Sermon onJohn 15:1-8

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

At first, our Gospel reading sounds nice: an idyllic metaphor of a vine and branches, a vine grower and fruit.

But as the reading goes on, Jesus starts talking about pruning and cleansing and withering and fire. The metaphor turns ominous, and the message seems to become threatening: “bear fruit or else.”

I didn’t grow up in a “fire and brimstone” tradition where the threat of hell was dangled over my head to keep me on my best behavior, but still, I have a hard time not reading this fearfully.

When I read“Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned,” it’s easy to read it as being about individuals who either make the cut to get into heaven or are sent to a fiery afterlife. That concept is so steeped in our culture, from Medieval and Renaissance writers and artists who tried to map out hell to the Puritans who tried to live a strict way of life to please an angry God to many today who stir up zeal for evangelism by teaching people how to “save the souls” of their neighbors, as if it were our work and not God’s.

But if this passage is about heaven and hell, then it sounds like we have to do things to earn our salvation: we have to bear fruit or we can expect to wither and be burned.

But that goes against God’s grace. Ephesians reminds us “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”[1]

We don’t have to do anything to be saved—that’s God’s doing. If we’re worrying that we’ve done something wrong or haven’t been bearing enough fruit to get into heaven (or judging our neighbor’s fruit or lack thereof), then we’re making ourselves into God.

We celebrate during Easter that Jesus broke the power of death. So, we can rest in God’s grace, safe in the knowledge that we can’t do anything to make God love us any more or any less.

This Gospel reading is not about earning our way into heaven or finding a way to avoid hell.

It’s about our relationship with Jesus and what follows naturally from that.

Jesus spoke these words the night before he died. He knew what was about to happen, and he was trying to reassure his disciples that he would always be with them.

This wasn’t about warning them to “bear fruit or else.” This was about reminding them of their deep connection with him and how much they had grown by following him for the past three years.

The vineyard isn’t so much a metaphor for heaven as a description of the Beloved Community here and now.

God is the vine grower, who lovingly tends them for abundance and their health. Pruning helps plants become fuller and grow in the right direction. The words “prune” and “cleanse” are related in Greek, so when Jesus said that the disciples had been “cleansed” by the word Jesus had said to them, it means pruned.

While Jesus did say that he is the vine and his disciples are the branches, what if it wasn’t such a precise metaphor? (Peter’s branch is over here, Andrew’s is over here.) What if instead, the community of Jesus followers was represented by all the branches together?

Then, pruning a twig over here isn’t cutting off an individual, but perhaps a part of the ministry of the community that isn’t working. Or something that worked for a while but needs to be let go of to make room for something new to grow.

This congregation has looked very different over the years and has impacted our surrounding community in many different ways at different times. If we insist that everything stays exactly the same, then the vine suffers, because it isn’t allowed to change or grow.

The Beloved Community is full of fruit because of the careful tending of the vine grower, and it is grounded in Jesus the vine. The vine nourishes the branches and draws nutrients from the soil of creation. You can’t have the vine without the branches or the branches without the vine. And while, yes, things can grow in the wild without someone to tend them, the vine is more fruitful with the vine grower who shapes it and cares for it.

Instead of a fire and brimstone threat, this metaphor becomes a picture of a healthy, abundant community that bears fruit for the sake of others.

And we get to be a part of that. Safe and secure in God’s love for us, we as part of the Beloved Community bear fruit. It’s what a plant does—it’s part of how God created our beautiful world.

And yes, the vine grower is working to make the vine bear more fruit, but it’s not the type of productivity our society values. It’s not the grind culture that leads to burnout.

Instead, it’s the abundance that comes from community. Its fruits are love and peace and justice and joy. That fruit doesn’t come from working ourselves to the bone. It comes from depending on each other, having honest conversations, looking out for each other’s well-being.

It is Jubilee. It is the way of Sabbath.It is God’s shalom.

These, like any good fruit, take time and patience.

So, what’s a small way we can bear fruit this week?

Not out of fear and not even really by our own power, because God fosters abundance in us.

Let’s share our joy.

We started out our Sabbath theme of 2024 with learning about Sabbath, then we tried on some restful Sabbath practices during Lent. Now, in the season of Easter, we can share some of the joy ripening in us from letting our bodies, minds, spirits, and communities rest.

