April 28, 2024: Tending the Vines and Branches

Old Testament Reading:  Genesis 2:15
Gospel: John 15:1-8                

On Friday mornings I try to Zoom into a yoga class for 45 minutes before I head off to teach high school English. It’s a bit funny that the instructor actually lives across the street from me and his wife zooms in too - from another room in their house. So as I quiet my mind and stretch my body, I often glance towards their house to think of how close they are despite the technology involved. This yoga class is a bit slow for me, I like more of a vinyasa flow where this is more quiet, meditative stretches.  As I found my mind wandering this Friday, looking out my window toward Killington Mountain, the sun shone in with full force and I could feel more than hear God saying, “It’s good to slow down, pause and feel the warmth of my sun/sun.” Turning my head towards the other window, I saw that the hibiscus was just about to bloom. In fact, when I walked into that same room to write my sermon yesterday morning, a beautiful red flower greeted me, reminding me to say my most common and simple prayer “Wow, thanks God!” 

As I get older and now no longer have the extreme busyness of life with young children, I am slowly, probably too slowly, learning the value of pausing. The yoga class that feels too slow is actually just what I need because it allows the time and space to focus on God. In fact, in those slow Friday morning sessions, I am often meditating on the scriptures and finding kernels for my sermons. If it was a more active class, I may not have the time for that worshipful mindset, the time to pause and thank God for the miracle of the sun that warms us or the beauty of a single flower that bursts forth in all its glory, even if I am the only one to see it. 

In our Genesis scripture this morning we have just one simple line, yet that line is so instructive of our role in God’s creation, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to till it and keep it.” Tilling the soil involves digging or raking it up to loosen it, to let moisture and air in, working in the necessary ingredients of nitrogen, phosphorus, and compost to allow the seeds to germinate, to encourage root growth and to discourage weed growth. It is like massaging the earth to get it to relax and grow. God gave us this purpose on earth, because every creature needs a purpose. To feed ourselves, we need to massage or take care of the earth. 

How many of you have spent time with your hands in the dirt growing things? There is an almost primal satisfaction in the physical labor of knees and hands on the dirt as the earth supports our bodies, shovels or trowels in hand as we rake that earth, carefully protecting the helpful worms we uncover who have their own work to do in taking care of the plants and soil. Inserting those seeds and watching them grow, then later eating the harvest of peas, spinach, corn, squash, berries, apples etc. is so satisfying. These days it is far easier but maybe not better to go to the grocery store and buy any produce in any season. And while I know most of us enjoy that flexibility, I think we are missing that connection to the earth, that connection to God’s creation. 

The other part of this brief Genesis scripture is that we need to “keep” the Garden- what does keeping God’s creation look like? 

Native Americans have a tradition of thanking the spirit of the plants and animals as well as the creator before they harvest them. In doing so, they maintain the connection to the earth and an attitude of gratitude. This results in a conservation mindset. Being closer to the earth, they know what it needs to remain in balance and they can see when it is not in balance. 

I think in asking us to “keep” the garden we are being reminded that we are caretakers of God’s creation - all of it from plants, animals, rivers, oceans, and sky to people. Sadly, we are not always good keepers of our planet. While God created the planet to sustain us we, as humans, have forgotten that sustainability works both ways. Our work at “keeping” the garden is to “keep” it going, to sustain it, just as it sustains us, not to use it all up and then move to the next place. 

To keep God’s creation, we have to remain close to it, we have to listen to it. Driving in cars, flying in airplanes, living in comfortable homes with running water, electricity and heat in villages or cities with sidewalks, it is easy to become disconnected from the earth. We do not have to put our hands in the soil or dry or can the harvest to eat, so other than complaining about rising prices at the grocery store and noting that the rivers and skies are not as clear or deep as they used to be, we can disconnect a bit from God’s creation. Some might even say that if we believe, God will provide all that we need and more, a kind of prosperity gospel that says we are blessed and believes that those who are not prosperous are not as blessed. This viewpoint could have people use up all of the resources without regard to their finite nature, their intricate balance or their impact on people and the planet. 

That is not keeping the garden - it is overusing it until it will no longer produce. 

