It is no surprise to anyone
that growing up in Gary, Indiana
did not provide many opportunities for visiting vineyards.
As the whole city was located over a prehistoric lake,
our post-war neighborhood was built on sand:
welcome to the Indiana Dunes.
While deprived of vineyards as a kid,
in overseas studies I saw many of them
and even briefly worked in one.
I had finished a grueling German course,
and decided to take a break.
A posting at my Goethe Institut
requested help with a wine harvest.
I thought it would be exciting;
wrong: it was backbreaking.
The harvest had started at the end of October
but the cool summer delayed the maturing of grapes
so much harvesting was still needed in November.
I imagined myself cutting grapes
and, after mentioning that to the foreman,
had my first experience of being called Dummkopf!
Harvesting is an art not to be entrusted to foreign students
so I had the enormous privilege of lugging a large shoulder basket
along the steep hills of the vineyard
where the professional cutters could deposit their grapes:
to date the hardest manual labor I’ve ever done.
One lesson gleaned from that experience
is that harvesting is an artform
mixing mystery with muscle, nature with nuance.
A second is that even Dummkopfs are welcome in the vineyard
if they are willing to do the work.
A few weeks ago I ran across a blog whose commentary
on today’s readings was entitled Subversive Horticulture.
That is a particularly accurate caricature
of the divine horticulturalist in today’s gospel
who promotes pruning as an essential discipline for discipleship.
Jesus had a soft spot for Dummkopfs
like Simon Peter who could instantaneously transform
from Rocky to blockhead,
with the most spectacular fall from grace of any of the chosen.
But Jesus’ openness to Dummkopfs being grafted
on his lifegiving vine
requires a willingness to submit to the art of pruning
as happened to Peter at the very end of John’s gospel.
I did not hang around the Riesling vineyard
to observe the pruning done in early spring,
but my Dummkopf corrector turned mentor explained
the importance of pruning for the health of a vineyard.
Unpruned grapevines produce too many leaves
that diminish the quantity of grapes as well as their quality.
Pruning reduces the number of grape clusters
allowing the remaining ones to be strong and full.
That wisdom might help us understand today’s 1st reading.
It is not a typical portrayal of Paul.
Usually this apostolic firebrand is giving instruction,
or on a conversion crusade,
or calling out someone for doing something
unbecoming of disciples.
Today, however, neophyte Saul is the one under scrutiny,
viewed with deep suspicion.
Just a few verses earlier
he had been knocked off his proverbial high horse
by the Risen One and literally blinded by his question
“why do you persecute me?”
In today’s post-pruning moment, we hear how Barnabas
takes this fledgling disciple under his wing
to assist in the long process of being grafted onto the Christ vine.
Peter and Paul were, of course, not the only ones pruned by God,
and ultimately nowhere near the most important one:
that was Jesus.
Though we are currently deep into Easter territory,
today’s gospel teleports us back to Jesus’ farewell discourse
a few hours before his arrest, trial, passion and death:
–Inconceivable self-pruning
–being shorn of life itself
–testimony to Jesus’ complete rootedness in his Father
–and an invitation for us to do the same.
This past week I came across an article on the public good
in which OSP is literally mentioned 100 times.
OSP in this scientific study, however, does not refer
to Old St. Pat’s but Open Science Practices.
Nonetheless, the title of the article piqued my interest:
“Practice what you preach: Credibility-enhancing displays
and the growth of open science.”
Open science is an ethical view of scientific research
promoting free dissemination of such research across the globe.
The authors contend that OSP would strengthen scientific integrity
increasingly under suspicion
because of concerns about the reliability of published results
and prominent cases of data fraud.
Yes, fake news has a parallel in fake science.
One of the solutions for countering fake science
signaled in the title “Practice what you Preach”
is a theory called CREDs or “culturally enhancing displays.”
The articles explained CREDs with this example:
imagine that I present you with a mushroom I found;
would you be more likely to eat it if I told you it was edible
or if you saw me eat one like it?