Hopefully by slowing down a little, you’re noticing more things that bring you joy.

Joy is different from happiness.Brene Brown defines joy as “an intense feeling of deep spiritual connection, pleasure, and appreciation.”[2] She admits that a research-based consensus on what defines happiness is harder to find, but she defines happiness as “feeling pleasure often related to the immediate environment or current circumstances.”[3]

We could, and probably will at some point, delve deeper into joy vs. happiness, but for now, let me just say that joy is something deeper than happiness that can be experienced even during very difficult times in our lives.

We can experience joy apart from being happy. It’s worth noting that “joy” is listed as one of the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians, but “happiness” is not.[4] That’s not to say that happiness is bad—on the contrary—but there’s something deeper about joy.

So, when I say we are focusing on sharing our joy in this season, I am not saying we have to paste on a happy face for the sake of convincing our neighbors that once we start following Jesus we don’t have problems anymore.

Considering what Jesus went through the day after our Gospel reading, he would be the first to admit that the way of the Beloved Community is not easy and may not bring happiness. But there is still joy in God to be experienced even amid the hard things of this life.

So, in the spirit of sharing our joy, I want to start including a section at the bottom of our weekly announcement email all about joy. I’ll start us off for the first week or two, and then I’ll start inviting you to share what’s bringing you joy.

It doesn’t need to be long—just a sentence or two.

It doesn’t have to be earth-shattering—perhaps an everyday moment that made you pause with gratitude.

Here are a few of mine this week:

1.    Seeing some sunflower sprouts pop up in my garden

2.    Watching my cat chase a bug while I was writing this sermon

3.    Listening to the great discussion during last week’s book study

Like I said, I’ll start us off this week, but start noticing what’s bringing you joy. I’ll be in contact with you soon enough.

But let’s not stop at the newsletter. Let’s share our joy with each other and those we encounter in our daily lives. The more attentive we are to joy, the more we’ll experience it. And the more we share it with others, the more they can notice joy in their lives. That is a way the fruit of the Beloved Community grows.

So, rest assured that Jesus our vine abides in us and us in him.

Let the joy of that relationship bear fruit.

And be sure to share that joy with those around you.

[1]Ephesians 2:8-9

[2] Brown, Brene. Atlas of the Heart,p. 205.

[3] Brown, 207.

[4]Galatians 5:22-23

Sermon on Luke 24:36b-48

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

Today, we’re going to do a little bit of a time warp back to Easter Sunday.Some women disciples went to Jesus’ tomb to care for his body but found instead two dazzling divine messengers.

They told the men disciples, who didn’t believe them, except for Peter, who went to see the empty tomb for himself.

Two other disciples started traveling to the nearby village of Emmaus, when they encountered a stranger on the road. As the sun set, they invited him to eat with them, and as he gave thanks for the bread and broke it, they realized it had been Jesus all along! He disappeared from their sight, and they ran back to Jerusalem to tell the other disciples.

They were just finishing their tale, when Jesus appeared in their midst, and that is where our Gospel story begins today.

With the whole having been dead and the random disappearing and reappearing thing, it’s no wonder the disciples thought they were seeing a ghost. If we weren’t so familiar with the Easter stories, this would have the makings of a good ghost tale.

Even as Jesus invited them to touch him, they still weren’t completely convinced that he wasn’t a ghost.

So, he asked them for a snack and ate some broiled fish in front of them. Surely a ghost doesn’t need to eat.

Only then did the disciples seem convinced and calmed down enough for Jesus to get down to business, explaining to them everything that had happened.

It matters that Jesus had a body, and not just because ghosts are spooky.

It matters for Christmas, and it matters for Easter.

At Christmas, we remember that God became one of us—a fragile, human being who needed milk and diaper changes, who skinned his knees as he learned to walk, who laughed and played and grew and questioned.

At Easter, we remember that even though Jesus died an excruciating, humiliating human death, the power of death didn’t stop him. It wasn’t that his spirit transcended bodily form—he was resurrected with a body. He wasn’t a ghost or a spirit or a hologram. He was the incarnated God, God in the flesh, just as he had always been.

That matters because it tells us that the physical world matters to God.

