Fruitfulness & Faith
April 21, 2024
Pastor Mike
Deuteronomy 26:1-11 & Colossians 1:3-13
Today, we’re beginning a twelve-week sermon series exploring the theme of fruitfulness. We’ve just heard the Apostle Paul tell us that “the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world,” and that we are called to live lives worthy of God by “bearing fruit in every good work.” But what does that mean – bearing fruit? It’s an earthy, organic metaphor pulled straight from the rhythms of the natural world, but it doesn’t come all that naturally to us. We live in an industrialized nation in a digital age, and even if some of us tend gardens or keep small farms, we’re formed inside of a culture that assess actions in other ways.
We use words like impact, measurables, deliverables, results. We measure the value of our work in terms of productivity, of meeting or surpassing goals. Anything and everything can be streamlined, optimized, perfected. In school, we get grades. At work, we get performance reviews. But when’s the last time your boss called you into the office to ask you about the fruitfulness of your work? Fruitfulness feels out of place in the business or even the nonprofit sphere, where the almighty dollar is the measure of all things. When I was in Oregon for my ordination interviews, one of the candidates had to give a presentation to the Board on something called a Fruitfulness Project, and I think it’d be pretty strange for just about any other job application to ask about fruitfulness.
But Christians hang on to the metaphor because, as I’ve learned, it’s all over the place in the Bible. Fruit, bearing fruit, firstfruits, fruitfulness – that language springs up from the page over and over again.
“Be fruitful and multiply” is God’s original blessing upon human beings.[1]
The prayer book of the Bible, the Psalms, opens with these words: “Blessed is the one…whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither — whatever they do prospers.”[2]
The Gospel of John, chapter 15: “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. …This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. …You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last…”[3]
It’s in John the Baptist’s wilderness preaching: “Bear fruit worthy of repentance. …The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”[4]
It’s in Jesus’ mountain-top preaching: “By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.”[5]
The letter to the Corinthians declares that “Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20), and James wants us to know that we who are born again in Christ are the “firstfruits” of a new creation.[6]
And who doesn’t love the fruit of the Spirit? Love, peace, patience and the rest…[7]
These verses are just a portion of what’s there. After all, the whole story of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is bookended by fruit. God’s relationship with humankind begins in Eden, a garden full of fruit-bearing trees, and it ends, in the New Jerusalem – the garden-city – whose great river, flowing from the throne of God, is lined with orchards.
I remember when my wife, Sus, a good Californian, taught me how to shop for citrus and stone fruit early on in our relationship. She taught me that you should weigh each piece of fruit in your hand, that you want it to feel heavy for its size. It turns out that the very language of fruitfulness is one of the densest, richest concepts in our scriptures. The Bible stretches the metaphor in so many different directions, and it really has become baked into the ways our Christian tradition approaches questions of labor and value.
So, as I said, we are going take this call to be fruit-bearing Christians in a fruitful Church and consider it from all sorts of angles. I really don’t have an agenda or endgame in mind. My only concern is that we refine our ability to think in a Christlike way about what it means for us to be healthy and growing and maturing and doing good works, especially as we enter a capital campaign and celebrate our first anniversary as a Reconciling Church and adapt to whatever new realities emerge from General Conference. I’m excited to wade into some of the more fun passages pertaining to fruitfulness and see what grows from the seed of this idea.
We can start right now with the basic but fundamental truth that any fruitfulness we enjoy is a gift that comes from God. Here are Paul’s words to the Colossians one more time:
“The gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world – just as it has been doing since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace.
“…We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will …so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, … and giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.”[8]
The gospels bears fruit in us and through us when we have truly understood God’s grace. Good works come when we are filled with God by God. It is only because God has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints, it is only because God has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into fellowship with his beloved Son that the fruits come at all. We don’t have to make ourselves capable or worthy of bearing fruit. We don’t have to earn a place in the story of what God is growing in the world. God qualifies us, rescues us, and brings us into his work. Everything we might do or give or bring about for Christ is in response to what Christ is already doing and giving and bringing about in us. All we have to do is rest in our belovedness, consent to the light, open our hands and our hearts to receive the gift of new life. Then we become trees planted by streams of water and branches grafted onto the Vine. Christian life, in essence, is one unending Thank You.
Larry has already read the scripture from Deuteronomy 26, which commands the Israelites to tithe their firstfruits to God. Because fruitfulness, as a way of thinking, takes some getting used to, I’d like to just retell that passage for us but in slightly different words, words which I hope will allow each of us to put ourselves in the story and respond to whatever the Spirit stirs up. Let’s start this twelve-week meditation on fruitfulness by dwelling in this moment of offering and allowing God’s Word to guide us.