The latter strategy is more convincing
because of the potential costs I could incur in each case;
telling you that a poisonous mushroom is edible is costless –
except for any retaliation on your part, however,
my eating a poisonous mushroom would be much more costly.
Because of this difference in the potential cost,
you are more likely to be confident in assessing my belief
when I communicate my belief via actions rather than words.
Thus my display enhances your judgment
of the credibility of my beliefs …
Jesus didn’t know much about cultural theories,
data fraud,
or the reliability of scientific publishing…
but he was a Master at credibility-enhancing displays.
He preached the blessedness of the poor in spirit
and embodied that and every other beatitude.
He taught that the inbreaking of God’s reign
was open to everyone willing to repent
and in turn was the very incarnation of hospitality.
He instructed that following him required disengagement
from earthly possessions and family ties,
epitomized in God’s son who had nowhere to lay his head.
And, in today’s Easter word in the shadow of the resurrection,
the Only-Begotten reminds us
that there is no grafting without cutting,
no harvest without pruning,
no abundance without sacrifice,
climaxing in the pruning at Golgotha that sealed his earthly life.
Jesus was the personification of credibility enhancing displays
and we are not only challenged to engage in such displays
but to live these CREDs deeply rooted in our CREED:
we must be rooted in our baptismal vocation.
In his letter to the Romans, Paul reminds us that
to be baptized means being initiated into Christ’s death–
a reading strategically positioned in the Easter Vigil
before the elect enter the pool of transformation.
It is a poignant reminder
of the baptismal pledge that sustains us
through all of our personal and collective pruning
in our aging,
health threats,
disintegrating relationships,
financial challenges,
and all that faithful doubting that disrupts our believing.
As challenging as it sounds, we are called to distinctive faithfulness,
to practicing CREDs grounded in our CREED,
especially in the many ways our lives are diminished and disrupted,
snipped and sheared,
thinned and threatened.
My great friend Connie was a Lutheran Pastor and pioneering feminist.
She was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer when she was 59.
Before the radical surgery that she chose,
Connie came to the seminar we were co-teaching
where the class wanted to anoint her.
I asked if she wanted to say anything
and, in typical style, she read a children’s story.
But, first she unwrapped the scarf around her head.
revealing a complete loss of hair
from recent rounds of chemotherapy.
Then she read:
There once was a woman who woke up one morning,
looked in the mirror,
and noticed she had only three hairs on her head.
“Well,” she said, “I think I’ll braid my hair today.”
So she did and she had a wonderful day.
The next day she woke up,
looked in the mirror
and saw that she had only two hairs on her head.
“H-M-M,” she said,
“I think I’ll part my hair down the middle today.”
So she did and she had a grand day.
The next day she woke up,
looked in the mirror and noticed that she had only one hair left.
“Well,” she said, “today I’m going to wear my hair in a ponytail.”
So she did and she had a fun, fun day.
The next day she woke up,
looked in the mirror and noticed
that there wasn’t a single hair on her head.
“YEA!” she exclaimed,
“I don’t have to fix my hair today!”
Connie died 4 months later.
Before her death at the last graduation she would attend
in the seminary chapel where she taught,
she asked the community to perform
the commendation of the dying for her.
And at the end of that ceremony,
as the graduating divinity students marched out,
she stood in the baptismal pool at the entrance of the chapel
and splashed each of them with the waters of new life.
While it may not be our preferred mode,
pruning, diminishment, aging, even dying
offers believers our most unusual opportunity
for credibility enhancing displays–
displays into which we were commissioned
when we were splashed with baptismal water
and baptized into the death of the Lord.
As Connie often said:
Facing death calls us to be kinder than necessary,
for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.
She went on:
Live simply,
Love generously,
Care deeply,
Speak kindly and leave the rest to God.
Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass…
it’s about learning to dance in the rain!
For thunder clouds and the rain itself are holy reminders
that entering the pruning pool
and there being marked with the sign of the cross
is essential if we are to rise to eternal life.
This is our faith, and we are proud to profess it,
through Christ our Lord.