Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit (John 15:5)

We’ve often holidayed in France. Sometimes we’ve flown, but most times we’ve driven down to the south coast, taken the ferry over and driven to wherever we were going. One of the things that’s most striking about certain parts of France are the vineyards and it hasn’t been entirely unknown for us to stop at one for a tasting. In these parts of France it seems that the whole countryside for mile after mile is one vast vineyard, the whole land bursting with fruit; each vine laden with ripening grapes. 

I’ve never been to Israel. Especially I’ve never been to Israel in the 1st Century. I’d need a TARDIS for that. I imagine, though, that parts of the country given over to producing wine in Jesus’s time were somewhat similar: fields filled with fruit-laden vines ripening in the sun and tended by the vinegrower. This is the imagery we have in these words of Jesus. God, the vinegrower, tending his vines in his vineyard and looking to produce a bumper crop. Jesus claims to be the true vine - the vine that fills this vineyard with its branches and tells his followers that they are those selfsame branches, meant to be laden with fruit ripening in the sun.

What are the fruits of the vine? What are the grapes that we, the branches of the one vine are supposed to produce? And how do we do that? Many years ago, when I was training and on my first attachment with a guy called John Miller I preached on this passage and I majored on this part of this verse - “Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit”. I think he felt I was overstating the abilities of human beings to make a difference in the world because the next week he came back with a sermon that majored on the next bit: “for apart from me you can do nothing”. 

I don’t disagree. What I have problems with is that sometimes I think we can get it into our heads that all we have to do in the world is sit tight and rely on God to do everything. We can get it into our heads that we are such weak, limited, flawed and fallible beings that there is nothing that we can do in the world to make it a better place. We can look at that part of this verse and focus on the “we can do nothing” bit and forget that it’s conditional on the “apart from me” bit. 

That’s an important thing. The thing is we, as a species, aren’t particularly weak and it’s very easy to overstate our limitations. You think we don’t make a difference in the world? Look around. Humanity has made a huge difference in the world. The problem is, we are flawed and we are fallible and sometimes the fruit we yield is not good fruit.

We are God’s creation and he has made us amazing beings. He has given us intelligence and curiosity that allow us to understand the laws of nature and how the world works. They’ve allowed us to develop medicines that cure terrible diseases; to invent devices that allow us to communicate with one another as never before; to feed people starving in famines half a world away. At the same time they have allowed us to develop weapons that can cause destruction and misery on an unprecedented scale; to spread hatred and vitriol as never before; to poison our seas with plastics and pollutants. We don’t always yield good fruit.

We are God’s creation and he has given us imagination and compassion and creativity. They’ve allowed us to create great works of art that have touched the hearts and minds of billions. They’ve allowed us to feel for the refugees who fetch up on the shores of Europe and for those caught up in wars in Syria and Yemen. They’ve allowed us to understand people in different parts of the world living lives very different from ours. And, through greed and selfishness, we have used our gift of creativity to find new ways to get rich at the expense of the poor; we have hardened our hearts to the truth that this country gets rich by selling the weapons that fuel the wars that disfigure this planet. We have exploited people in other parts of the world for cheap stuff. We don’t always yield good fruit.

Jesus is the true vine whose branches we are meant to be. We are meant to tap into his essence, his power, his vitality. More than anything else, though, we are meant to tap into the love of God in Christ. we are meant to call on that essence, that power, that vitality to make a difference in the world and the difference we are meant to make is informed by that love - the love  of God for humanity: the love that saw him plant himself here on Earth in the life of a human being like you and me to show us what we, as human beings are for. How we yield good fruit.

This is not rocket science. You make a difference in the world. I do. We all do. We all make a difference. It may not be a big difference but we affect the world we live in simply by being here and living in it: by interacting with the people around us, by influencing them. And none of us knows what the final consequence might be of any interaction we have with another person. It may seem that the fruit we yield is small, but who knows how it will ripen? Best leave that to God, I think.

So what fruit do we yield? Here’s the brilliant thing: we get to choose. We get choices every day of our lives. We can live in Christ and let Christ live in us: we can choose to allow the love of God for humanity to inform our words and our deeds. Or we can live for ourselves and and choose to allow the temptations we all experience to rule us. We can buy the cheap coffee, the cheap bananas, whatever because they’re cheap without ever troubling ourselves as to why they’re cheap; or we can buy the FairTrade stuff that means that farmers half a world away get to send their kids to school and have access to medical facilities. Which do you think yields good fruit? We can kid ourselves on that we care for refugees while insisting that they never set foot on our shores or we can look for ways to make sure that, when they do arrive, they are welcomed and get a decent place to live and a chance to forget the nightmares they’ve lived through. Which do you think yields good fruit?

This is what the Christian faith is all about. This is what the Gospel is all about. It’s about God offering the chance, in Christ, not to be bound to the temptations and weaknesses and flaws and fallibilities that can tie us down, but to find ourselves. To find that we are branches of a vine - a vine that is meant to yield good fruit. That we are meant to offer forgiveness in the face of hurt. That we are meant to offer compassion in the face of pain. That we are meant to offer peace in the face of hatred. That we are meant to offer hope in the face of darkness. That we are meant to offer love.

And we can. We do. And when we do we are truly children of God. We are truly made in his image because we shine with the light of Heaven. We yield good fruit.

Lord may we ever live in your son and may he ever live in us. May your love, revealed in him flow through us. May we bear good fruit

Preached at Gretna:St. Andrews Parish church