So, I invite you to adjust your posture if you need to, so that you feel grounded and comfortable and alert. Place your feet on the floor, uncross anything that’s crossed, either close your eyes or let them come to rest in an open gaze on a spot in front of you. Take a couple of deep breaths and then let your breath go to its natural rhythm.
As I retell this story about the firstfruits, I’ll offer a few opportunities along the way for you to linger with a particular question, and if it feels right, you can just stay there for the remainder of the meditation. Come as far into the story as the Spirit invites you to come.
A young farmer, skin darkened and rough from the long summer harvest, arrives at his local place of worship riding an ox-drawn cart that is laden with food. Sheaves of wheat and barley are piled next to baskets of grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and dates. He dismounts from his cart and takes hold of his first basket. It is heavy, the literal fruit of much labor and worried waiting. He has plucked these first fruits in the fields, held them up to the bright sun with tired arms and considered their deep color, and yet he has refrained from tasting them. Instead, he has brought them here, as an offering to God. Perhaps this is where you want to linger, standing next to this young farmer at the entrance to God’s house. Perhaps the question for you is simply this: What is in your basket? What are the firstfruits in your own life?
{silence}
Coming out to meet the farmer is a man dressed in fine cloth, the priest, who speaks a word of blessing – The Lord be with you – and beckons the farmer indoors to the altar room. Once inside, the farmer declares that he has come into the land that the Lord swore to give to their ancestors. He has come to offer the first produce of his harvest as a way of saying thank you for that land. He, in fact, was born there, in the land. He has known no other place than the homestead first established by his grandfather. He has farmed the same soil from the time he was a boy. But he knows the story, and that is what is important. He hands his first basket to the priest and prepares to tell the story that he has told so many times before. There upon the gray stone of the altar, he sees the fruit that his no longer his own. Perhaps this is as far as you come, today. Perhaps the question for you is a question of feeling. How does it feel to hand that basket over, to see what you have worked to grow and harvest there upon the altar? What does that act of offering, of sacrifice, bring up in you?
{silence}
The farmer knows that he so easily could have had nothing, been a nobody. He knows that before coming into this land his grandfather’s people had been slaves, subjected to brutal labor; that they had been nomads, wanderers, strangers. It was only because God brought the people out of Egypt all those years ago, only because God led the people into the promised place with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with terror and signs and wonders, that he can, today, walk through vast fields of golden grain, and know with certainty that he and all his people would have food to put on the table.
With his basket on the altar, he stands before the priest and before their Lord and he tells that very story. He remembers and rehearses the story of grace into which he was born. “God brought us to this place an gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey; and now I bring the first fruits of the soil that you, Lord, have given me” (Deut. 26:9-10). With that final statement he has shifted from third person speech to first-and-second person speech, from storytelling to prayer. He has done it – entered personally into the story of his people! He is the wanderer whom God has settled, the slave whom God has freed. And he has made this journey into the story by way of his gift.
Perhaps this is where you stay this morning, with the story. How did you come to be here, to have what you have and be who you are? How did you come to know the goodness and grace of God, to be set free by his power and established by his grace? What’s the story that you tell here at the altar as you offer this gift?
{silence}
Year after year, basket by basket, the farmer learns that all things belong to God and return to God, that there is an essential unity between the open hand and the open heart. And this wisdom brings about a profound sense of peace and trust and joy. He knows that he returns to fruitful fields, that he goes home to abundance. He could take the time to be here, to tell this story. He has gained so much more than he has lost in setting the firstfruits on the altar. Once again, there will be joy for him and his household, for the Levites – God’s servants – who live in his vicinity, and for the foreigners and strangers who dwell in his town who do not yet have land of their own. There will be joy because he will provide for them just as God has provided for him. He climbs back onto his cart and turns himself toward home. His sight is renewed: everything is a gift. Though his cart is empty, his heart is full.
This where we end the story and maybe your question is the final question: Who will benefit from your open-handed, open-hearted life? As grace flows through you, who will it touch? Your household? You faith community? The poor and the poor in spirit? Freely you have received. To whom, now, will you freely give?
{silence}
In the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] Genesis 1:28.
[2] Psalm 1:1-3.
[3] John 15:5, 8, 16.
[4] Matthew 3:8; Luke 3:9.
[5] Matthew 7:16-18.
[6] James 1:18
[7] Galatians 5:22-23.
[8] Colossians 1:6, 9-13.