And yet if we pause and look at creation, we can see that God, the master gardener, created an earth with such an intricate balance, that each plant, each creature, has a built in ability to not only survive but often thrive in its native habitat. Please open your bulletin to the image of the tree growing on the rock. This desert tree in Bryce Canyon National Park that I photographed just over a week ago seems to me to be a model of the ingenuity and balance of God’s creation. While it has some roots planted in a minimum of soil on one side of the rock, its other roots have spread out over the rock somehow with no soil to hold onto, almost impossibly, holding it somehow in this dry, windy place. This tree, I think it is a Ponderosa Pine, then provides habitat for birds and black bears and food for squirrels, caterpillars and beetles. Native Americans consumed the seeds and sweet inner bark of the Ponderosa Pine and used the dry pitch as a salve. The trees can survive dry temperatures and some fires due to their thick bark. Native Americans built canoes out of the trunks and 19th and 20th Century settlers harvested the old growth trees for lumber, some of which was used to help to build the railroads. Yet, younger trees cannot be used for lumber because they warp. We can learn from the early Native Americans who harvested only what they needed, never taking all of a species that takes so long to regrow.

In the John scripture we get an extended metaphor of Christ as the vine, God as the vinegrower, and the disciples as branches. Christ uses this imagery to talk about our roles as disciples to people and the planet. Imagine a vineyard. You will see multiple grapevines trained onto a kind of trellis or support system. The portion in the ground, the stable base, is the trunk or the vine. This is Christ. The branches or arms that grow from this are the disciples or us and it is from these arms that the grapes grow.  But grape arms must be trained onto the trellis and  pruned to bear fruit. In an average vineyard, 80-90% of new growth is pruned off each winter. This is necessary because grapes only grow on the new shoots. Ignoring the vines does not produce more fruit, just bigger branches. More and bigger is not better here. To “keep” the grapes, the vines must be pruned, cut back, in order to grow more.  In a process that seems ironic, cutting back the arms of the grapevine produces more fruit. 

We too need to learn to cut back in order to grow more in our physical and spiritual worlds.

We need to embrace our role as followers of an omniscient, loving Creator who has placed us on a planet of complex yet balanced ecosystems that were made to support all of the plants and creatures on it. We do that by observing these systems, listening to them, and learning from them. God created us, all plants, and animals to be resilient, like the Ponderosa Pine that can survive fires and the grapevine that in pruning produces more. Yet each ecosystem and those who live within it has limits and we, as humans, have gone beyond the limits of some of these systems and put them out of balance. To abide or live with Christ, we need to come back into balance with creation, only then will we be true disciples of Christ, truly keeping God’s garden. 

In thinking of the planet we do more, produce more balance by using less: using less plastic by using reusable glass or metal or compostable containers instead, buying produce that is in season and grown ourselves or closer to home helps cut down on carbon emissions, as does driving hybrid or electric cars or using public transportation when possible. We also need to plant trees to replace those used for human needs and use sustainable energy like solar or wind power, where possible. 

But this is not enough. Our climate is changing too rapidly such that we need to go beyond cutting carbon emissions, we need to capture the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and store it. 

According to a January 21, 2022 article in National Geographic “Should you Buy Carbon Offsets for your Airtravel?” capturing carbon is a better alternative, “A specific type of carbon capture, DAC is the focus of companies such as Swiss-based Climeworks, Carbon Engineering in Canada, and Global Thermostat based in the U.S. Its modular machines use a fan to draw air into a collector, which catches the carbon with a filter made of organic compounds. Once the filter is full, the collector is closed and heated to 100°C (212°F), releasing pure carbon dioxide. The carbon is then combined with water and piped underground. Natural basalt formations in the earth react with the carbon, turning it into stone over several years.

In DAC projects where the captured carbon is not stored in the ground, it can be recycled and used as a raw material. At Climeworks’ Hinwil plant, for instance, the carbon is used to fertilize greenhouses and add fizz to Valser, Swiss mineral water. Norsk e-Fuel combines carbon with hydrogen to create a sustainable aviation fuel.”

Our Creator has given us a beautiful, sustainable planet, and the ability to find ways to till it and keep it, to live in balance with all of creation. As branches of Christ’s vine, we need to look at the ways to prune our lives so that we can pause, appreciate and learn from the beauty and intricate balance of each ecosystem in which we live or visit. Then we can see and know how to keep it in a way that will support every living thing in harmony as our Creator intended. Then, and only then, will we truly be disciples of Christ living God’s message of inclusive love. Amen. 

Pastor Michelle Fountain

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