). “Jesus got up and went to a deserted place and there he prayed.” How about this one from Luke: “Now during those days he went out to the mountain to pray, and he spent the night in prayer to God.” Jesus fasts, he prays, he practices solitude, he studies, he models the disciplined life.

Most of us, if we had the choice, would love to duplicate our Lord’s miracles. I’d love to take this bread and wine and be able to multiply them and produce enough to feed all of Cumberland County. There have been times when I’ve wished that I could pray over and raise someone who has died back to life. I’d love to be able to speak and hold thousands spellbound. I’d love to be able to discuss and debate with religious authorities who have even more training than I and be able to captivate them with my wisdom and learning. I’d love to do the wonderful things that Jesus did. But one of the reasons that he was able to do them is what he did in those little narrative phrases between all the miracles. Sometimes we let ourselves off the hook by saying such things as, “Well, he was God.” In fact, between all these miracles, he is praying. He is setting time aside to be still. He’s listening. He’s fasting. These are disciplines that he chooses to exercise because they are avenues through which the Spirit of God can work in his life. If he needed to do that, my guess is that I do, too.

It struck me when I was gone just a few weeks ago on a prayer retreat?this notion of the Lord’s burden being light, his yoke being easy. I came away from that week convinced that we spend far too much time and energy trying to overcome those things that trip us up and far less energy being in the presence of God so that he can bring those changes about. Instead of investing so much time and energy in tackling the evil that we struggle with or the temptation or the issue, we need to put ourselves into God’s presence and allow him to bring about that change that his Spirit does on his own. Growth in the spiritual life takes place when we stay connected to the vine. One of the ways that we do that, the primary way that we do that, is through practicing the spiritual disciplines. Like any relationship we are in, whether with friends, children, or spouse, we build intimacy through talking, listening, and sharing. Likewise with God. We come to know him better through prayer, contemplation, fasting.

Notice one additional item here that I’d like you to think about?spiritual growth is a process. Spiritual growth takes place through remaining connected to the vine. Let me just simply share with you that as we do this, spiritual growth knows absolutely no definite limit. Did you notice the wording here? It’s absolutely essential. In verse 2, Jesus says, “He removes every branch that bears no fruit, and every branch that bears fruit, he prunes to make it bear more.” How much more? There’s no limit. There’s no limit!

The closer you get to God, there’s still a step closer that you can take. Regardless of where we are on the journey, he’s not finished with any of us yet. You can know him better than you do today. You can be closer to him even than you were yesterday. If you’ve known him and been following him for thirty, forty, fifty years, or a month, the growing process never ends.

Don’t be what I call “Christian minimalists,” the kind of people who say, “Can I still do this and be saved?” That, frankly, is what I never quite understood about the whole eternal security issue, but that’s another matter. It seems odd to me when people say, “Can I do this and still be saved?” That’s like me saying, “Can I be an absolutely terrible husband and still be married?” That’s not the question. The right question is, “How close can I be to God?” “How much can I love him and experience his love?” That’s the question. And the biblical answer, I’m happy to tell you, is “There’s no limit.” “There’s no limit.”