That might not actually sound like good news, considering climate change and ecological disasters and shrinking animal habitats and extinction and all the plastic we use that doesn’t break down for hundreds of years.

If the physical world didn’t matter to God, we could just use up Earth’s resources and spend our time having good theological conversations without worrying about how humanity’s actions affect the world we live in.

But the physical world does matter to God, so it’s important that we don’t get stuck in our heads.

Lutherans have a strong tradition of education and careful thought, and that’s a beautiful thing.

But it also means we sometimes get a little head-oriented. We tend to ignore our bodies or even think of them as bad, sinful, or selfish. We tend to mistrust what our bodies tell us—things like “I need food” or “I need rest” or “The air quality is making me sick.”

In our highly-educated, Enlightenment-informed tradition, we tend to be suspicious of our spirituality or anything that comes across as too “woo-woo.” Because of that, we tend to ignore our intuition, we tend to focus on heady Bible studies and ignore spiritual practices. We can miss out on what the Holy Spirit is saying to us.

There are many gifts that deep thought and critical thinking bring us. But if we remain solely in our heads, we miss out on what our spirits and bodies are telling us. They have wisdom, too, and we’re not getting the whole picture unless we engage our heads, our spirits, and our bodies.

When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, he replied, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.’”[1]We can love God, and therefore our neighbors, our selves, and our world, with our whole selves.

When we become disconnected from our whole selves, we become disconnected from the Earth on which we live.

Our world which God created is suffering for our lack of connection to it. When humanity ignores creation for the sake of the bottom line or our convenience or our comfort, we are also ignoring our call to be stewards of the Earth.

This problem is way bigger than any of us individually, but without the actions of individuals, nothing will change.

In our Gospel story, we see Jesus reassuring his disciples that he is flesh and blood like they are, made of the organic material God created with such loving care. And once they’re calmer, he uses scripture to explain to them what happened.

But the story doesn’t end there. Jesus settled their spirits, opened their minds, and then sent them out to be his witnesses to the world.

It wasn’t enough to sigh in relief that Jesus wasn’t a ghost or revel in their newfound understanding. They had a mission to connect people with this story. It would take all of their heart, soul, strength, and mind, because sharing their story was borne of their love for God.

What form of loving God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind is God be calling you to?

On this day before Earth Day, might loving God and loving your neighbor take the form of loving our Earth a little better?

Just as Jesus equipped his disciples to love God and neighbor by sharing their stories of Jesus, God equips us to speak and act in support of creation.

Easter is a “no” to death and a big “yes” to life.

Jesus came back in a body, because material things matter to God, and if we only think people’s souls matter, then we’re forgetting that God delights in creation and calls it good.

We’re forgetting that God instituted the Sabbath, sabbatical years, and the year of Jubilee to provide rest and enjoyment of creation.

We’re forgetting that we are beings created in love by God out of the mud of the Earth, and that God chose to become a mud creature too—the very Jesus who ate fish with the disciples in today’s story.

God instituted water for baptism and bread and wine for communion—material things to help us feel connected to the spiritual.

What do polluted waters mean for baptism?

What do pesticides and unfair agricultural labor practices mean for communion?

What does that have to do with us?

Everything.

Humanity’s disconnection from the Earth is bigger than any one of us, but change is often made by small actions that add up.

James Baldwin said, “Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

What is one small thing you can do today to care for the Earth?

Take some time this week to ground yourself in your body—stand on some dirt, feel your feet press into the Earth—and ask God to guide you.

Jesus equipped his disciples to share their Easter stories.

God will equip you to share your stories of new life, too.

[1]Luke 10:27

Sermon onJohn 20:19-31

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

“Peace be with you.”

These are Jesus’ first words to these fearful disciples.

Mary Magdalene had already told them about the risen Jesus.

Maybe they didn’t believe her—admittedly, it was a pretty wild story. Or maybe they were afraid of what Jesus would say when they saw him. Most of Jesus’ disciples had, after all, not stayed with him as he died.

Instead of going out looking for Jesus after hearing Mary’s testimony, they locked themselves in a room, fearing they would suffer the same death Jesus had—and maybe feeling ashamed that they had abandoned him.

But when Jesus inexplicably appeared within that locked room, he did not shame them or scold them.

He brought them peace.

