“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.”
- Jesus (John 15:1-2)
As a way of decompressing after Holy Week and Easter (which happens to be a pretty busy and hectic time for pastors, just sayin’), Carol and I took a few days off to go hike in the mountains of North Carolina. We’re trying to explore lots of new places in this state we have called home for about 15 months. This was our first significant foray westward.
We visited a couple of state parks (Pilot Mountain and Hanging Rock), where we took in some breathtaking views and had some breathtaking hikes (The latter were, literally, breathtaking).
On one of our hikes, the trail twisted onward and upward (remember: breathtaking). But the entire mountainside was charred from a recent fire. Everywhere we looked, leaves were brown, and the burned-out remains of trees and bushes littered the landscape. I later learned that there had been a “prescribed burn” on that mountain earlier in the month.
As it turns out, “prescribed burns,” while seemingly wreaking havoc, have a very beneficial purpose. They allow for fuel (i.e., deadwood and trash shrubs) to be burned in a controlled manner, rather than let a random lightning strike or careless camper start something that can’t be controlled. According to the U.S. Forest Service, some of the benefits of prescribed fire include reducing the stress of overcrowding, improving the habitat for threatened or endangered species, recycling nutrients back into the soil, promoting the germination of some species of trees, and encouraging the growth of wildflowers and other plants.
In other words, let fire clear out an area, and in the process it aids in the repopulation of that same area, in a healthy way.
Alas, I stray from my main point. Back to the hike.
There were a few places along the trail where I saw new growth arising from beneath the ashes (which confirms the explanation of the USFS above). The fresh new-growth green of spring, contrasting against the black remnants of the fire, makes for a dramatic image.
As I thought about the new growth arising from the ashes, a biblical image came to mind for me. I thought of Jesus’ teaching about the vine and the branches, in the 15thchapter of the Gospel According to John. Jesus talks about how unfruitful branches are cut off the vine, in order to allow the vine to prosper; furthermore, even healthy branches are pruned (i.e., cut back, often dramatically), so that they can be even more fruitful. It made me think that a prescribed burn is a kind of large-scale pruning-by-fire.
The thing is, Jesus wasn’t really talking about a grapevine, any more than I’m really talking about prescribed burns. What is relevant here, is that pruning or clearing out are ways that God shapes us and helps us to bear the kind of fruit we are designed to bear. There are seasons in our lives when we experience loss. Some of those times (not all of them, mind you) we might consider as God's way of pruning us, to help us get rid of things that hinder our own fruitfulness as disciples of Christ. Whether the image is one of cutting or burning, the relevant truth is that there are things that need to be removed from us if we’re going to bear fruit.
Weeds choke out the good plants; so we need to get rid of the weeds. What are the weeds that choke out the gospel in our lives? Pruning by any method is not pain-free. Cutting hurts. Burning away hurts. Pulling off hurts. But it's gotta be done if we're going to be fruitful disciples.
Jesus said, “Thus you will know them by their fruits.”(Matthew 7:20) Paul says, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22-23) If what Jesus says is true (and I know for a fact that it is), then I want to bear the kind of fruit that Paul describes. That's the kind of tree I want to be.
The process of bearing fruit may not be easy, because some form of pruning is required in every season. And usually it hurts.
But the result is beautiful.
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Lord, help me to remove from my heart those things that inhibit the growth of the gospel of your love. Lord, I want to bear fruit – good fruit. Amen.
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