Sermon Cloud

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RSV)

I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. ² He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. ³ You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. ⁴ Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. ⁵ I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶ Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. ⁷ If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸ My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. ⁹ As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. ¹⁰ If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. ¹¹ I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

This week we’re continuing our series on “Messy Spirituality, God’s Annoying Love for Imperfect People, and I just have to begin with a story Yaconelli retells by Robert Fulghum entitled, “Uh-Oh.”  I’ve never heard of the book, but I’m intrigued enough by this little story that I almost want to go out and read it.  Yaconelli recounts the story like this:

“Norman’s teacher announced the play for the year – Cinderella.  Chaos ensued as a sea of arms waved wildly, each student trying to get the teacher’s attention.  “I want to be Cinderella!” every girl yelled.  “I want to be the handsome prince!” the boys shouted.  Realizing that not everyone could have the same part, the students soon erupted into urgent requests for other parts.  “I want to be the wicked stepmother!”  “I want to be an ugly stepsister!”  Somehow the teacher was able to wade through all the requests, and soon everyone was assigned a part.

Except for Norman.  Norman was a quiet young man who didn’t talk much in class.  He wasn’t shy or bashful; he just didn’t feel like talking a lot of the time.  Talking about nothing was a waste of time to Norman; he talked only when he had something to say.  Norman had a mind of his own and was perfectly comfortable just being himself.

Concerned because there weren’t any characters left (even though she had made up many extra parts) and knowing Norman very well, the teacher said, “Norman, I’m afraid all the main parts have been taken for Cinderella.  I’m sure we can find an extra part for you.  What character would you like to be?”

Norman didn’t hesitate.  “I would like to be the pig,” he declared.

“Pig?” the teacher said, bewildered.  “But there is no pig in Cinderella.”

Norman smiled and said, “There is now.”

Norman designed his own costume – paper cup for a nose and pink long underwear with a pipe-cleaner tail.  Norman’s pig followed Cinderella wherever she went and became a mirror of the action on stage.  If Cinderella was happy, the pig was happy; if Cinderella was sad, the pig was sad.  One look at Norman and you knew the emotion of the moment.  At the end of the play, when the handsome prince placed the glass slipper on Cinderella’s foot and the couple hugged and ran off happily together,

Norman went wild with joy, danced around on his hind legs, and broke his sience by barking.  In rehearsal, the teacher had tried explaining to Norman that even if there was a pig in Cinderella, pigs don’t bark.  But as she expected, Norman explained that this pig barked.  And the barking, she had to admit, was well done.  The presentation at the teachers’ conference was a smash hit.  At the curtain call, guess who received a standing ovation?  Of course, Norman the barking pig.  Who was, after all, the real Cinderella Story.”

The story of Cinderella has been around a long, long time.  The first accounts of it being written down come from China around 850 A.D., but it was probably told in oral tradition years before that.  Today there are somewhere between 350 and 1500 versions of the story told all over the world.  In some versions there’s a golden shoe or a glass slipper.  In other versions there’s a Fairy Godmother, a white dove, or a magical fish.  But to the best of my knowledge, this is the first and only version containing a pig, especially a such a prominent, barking pig.  Norman didn’t much care about the 1500 versions of the story of Cinderella that had existed before his.  All he cared about was the version of Cinderella that he knew could be if he were to play his part.

So, you may be wondering, what does the story of Cinderella and Norman the barking pig have anything to do with the Father, our vinegrower.  I’m actually going to leave you to wondering about that for a little bit more while we step back for a moment and consider what Norman can really teach us.

There’s another story that’s been around a long, long time.  A story that we may be a little better acquainted with, especially in this setting.  The story is in a book in front of each you.  The title’s not very catchy, but it’s there all the same.  It’s the Old Testament.  The Old Testament is filled with characters who behave and act in certain ways.  Ways that teach us things.  Ways that teach us what to do and ways that teach us what not to do.  Ways that teach us about God and ways that teach us about ourselves.  The Old Testament is full of stories that teach.

And, it seems, whenever there’s something to be taught, there’s also someone who considers themselves an expert in that thing.  I am certain that there are historians, anthropologists, and storytellers alike who consider themselves to be experts in the story of Cinderella.  The historians can tell you how the story has changed and evolved over time.  The anthropologists can tell us what the different versions of the story teach us about the people who told the story.  What they valued and found to be significant.  While storytellers can bring out the hidden nuances just by the way they utter the words.

The Old Testament was no different.  Except, this time, instead of historians, anthropologists, and storytellers, they were called things like Pharisees and Sadducees.  These were the men who considered themselves to be experts in the story of the Old Testament.  Except there was one striking difference.  Cinderella ends with a happily ever after.”  Cinderella is saved from her toil to a life of luxury.  But the Old Testament wasn’t finished yet.  It was still being written because they were still waiting for the happily ever after to happen.  The Pharisees, the Sadducees – the experts – knew how the script was supposed to go.  The Messiah was supposed to come and save Israel and they were to live happily ever after.  The only problem was that it hadn’t happened yet.  They hadn’t found the one who was to play the role of the Messiah.

Ask any historian, anthropologist, or storyteller if a shadowing barking pig is necessary to the story of Cinderella, and I imagine you’d get a rather firm no.  A pig has nothing to do with the story.  Historically, there has never been a pig.  Anthropologically, the pig is only redundant to emotions already displayed in the play.  And from the view of the storyteller, the pig only serves to distract from the main character, Cinderella.  But for Norman, who, by the way, was only an elementary student, and certainly no expert on Cinderella, the pig was exactly what the story need to make the ending a true happily ever after.

