April 29, 2018

5^th Sunday of Easter (B)     

“God’s Plan Includes Pruning”

Msgr. Thomas Gervasio

Charles Dicken’s book, “Great Expectations” came to mind as I considered today’s Gospel passage, because we might say that in it, Jesus tells us that “God has “great expectations” of those who would be is disciples. His expectation is that our lives should be “fruitful” which is to say, productive and abundant. To convey his meaning, Our Lord makes use of allegory as he often did, especially from word of agriculture—the grain of wheat, the mustard seed, the fig tree. In today’s passage he uses the image of a vine and branches. His listeners understood the process of cultivating grapes. Our Lord teaches us that just as a cultivated vine produces fruit, so our lives should be fruitful or productive.
 
But in his lesson Our Lord does not fail to include an interesting detail. He speaks about “pruning.” Pruning is a necessary part of cultivation. It appears damaging or harmful, but this cutting away actually improves the plant’s potential for fruitfulness. In the case of grapes, a cultivated, pruned vine can produce good fruit for nearly 100 years. Jesus reminds us that our spiritual lives require pruning so that we become the productive, fruitful disciple he expects us to be.
 
Think of Lent! It’s a time of “pruning.” Don’t we strive to cut out from our lives certain things that are harmful to us? We practice giving up things that keep us from growing spiritually. But we often return to those same habits and attachments once Lent is over. We are not good for the “long haul.” We are not very good at our own pruning.
 
Jesus tells us that the Father is the vinedresser. He knows best. He is the expert in pruning. But that pruning is not of our choosing, it not always welcome. The pruning seems hurtful and doesn’t seem to make sense. What is God up to? Why is this happening?
 
God’s pruning can come through our experiences of tragedy and grief, physical suffering and limitations, times of humiliation; times when we are asked to step aside and defer to others, or when friends move out of our lives or when our well thought-out plans must change. Through these situations God is pruning that might bear greater fruit. C.S. Lewis described this process using the imagery of a house:
 
“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”
 
God has “great expectations” and he wants to move us from our own limited picture of who we should be. He sees what we can be! We don’t always see the dead branches we carry around that impede our growth. He prunes us out of our comfort zones into the adventure of discipleship. We prefer the little cottage; let us allow him to build the palace.