Easter 5 B: On Being Pruned
Dear Partner in Preaching,
Anyone else feeling rather pruned of late?
Don’t get me wrong. I lead a blessed life with a wonderful family and job and friends, for all of which I am profoundly grateful. And yet…
And yet there was another devastating earthquake, this time in Nepal, with so many dead and so many more left in dire circumstances. And we just passed the one-anniversary of the kidnapping of all those school girls in Nigeria by Boko Haram. And the 2016 – yes, 2016! – election campaign is already beginning and negative statements and ads are already flowing. And I heard from several friends recently who are dealing with pretty difficult things at work or home. And….
And that’s the thing. At any given moment, even when things are going relatively well, there are still so many difficult things with which to contend in this life and it often feels like being pruned.
Or maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it just feels like being cut, cut down by life’s tragedies great or small, cut down by disappointment or despair, cut down by illness or job loss or other circumstances beyond our control and left to wither and die.
It’s easy to read this passage as one of judgment and threat. But I think the thrust of the passage is promise. Why? It all has to do with context. First, the context of the narrative: Jesus is offering these words to his disciples on the eve of his crucifixion. He knows what is going to happen – both to himself and to his flock – and they do not. They are about to be cut down by his crucifixion and death and he is assuring them that it will not be mere, senseless cutting but that they will survive, even flourish. The second context is that of the community for which John writes. Because by the time they hear these words they have already been scattered, likely thrown out of their synagogue, and have had plenty of reason to feel like they’ve been abandoned. But John writes to assure them that while they have indeed been cut, it is the pruning for more abundant fruit and life.
No doubt that was hard to believe, as there was precious little evidence available to the disciples or John’s community that they had not been abandoned. And no doubt it still is hard to believe on our end as well, as so much of life simply tears at us with no evidence that it is toward some more fruitful future. But amid this uncertainly and distress, Jesus still invites us – actually, not just invites but promises us – that he will not abandon us but rather will cling to us like a vine clings to a tree so that we endure, persevere, and even flourish among these present difficulties.
Here’s the thing: if Jesus had only said, “abide in me or else,” that would be a different matter. But it’s not. “Abide in me,” Jesus says, “as I abide in you.” This is more than good advice. More than an invitation. This is a promise, that no matter what happens, Jesus will be with us. That no matter what happens, Jesus will hold onto us. And that no matter what happens, God in Jesus will bring all things to a good end.
Which is not to say, by the way, that everything happens for a reason. Rather, it is to say that no matter what happens, we have God’s promise in Jesus to work for good. Keep in mind, after all, that these words are said just before Jesus goes to the cross. And I would argue that the cross was not simply a part of some larger plan, but rather the chief example of God’s commitment to wrestle life and hope from the very place that seems most devoid of life and hope.
Not everyone feels that way, I know. There has been countless voices over the centuries that argue that the cross is some kind of mechanism by which God finds a way to forgive us despite how wretched we are. Frankly, I think most of that theologizing is pious bullshit, meant to help us understand and even domesticate something that is absolutely beyond our control. If the cross means anything, I think it means that God chose not to sit back in heaven, removed from the pain and paucity of our mortal, free, and difficult life in this world, but rather came in Christ to be joined to it – the ups and downs, the hopes and disappointments, the frailties and faults of our life in this world – so that we would know of God’s unending commitment to us. The cross was not the instrument that made it possible for God to love us, the cross is evidence and testimony to just how much God already loved us and God’s promise to be with us through all things. Just so, the resurrection is the promise that no matter how much tragedy we endure, these hardships will not have the last word.
Let’s be honest, Dear Partner, this is a hard passage to preach. But let’s also be honest and confess that this can be a hard life to live, and at times it’s helpful to hear once again that the suffering we endure is not wasteful cutting but pruning for a more abundant future and, that no matter what happens, Jesus will not abandon us. Thanks for bearing this Word to your people this week and always.
Yours in Christ,
David
PS: If you or your congregation wants to help Lutheran World Relief respond to the Nepal earthquake, please click here to learn more about LWR’s response and to contribute. Thank you!
Thank you David. I am so grateful that God chose to address me in the Lutheran faith, supported by your perspective on it.
Hi David
I always read your comments first on the lectionary passages. You have been a great help in my preaching. I must admit that i was shocked to read about your strong view on substitutionary atonement as bullshit. Help me to understand why it is bullshit in the light of so many passages like: i can understand that someone has a different view but to call it bullshit, wow😭.
Galatians 3:13:
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.”
CORINTHIANS 5:21
21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Mark 10:45, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for manyf.”
“It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.”
– Romans 4:24-25
Thanks,
Kobus
Karl Barth said something along the lines of: “we can not understand the cross, our job is to stand under the cross”.
“…pious bullshit…” Way to say it like it is Doctor Dave. 🙂
Love, love, love.