Ask any Pharisee or Sadducee if a humble, loving, seemingly weak Messiah was necessary to complete the story of the Old Testament, I imagine you’d get a rather firm no.  They knew what kind of character they needed to play the role of the messiah.  The messiah had to be strong.  The messiah had to be courageous enough to over through the Roman Empire and any other Empire that might try to threaten them.  The messiah had to be a fearless leader in the midst of whatever came up.  That was the only way, as they saw it, that they were ever going to be able to live happily ever after.

But, as I’m sure you know, Jesus wasn’t too interested in the script the Pharisees and Sadducees had written.  He introduced his own rewrite, and it didn’t look much like the original.  In the rewrite, the Messiah ate with sinners, healed cripples, befriended tax collectors.  Why, he wasn’t even supportive of the practices of the Pharisees and Sadducees, the very ones who had written the script.  If a casting call were held, Jesus would have been the first one eliminated from the running.

So I think you get the point.  Jesus didn’t play the role of the messiah the way the experts of his day thought it should be played.  Now, I’m going to make a shift in metaphors, and I hope I don’t lose you.  If you’ve dozed off a little, that’s fine, but you’ll probably want to pay attention here, or the rest of my message isn’t going to make sense.  So do I have you.  Think back to our opening passage.  God, Jesus’ Father, and our Father, is the true vinegrower.  Now, that can mean many things, but for our purposes this morning, lets imagine that the vine is human history.  

OK the vine equals history or lets just simplify it to the story.  The vine has been growing since time began.  We have this huge story vine and there’s creation – that’s a branch.  There’s the fall or the first sin – that’s a branch.  There’s the flood – that’s a branch.  There’s the tower of Babel – that’s a branch.  And it keeps going on like that all through the Old Testament.  The vine is the story of God and humanity… of good and evil.  And when Jesus comes on the scene the Pharisees and Sadducees find themselves at the end of a pretty long vine.  They look back over all of the stories of the past and they project, as best they can, as to how the vine’s going to end.  The Messiah will come… do everything they have planned for him… and they will all live happily ever after.  But there’s one problem with that.  That’s not what our passage this morning says.  Who does the passage say is the vine grower?  Is it the Pharisees and Sadducees?  No.  It’s the Father.  And the Father has other plan.  So what does he do?  He removes… he cuts… he prunes.  He sees the way the vine is growing and he doesn’t like it, so he cuts it.  But that doesn’t mean the vine stops growing.  The story – history – continues, but it grows a different direction that it had been heading.  It grows Jesus’ direction.  And since Jesus says “I and the Father are one”… it grows the Father’s direction.  The Pharisees and Sadducees aren’t too happy about the pruning, but the Father does what has to be done, and history is changed.

OK, so are you following me.  We have this vine growing and so long as time keeps ticking the vine keeps growing.  And we have the vinegrower, God the Father, there every step of the way, pruning to make sure the vine grows the way he wants it to grow.  And last I knew, time was still going on, which means that vine’s still growing today, so where does that leave you and me?  Well, we’re branches… branches on the vine of human history.  And each of us has a past, a present, and a future.  We know what our past is.  Some of us are pretty happy with it.  Others of us wish would could make some pretty major changes in it, but the fact is that it is what it is.  Then we have the present.  That’s our growing edge, so to speak.  It’s where we are right now.  It’s the decisions we make right now.  Then we have our future.  And while some people are quite spontaneous and other are rather deliberate, everyone plans for the future to one extent or another.  We all have dreams and aspirations.  We all think, or at least have a rough idea, of where we want to go in life, what we want to do, who we want to become.  But anyone who’s lived for any amount of time knows that sometimes those plans are cut short.  Now follow me here because this, I think, is really cool.  When our dreams fall apart, might it be that the Father, the vine grower, is pruning.  We thought we knew what direction our story was going to grow, but God had other plans, and the only way to get us growing the right direction and to bear the kind of fruit the vinegrower wants to see was to cut us off… to prune us.

Now that’s not to say it isn’t painful when we’re pruned… when our plans are changed.  Often times it hurts pretty deeply.  But it does tell us that there is purpose in the pain.

Yaconelli says it this way.  “Growth cannot be charted as a steadily climbing line, even though most people in the church believe spiritual growth should look like this.  Spiritual growth – the frustrating and difficult attempt to find God’s trail in the dusty terrain of our lives – can’t be charted that easily.  True spiritual growth looks different for each of us.  If we were to graph real spiritual growth it would” have hills and valleys.  And right away our natural tendency is to say the hills are good and the valleys are bad.  But what if we were to take the value judgments away from these hills and valleys.  “How would our understanding of the spiritual life be altered if we used these other words to describe our growing?  Maybe waiting (one of the valleys) is good and not waiting is bad.  Maybe stopping (another valley) has a higher value than starting.  Maybe success (a hill top) is bad and failure is a chance to learn.  What happens if we look at the whole of our lives as growth (both the ups and the downs)… growth which is pruned, sometimes painfully… by the vine grower so that we can produce the fruit that he wants to see.

So Norman was the barking pig who followed Cinderella wherever she went at some place and at some time.  And for that elementary school, the story of Cinderella will probably never be the same.  It will always have a place for the barking pig.  What about you and me?  We all have a vinegrower who shows up at just the right time (just the right time from his perspective… often not ours), and our lives will never be the same because of it.  It might not end the way we planned it, but I can promise you it will end happily ever after.   The End.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen