We Bear Fruit

As we follow the Gospel of John through Eastertide, we encounter a strange and fitting marriage of the glorious and the ordinary. Perhaps more accurately, we discover how to give glory through the ordinary. Throughout the three weeks of this series, the theme of giving glory or glorifying God arises again and again, which raises important questions for worship planners and leaders: “How do we give God glory? Do we reduce glorifying God to praise and thanksgiving, or is there something more to this glorifying business? Something that encompasses the whole gamut of our relationship with God? Something less shiny and yet more glorious?”

John 15 certainly invites us to reassess our ideas of what it means to glorify God by offering a simple agricultural metaphor—"I am the vine, you are the branches” (verse 5). Take a moment to look closely at a grapevine—not the grapes, not the dreamy pictures of rows upon rows of vines in a vineyard at sunset. Look closely at the vine and the branches holding the grapes. They are woody and rough, hearty enough not only to produce fruit but also to hold the grapes off the ground so they can ripen to maturity, especially when tended and pruned well. Yes, those branches produce delicious and nutritious fruit, but we are not called to be the fruit. We are called to give glory to the Vine by being branches that bear fruit, which raises so many possibilities for worship planners and leaders.

Consider first how you might depict the vine, branches, and fruit in worship. Perhaps you choose a digital image as a background for your slides that emphasizes not just the grapes but the vine and the branches that hold up the grapes. Maybe you want to bring vines, branches, and fruit (real or artificial) onto the chancel or altar. Don’t feel limited to just grapevines! What crops or plants are local to your area that might help you depict this call to hearty discipleship? If Jesus were teaching in your area today instead of ancient Palestine, what agricultural metaphor might he have chosen instead of grapevines and grapes?

We also don’t want to forget that we glorify God through the mundane and messy. Consider how you might emphasize this beautiful mix of glory and the ordinary. Perhaps you want to expand the offering as a presentation of our financial gifts, yes, but also a presentation of our vocations, careers, skills, and talents as an offering to God. Take time to lift up and bless the work we do with our hands—whether paid or volunteer, skilled or unskilled—as expressions of love, as fruit we bear as branches connected to the Vine.

Jesus reminds us that the Vine also prunes every branch so that it may bear fruit. How might you help your congregation encounter God’s holy gardening shears in worship? Creating space for confession and pardon certainly helps us uncover the ways that God is pointing us away from sin and toward all that is life-giving. Or you might consider incorporating a time of quiet meditation and prayer accompanied by simple instrumental music or a sung chorus from Taizé, inviting the gathered body to hold space with one another to listen for God’s gentle direction and pruning. However you choose to engage this text in worship, it is important to enliven and make real the metaphor Jesus uses while also avoiding any tendency to focus on what it means not to bear fruit. In other words, invite the congregation to experience the fullness of what it means to bear the fruit of love as branches connected to the Vine, so they know what it feels like, looks like—even tastes like!—to bear the fruit of kin-dom of God as individuals and as a community.