I AM the Vine

Scripture Lessons: Isaiah 5: 1-7 and John 15: 1-8 Sermon Title: I AM the Vine Preached on July 18, 2021 Have you ever heard of Cecil Collins? I learned about him last Tuesday from a Marietta Daily Journal article about Evander Holyfield. Evander Holyfield, world heavyweight champion boxer and Atlanta resident, mentioned him when talking with Cobb Chamber of Commerce Chair John Loud last Monday. Apparently, Cecil Collins is a white boy who Evander Holyfield just couldn’t beat. Holyfield was 10 or 11 the first time Cecil Collins beat him, and after the fight he went home crying ready to never box again. He said, “My mamma let me cry for about two minutes. After that, she asked, “What happened?” “I lost, and I quit,” he answered. Every kid goes through something like this, so every parent has been through this with their kids. Maybe what the kids don’t know is that at least some of the time we’d like to let you quit so we don’t have to drive you to practice, but we can’t let you do that, so Mrs. Holyfield made him go back to boxing. However, then Collins beat him again. This time it was his coach who talked him out of quitting. I guess Holyfield now knew better than to go straight to his mom, so he went to his coach instead. His coach said, “[Why are you quitting? You haven’t lost.] You lose when you stop. [You lose when] you don’t do it [any] more. Setback paves the way for comeback.” That’s good advice. Obviously Hollifield listened, and what I want to point out thinking of Cecil Collins, is that Holyfield grew up to beat not just Cecil Collins but 44 out of the 57 he faced as a professional boxer. He is today the only professional fighter to win the heavyweight championship four times surpassing the record set by Muhammad Ali, making him one of the greatest boxers of all time, and yet he also got pruned. Expect to be pruned. That’s one important point that this passage from the Gospel of John makes. Expect to be pruned and don’t mistake being pruned from being cut from the vine. “I AM the vine,” he said. This is the seventh sermon in a series of eight focusing on what Bible scholars call the “I AM” statements of Jesus. This is the seventh statement that Jesus uses to describe himself: “I AM the vine,” he said, “and you are the branches.” Even the branches that bear fruit must be pruned so that they can bear more fruit, and how important it becomes that we be able to tell the difference between being pruned and being cut off from the vine. Do you know anyone who has trouble telling the difference? If you know me than you know someone. How many times have I hit a bump in the road professionally and been ready to quit? How many times have I made a mistake and been too embarrassed to apologize, so I wanted to just quit on a person? How many times have I suffered and wondered if God had quit on me? We parents all make fun of our kids who sometimes act like it’s the end of the world when they’re disappointed. They don’t make the team and they act like their life is over. Someone breaks their heart, and they can’t leave their bedroom. They act like this because that’s how it feels, and it feels that way to their parents too, but enough bad things have happened to their parents for them to realize that bad things are normal. All the time bad things are happening to us. Day after day we must let go and move on. It’s not all tragic for every branch that bears fruit must be pruned to bear even more, and just because some parts of us are dying that doesn’t mean we are dying. That doesn’t mean we have to quit. That doesn’t mean it’s all over. A book I love is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It was rejected by publishers 121 times and has since sold 5 million copies worldwide, and this is just one of many books that was famously rejected to go on to huge success. Author of Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling, who has sold 450 million books was rejected by her first 12 publishers. Stephen King threw his first book in the garbage, rejecting it himself. It was then rejected 30 times before being picked up by Doubleday Press and selling over 1 million copies. Then there’s Michael Jordan. Some say he’s the greatest basketball player who ever lived, but did you know that Michael Jordan didn’t make the high school varsity basketball team the first time he tried out? Now he says, “[That’s when it all started.] It all started when coach Pop Herring cut me [from the team].” After not making the team Jordan went home to cry, but years later, now a superstar on Jay Leno in 1997 he said, “Everybody goes through disappointments, it’s how you overcome those disappointments. I just wasn’t good enough. [Today I know that was] the best thing that could have happened to me: to get cut, because [getting cut] made me go back and get caught up with my skill level.” Now, I’m not the Michael Jordan of