Guest commentary by Jason Schiller
I am an aspiring gardener. I love the idea of tending to and cultivating fruits, vegetables and flowers, relishing in the bounty that comes from hard work and good soil. Three years ago, I was determined to have a garden. I spent the spring getting the ground ready and planning the layout of the plants. I read books about organic gardening and companion planting while dreaming about fresh produce. Then July came. One high school mission trip and family vacation later, I returned home to weeds towering over the garden I had so carefully planned. The harvest was meager, and I abandoned plans for the following year.
Tending to a garden is the oldest vocation of humankind. In Genesis 2:15 we find the newly formed Adam being placed in the Garden of Eden “to till it and keep it.” Jesus picks up on this imagery in John 15:1-11 with the final of eight “I AM” statements: “I am the true vine, and God is the vinedresser.” The People of Israel were very familiar with vineyard language, they were the vine in God’s vineyard (Isaiah 5:1-7). Jesus brings this image into the newly forming church. Jesus is the vine, God is the vinedresser, and the followers of Jesus are the branches.
Grape vines require caring hands working everyday to cultivate and tend to the vineyard, forging an intimate relationship between the vinedresser and the vine. The vinedresser fertilizes and nurtures the vine while pruning away the dead and unfruitful branched so that healthy branches can thrive and produce a bountiful crop.
Pruning is essential.
God is intimately involved in the life of God’s church, tending to each member and nurturing us so that we might produce abundant and good fruit for our work in this broken world. God continues to tend to the vine, pruning when necessary.
Right before graduation, a seminary professor told us that we were going out into a time unlike any he had experienced in over 40 years of ministry. The western world had changed dramatically and quickly, leaving behind Christendom and cultural Christianity. Congregations have been shedding members ever since, left to lament the lost past with full sanctuaries and Sunday school classrooms.
God never stopped tending to the vine, though. Day in and day out, God has been at work, pruning away the unproductive branches. We lost sight of God’s work in our yearning for the “good old days.” It is as though we are all sitting and staring at a stump, reminiscing about the glorious tree that once was. It provided shade on hot summer days, strong branches for kids to climb and delicious fruit for us to enjoy. But while we are stuck staring at the stump, we have missed the beautiful forest that has sprouted up behind us.
God never stopped creating.
God is inviting us into an amazing time for the church. A time of creativity and imagination that is vast, deep and open, just like our God. We are being called to let go of our human-created limitations and embrace a future that is authentic, intimate, faithful and exciting as we work together to share the good news of Jesus Christ and bring healing to our broken world.
God did not abandon us. Remember the words of Jesus, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
JASON SCHILLER is a Minister of Word and Sacrament serving two congregations in the Presbytery of Southeastern Illinois, Philo Presbyterian Church and First Presbyterian Church of Tolono. He’s passionate about rural ministry and congregational transformation. In his time off, he loves art, photography, coin collecting, cooking and spending time with his wife Erin, and children, Elsa and Abram.