Thank you for capturing the gospel with beauty and grace.
Thank you for calling out the ugly and distorted explanations suffering.
Thank for your leadership.
Amen! And thank you for this truth. I’m a recovering pastor…recovering from the years of the distorted message of the cross that I was told to believe. I now have passion and calling to proclaim and encourage others that the Gospel is really good news of God’s love. I love how you call out the distortion for the bullsxxx that it is! Thank you for what you do to encourage the calling to be good news.
David,
Thanks for the straight talk of grace .. “pious bullshit” be gone!
As always, thank you for another great piece! I hope that after a few edits of my sermon, I will be able to share in a way that is courageous and hopeful to all that hear the word preached this Sunday! Peace to you Dr. Lose for your continued efforts to engage the truth of the texts!
Thank you, this was just what I needed to hear this week. Thanks for preaching to me.
Excellent! Thank you. It’s about time we give people in the pews credit and preach the truth not pious bullshit.
Notice what resonated here for most of us – “pious bullshit”. Is it because we so rarely, as pastors, get to say that to our congregations? That this atoning sacrifice stuff, this “Jesus had to die so that we are saved stuff” that we all had crammed down our throats, that we read in our catechisms (if we had one) as truth, is just that – pious bullshit? Thank you for saying it in such an earthy and human way – not with theological jargon, but just as it really is, with no apologies.
Pious Bullshit is right… Through it all, the ugliness, “Baltimore” God continues to wrestle life. The Promise of Pruning…Thank you!!!!
David, as a minister in a liberal denomination I can sympathize with your characterization of (e.g.) penal substitutionary atonement as “BS” — but isn’t that disrespectful to the many millions of Christians who believe (right or wrong) that the Bible teaches it?
I think there comes a time, in the style of Walter Wink, to “name” the bs for what it is! The atonement theory is one of the most horrendous and abusive theologies ever developed. It subjugates the entire life and teachings of a courageous man in Galilee to a mere formula! Obscene. Imagine the executions of Dr. King without the context of segregation, civil rights, etc? Or Gahndi without the context of colonial oppression and abuses? In short, being “respectful” about religion that distorts (or ignores) the life and context of Jesus and replaces it all with a “turn or burn” theology only enables and allows to the bs to be instilled in more and more innocent children who will carry the fear of that theology into the rest of their lives. I see NOTHING good or respectful of that…
Believe me, you are preaching to the choir, brother! But can’t conservative Christians hang their scriptural hat on Paul (no less!) when it comes to PSA? And isn’t our understanding of atonement something we can respectfully agree to disagree on in the larger house of Faith?
That’s a very fair question, Richard, one I’ve also asked. In my book Making Sense of the Cross
, I’ve tried to be more fair and even-handed, especially as I’m not sure we can understand exactly what Anselm meant given the very different worlds in which we live. But as his theory has come down through the ages through Aquinas, Calvin, and American Conservative/Reformed theologians, I think it has quite distorted the Gospel. Perhaps we always say that about theories with which we disagree, and certainly others would say that of some of my theology. The question becomes, I think, what you do when a theory causes harm and is used to advance the idea that violence is redemptive and that God demands justice over love and needs bloodshed in order to forgive. Does there come a point, that is, when you name it as you see it even if you risk offense? I don’t ask it lightly. That’s a difficult question for me to ask, as I value civility, respect, and tolerance highly (not to mention am a middle child 🙂 ). Thanks for raising the question. I continue to struggle with it.
I need to give this discussion more thought since I am asking myself why this couldn’t be one of those “both and” kind of topics. There will remain incomplete understanding of many things until our Lord’s return and there will also remain an improper use of God’s Word to further an individual cause. Often in that is a manipulation for positional authority and control. However when it comes to the cross… (the instrument foretold) there is so much that is taking place that I am not sure we will fully understand it on this side of eternity. Why is it not a “Both And” despite poor or misguided theology?
PS I liked the presenting of just who is in you, with you, and I would add working through you during all of life’s difficulties and disappointments. Good job and thanks.
I am so grateful for you, David. Your post help to ground me and speak to my own spiritual need before I go on to prepare messages for others in my ministry. Your post remind me always that the Word is for me just as it for others. Thank you! Thank God for you!
Maybe I am being redundant but as I read your piece, David and the responses, I was struck deeply by the “abide in you” part in that if Jesus is abiding in us – he is not only with us through our pain and struggle and doubt but he must be in that struggle, doubt, pain as well
The pruning and the cleansing in the text isn’t the bad stuff happening to us, but the logos. Bad stuff happens. The question is how we relate to it. Numbness (your suffering is not my problem); despair (it’s awful and there is no hope); or stewardship (we are responsible to God for this situation). Cleansing is what restores us to reality, with the trust that we are embraced and called to the compassion given to us.