This wasn’t peace as a mere laying down of weapons or “agreeing to disagree.” It also wasn’t Pax Romana, Roman peace, that was enforced by the edge of a sword.

Shalom, God’s peace, is a state of well-being in community when people are in right relationship with God and each other. It means something closer to “justice” than a mere absence of war. It’s the Jubilee we talked about earlier this year.

It’s the Beloved Community Jesus had been talking about all along.

Jesus could have given up on his disciples who had abandoned him in his suffering, but instead, he sought them out and brought them peace.

He also brought them the Holy Spirit. He breathed his living breath onto those disciples. The Greek word for “breath” also means “spirit,” just as the Hebrew word for “spirit” also means “wind” or “breeze.” There are plays on words in both testaments about “spirit.”

The Gospel of John doesn’t have an account of Pentecost like Acts does, so this is where John marks the receiving of the Holy Spirit. Jesus is equipping his disciples to continue his mission.

He greets them with a word of peace and breathes the Holy Spirit on them, the breath of life. Then, he talks to them about forgiveness.

A lot has been made over the centuries of Jesus saying, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”I’m not going to pretend to know the exact mechanics of this.

Still, if we look at Jesus’ teachings overall, forgiveness seems pretty important.But also, a lot of damage has been done by people with authority demanding that victims and vulnerable people forgive their abusers and oppressors. If there’s a situation on your heart, and you’d like a sounding board, I’m here for you.

What I see in this story is that when Jesus talks about forgiveness, he goes first. He forgives his fearful disciples for abandoning him. Then, he forgives Thomas, who insisted on having the same experience of Jesus the other disciples had.

It’s like Jesus is saying, “As you continue to carry my message of the Beloved Community into the world, don’t forget that I washed your feet, I fed you, I forgave you, I equipped you with the Holy Spirit. Now, pass it on!”

That’s not easy—for them or for us.

Even with Jesus’ example of forgiveness and peace, there is so much pain in the world.

Violence in Israel and Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, Haiti, starvation in Nigeria, not to mention a contentious election year in our own country—that only scratches the surface of the world’s conflict and suffering. It’s heart-breaking and overwhelming.

It’s way easier to stay in our lovely, historic sanctuary and think about how much we love God than it is to go out and show people that we love God.

But Jesus didn’t equip the disciples just to have them stay in that locked room.

We see in our reading from Acts an idyllic image of the Beloved Community enacted by the early Jesus followers:

“Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.”

They shared their goal of Beloved Community, they shared their resources, they shared the story of Jesus. This is a beautiful picture of God’s shalom, the peace Jesus brought to the disciples in that locked room.

Of course, it didn’t last long—there were disagreements among Jesus followers pretty much from the beginning, and that hasn’t stopped. But it also doesn’t negate the sprouts of the Beloved Community that were growing among them and that we can nurture too.

Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit on his first disciples, our ancestors in faith, and the Holy Spirit lives in us, too.

The thing about Spirit, or breath, or wind, is that we can’t see it (unless we exhale when it’s really cold), but we can see its effects. We can see the wind moving through the leaves of a tree or the rising and falling of someone chest.

People can’t see the Holy Spirit, but they can see us and what we do in God’s name. They can see when we build up the Beloved Community, and they can see when we act, well, less than Christ-like. That’s not to say we have to pretend to be perfect—people can definitely see through that. But people can also see when our actions are motivated by peace and a spirit of forgiveness and love for our neighbors.

Counterintuitively, sometimes the way we build up the Beloved Community is through rest. Sometimes we need restful practices to make us feel like humans again and to restore our peace, spirit of forgiveness, and love.

I have a colleague whose congregation can tell when she hasn’t made time to go swimming in the morning.Our spirits dim when we don’t make time for things that fill our cups.

Sabbath practices aren’t there just so we can work harder the other six days of the week, but they do restore us, realign us, and help us love our neighbors better. Rest makes room for joy.

And our world needs joy. Our world needs your joy. The world needs the Spirit that breathes in you to share that joy with the people around you.

Out of that joy, you can work with God to build up the Beloved Community and make this suffering world a little more like it is in heaven.

Jesus gave us his example of forgiveness and peace, equips us with the breath of the Holy Spirit, and invites us to take that peace and joy into the world he created and loves.Say to the world, “Peace be with you.”