Every year round about March, my four-year old starts asking me if we can visit the pumpkins after school. Every day, beginning in March, I’ll tell her, not yet, Scooby. But it won’t be long. Counting on my four year old to not keep track of long. And then I change the subject. But tomorrow, after school, that all changes! Sisters and brothers, I’ve got a new answer for my daughter ready. “Hey, let’s go and wander, friend, the pumpkins have arrived.”
And we just might sing this song. (Sing it with me!) The pumpkin on the vine, the pumpkin on the vine. I picked the one that ways a ton and that’s the one that’s mine.
And, then, as if on cue, our scriptures today are all full of vines, too! Did you see it? They’re winding up and down and everywhere. All around the verses. Vines for wine, sure, but close enough. It’s the grape pumpkin, Charlie Brown! And the vines in our scriptures are a symbol for the life of God’s people.
As a picture and symbol, these vines are not your ordinary vines. This vine, says the psalmist, was rescued from Egypt and planted in the soil by God. God prepared the ground for it, and the vine took root and filled the land. The next thing you know, says the psalmist, the vine has covered the mountains and the tall cedar trees. Back in grad school, in North Carolina, I learned about kudzu, the vine that ate the South! It grows on, well, everything. So too, says the psalmist, is God’s vine meant to be. Flourishing, blossoming, reaching out to the Sea. The vine made a home and bore good fruit in the land that God promised.
But then that vine’s life was turned on its head. The Assyrians and later Babylonians attacked and dug up the vine and planted it in a land far from home. In the blink of an eye, God’s people went from rulers to refugees. Sent into exile. On quiet nights, they’d tell you they could hear the music from the parties of the people who had stolen and now lived inside their homes. And there is no going back from tragedy like that. Motivational speakers will tell you to bloom where you’re planted but it’s easier said than done and not all soil’s the same. God’s people began to wonder if God had forgotten what God had planted and begun.
And sometimes this happens for you and me, too. Sometimes the departure of a thing from what we first imagined or experienced leaves God’s people or a person wondering if God remembers, sees, or cares.
But God did not forget that wandering vine. And the vine was returned in time to its home. The good land prepared for God’s people. It wasn’t the same as going back. They were the guests of other nations, like renting the home you used to own, but the land kept them connected to the promise.
And maybe you know what that feels like, too. To be back in a place, or a relationship, or a body, but it doesn’t feel like it used to. It can feel like you no longer recognize the truest parts of yourself. Like the story you always told about who you were and what made you special is suddenly no longer the last word about you. It turns out, the roots of a transplanted vine, even back home, carry the shock of once being pulled up.
The life that comes next for the vine can go in one of at least two different ways. One way is the way of never again. Never again names the way of clinging to and control. It is the way of mistrust of God and others. Never again is the way of self-determination that forgets that one was planted by a loving Gardener in the first place. It’s the story Jesus tells in our gospel about a people who are trying to do religion without relationship with God. A people for whom maintaining the status quo is all that really matters. Never again is to close off forever your heart to things like the vulnerability that love requires.
But Never Again is not the only possible response for the vine that’s been replanted. While in exile, a part of the vine called Israel discovered an amazing thing: that even though they were not where they were meant to be, God was with them. God’s being with them raised a profound question that St. Paul asked again, centuries later: can anything separate us from the love of God? (Spoiler: his answer is no!) And, if God is with us, who can be against us? This response remembered that God was with the vine, that their life was in the vine that made them one, which God would never forsake or forget. If you’ve ever wondered where life with God could begin in spite of all the turns you’ve traveled and taken, the answer is not far off and away. But very near you. Even here. Right here and right now. God is with you. This is the way of Trust and Abiding.
That’s when we remember that the vine is a symbol for the life of God’s people. In other words, met by the miracle of God’s presence with you, you and I begin to sense and rightly see that the people beside us are miracles, too. Brought together to share the new life of our Savior as one people. By the mercies of God, we have been grafted not only to God but to one another. Jesus says, “I am the vine, you are the branches. Abide in me. If you love me, you will love one another.”
Sisters and brothers, today begins our season of stewardship, and the s word triggers all kinds of things for all kinds of people. Cynicism, sometimes. So, from the very first step, I want to be clear: we give to God and each other as the people of God because we seek to love one another, and because God loved us first. And we love not only one another, but the friend and the stranger. What dear friend among us did not start as a stranger? One of my best friends started out as a guy I didn’t know who wore brown socks pulled up all the way with his shorts. You were a stranger to someone! Israel was a stranger in Egypt. God asked them to be generous toward the unknown other, to help them remember that, once upon a time, they were the stranger, too. So our theme, Plenty Good Room, which we’ll unpack over the coming weeks, is a prayer to be generous in the very same way. As a way of remembering. As a way of thanksgiving. As a way of living toward the new and bright possibilities to which we believe God is calling us here at St. James. We’re praying to add new space and grow staff. At some point a third service, not to get big but to make sure love can be small. Which is to say personal. And intimate. First name and true. Both now and ten years from now! To do this will require generous hearts. And we know we have some generous hearts. And we believe that the life of the vine is something that only happens together, as we live our belonging and share ourselves. We’re not interested in the way of never again, rooted in seeds of mistrust of God and other people. Instead, give us Jesus, and the way of whole-hearted trust and abiding. The conviction that God is with us taking material shape in our hearts and our lives so that our life together might be blessed to be a blessing. Making known the Good News of God in ways that human hands can hold.
Sisters and brothers, look up! The Gardener will never forget the vine he has planted. But, instead, God is with us. In the midst of us. And ahead of us. With one another. Look at the people grafted beside you.
Hey, let’s go and wander, friends. Thanks be to God, the true vine is here.
Amen.