preaching, but I assure you, I’ve gotten better too, and so much of my improvement is a result of my failure. I was in a club for aspiring preachers in college and the club sponsor took me to the local retirement home to preach one Sunday morning. On the way back to campus the only good thing he could think to say was “you preached for 17 minutes. That was about the right amount of time.” I’ve been doing it like that ever since. Did you know that it’s OK to fail? That it’s good to be pruned? That you weren’t born perfect and so you must get better every day and every hour. Some of us go through life so afraid of criticism that we let it break us. Others of us go through life so hungry for praise that we avoid ever taking a risk. The parable makes this much plain: getting pruned is a part of life. Getting pruned helps us bear more fruit. Getting pruned doesn’t mean we’re cut off from the vine. “I AM the vine” he said. And do you know what else he said? “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” “I will be with you, even until the end of the age.” And according to the Apostle Paul: “Nothing will separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Now that doesn’t mean you’re perfect. That doesn’t mean you don’t have more to learn. That doesn’t mean you should keep your car keys forever. That doesn’t mean you don’t have anything to apologize for. You do. I do. But we can apologize because doing something bad doesn’t mean we’re bad. Making a mistake doesn’t mean I’m a mistake. Failing a test doesn’t make me a failure. A rejection doesn’t disqualify me. It certainly doesn’t disqualify me from being loved. Who reminds you of that? Good parents remind kids of that all the time. Evander Holyfield’s mom wouldn’t let him quit. He got beat twice by Cecil Collins. After their third fight when Holyfield one, his mama gave him permission to quit boxing if he wanted to, but he kept going. Who has helped you keep going? Today you have a purple ribbon. Grapes are purple and we’re blessed with people who help us produce more of them. When we are pruned, we produce more. When we remember that we’re connected to the vine we produce more. Who has helped you remember that you’re still connected to the vine? I’d like for you to write their name on your purple ribbon, because it’s a miraculous thing they’ve done for us, isn’t it? Of course, there’s a time to quit. Some people in my life have helped me quit certain things. I was never going to be a heavy weight boxing champion. I was never going to make the Atlanta Braves. But I once tried to quit basketball in the middle of a game. I was 10 or 11 and I couldn’t make a shot. My Dad pulled me over to the side and said, “Did you know that the best players in the NBA miss half their shots?” That’s true. Did you know that while Babe Ruth hit 714 home runs, he struck out over 13,000 times? Did you know that the first time Abraham Lincoln ran for political office he came in 8th? I’ve wanted to quit being a preacher a time or two and I’m very thankful to those people who wouldn’t let me. I told you already that I once preached a sermon where the only good thing about it was that it was brief. If you can’t be good, be brief, my preaching professor once said. I also once preached a good sermon and a mentor of mine said that she thought it had made God smile. That compliment makes me tear up just thinking of it, and had I quit I never would have heard it. Had I not been pruned I never would have heard it either. “I AM the vine,” he said, and being pruned once or twice does not cut us off from him. Who has reminded you of that? The whole nation of Israel was reminded of that by the Psalms and the Prophets. We read about it from our First Scripture Lesson: a vine who yielded wild grapes. This vine represents a people who failed. They failed to measure up, they turned away from who they were created to be. God expected justice from them but saw bloodshed instead. God expected righteousness, but instead heard the cry of the innocent suffering at the hands of the powerful. What the prophet is saying here is that the people deserved to be cut off. Not just pruned, but torn down, pulled up, and tilled under. What vineyard owner preserves a vine who produces wild grapes? Who sows bloodshed and abuses the weak? But our faith is not about what we deserve. Our faith is about a grace greater than all our sin. Who has reminded you of that? Who has remined you that by being pruned, you might still bear good fruit? That through hardship we might find a better way to be. That while he had reason to, Christ has not given up on His people yet, and by his grace we are invited to try and try and try again. Who has helped you remember that his love for you is as resilient as that vine in the yard that just won’t die and keeps coming back? Write their name down on your purple ribbon and give thanks to God for them. Amen.