May 10, 2009

Linda Murphy

Easter 5     John 15:1-8

I love gardening and I especially love this autumn time of year. Everything is changing; the colours of the leaves are beautiful even here in the city. The abundances of the summer are over and it is time to clean up and prepare the garden for the winter and the new growth of spring. Therefore today’s Gospel with its metaphor of the vine, vinedresser and pruning resonates with me.

Jesus is the vine and his relationship with us and we (the church) in him represent the branches. This image of the vine or tree invites spiritual reflection to feel God as the sap within us, rising up through the trunk to the branches. We need to let our spirituality flow like the sap to reach the branches and generate new growth and fruit. Fruit bearing is a time consuming beautiful process, first the leaves then the flowers, then the fruit. This process in nature takes time; from the pruning of autumn to late summer’s harvest.

The vine is a metaphor for the way of Jesus namely Christians endeavour to live our daily lives. This ‘abiding’ language reminds us to be open to the presence of God in our midst wherever and everywhere. To find this we need to stop being so busy. We can do this when we are in our garden, at the beach, on our daily walks.

As a gardener I know how beneficial pruning can be to a vine or tree, it encourages new growth, new life. Pruning guarantees the plants survival by restoring its beauty and harmony. The pruning that God provides is part of the nurturing process provided to all the branches to strengthen them.

At present our Western World is immersed in a financial crisis of unimaginable proportions.

The amounts of money lost by the financial sector, for most of us, are incomprehensible to the point of having no reality to us as individuals. Nevertheless we are being told that we will suffer and many millions have already lost their homes, jobs and investments.

The world’s finance sector is facing a mighty pruning. Some of the largest companies in the world, such as General Motors and Chrysler, are considering the option of bankruptcy protection and some will disappear completely.

The problem arose from greed. Ill-conceived incentive schemes encouraged financiers, brokers and their ilk to strive to maximise their personal wealth at the expense of good commercial sense.

The finance industry lent massive amounts of money on loans that had insufficient security and ultimately threw the worldwide balance of debt and equity out of balance.

The American, European and Asian governments have had to invest huge amounts of money to keep these banks and finance companies solvent.

All available credit around the world is being used to replace that which has been lost by the money lenders rather than being invested for future growth. In the medium term we are going to see weaker companies fall by the wayside through a lack of financial support and consequently unemployment will rise.

While the media takes delight in talking about this crisis with doom and gloom it may be time to look positively at this as an autumnal moment.

However how do we go about pruning our selves and our society?

Resurrection gave us renewed life; the opportunity for change to live life as Jesus had preached one of compassion for each other. We now have the time to consider what is more important personal wealth or social justice for everyone regardless of race and social status.

After the Great Depression of the 1930s many countries adopted a social welfare system including New Zealand. Then during the 1980s these social welfare systems were dismantled by more conservatively minded governments. Governments who were more concerned with cutting taxes for the very rich at the expense of the poorest members of society.

As a result we have poor social services, a struggling health system, poor social housing and an inadequate education system. This is worldwide not just in New Zealand. The rich have got richer and the poor poorer and the middle class have shrunk.

During our World history we have accepted slavery as a God given right, seen women as property, racial discrimination based on ones ethnicity and homosexuality as evil. For most of us such discrimination is abhorrent.

Great changes have been achieved by individuals following the way and believing in a loving and compassionate God through Jesus; think of Martin Luther King Jr, Ghandi and Nelson Mandela. From a conviction and love they achieved change and just as new growth takes time their desire for change also took many years. Nothing happens instantly but with a desire for something better such as a new economic vision for our world with time, energy and nurturing renewal could be achieved.

Barack Obama has said; “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”

What an intimidating task; what can we as individuals do?

We can remember to bring some food for the offertory basket on Sunday; spend the winter reflecting on new growth in our own lives. Someone in our family or neighbourhood may be out of work, they may appreciate some of our time to listen and share how they feel. Social agencies like the City Mission could use our help so they can help those in greater need. We need to engage with our community, get out and notice the branches that have been bruised and need some loving and nurturing pruning.

While it may be difficult to have faith that world leaders will adopt a new more just business model we can pray that they do so, because right now the old one is not working. For the church, the whole church regardless of denomination; now is the time to put aside it’s petty squabbles and look at the wider issues facing the world unite and use their influence to call world leaders’ to prune the economies with fairness, equality and compassion.