Apr 22 2020 John 15: 1-11

Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.

My relationship with plants and gardens has changed over the years, and it’s different now than it’s eve been. Instead of 2 acres of nature to tame and plant, I have a relatively small city lot. Instead of long rows of mounded dirt for a wealth of produce, I have 4 raised beds. Instead of all my plants outside, because offices and the houseplants that lived there are unvisited and unmaintained, I have a collection of houseplants on many flat surfaces. Instead of an acre of yard to mow, my husband mows our little patch of grass in about 10 minutes.

With less volume of land to garden, with more precise gardening beds, and with plants actually in my house, I have a new-found appreciation of pruning. It’s easier to spot something that needs to be pinched off, cleaned up, or thinned. And it’s easier to do. I’ve found I actually like pruning. It’s mindless, therapeutic, and very manageable. I can’t prune all day long, because I don’t have that much to tend. But I could prune a little every day, or nearly every day. 

Pruning or thinning does several things. It takes off the errant branches, or shoots. It removes unhealthy or dead parts. Pruning also leaves the remaining plant better off – better off to grow as intended, to produce as desired, to remain healthy.

Because of my new-found relationship with growing things, I have a new-found appreciation for Jesus’ comments about pruning.

In a garden, you don’t bother pruning things that are dying, or unsalvageable. You prune what is healthy and producing to make it healthier and more productive. Likewise, we are pruned, even when we’re doing well. We are pruned to do better. Our errant shoots or misguided actions may be removed or thwarted. Branches of a fruit tree that are too productive and the fruit might damage the branch may be pruned back. Our overzealous productive areas might be pruned back, so we don’t become overburdened.

In my garden, I don’t prune, thin or pinch things off to be mean or for bad purposes. I do it to improve what remains. Likewise God prunes, thins or pinches off bits of our world not to be mean or for bad purposes. Parts of us are pruned to improve what remains.

To be clear, having part of my self or one of my ‘enthusiasms’ curbed is not pleasant, and doesn’t feel like a good thing. In the past twelve months, I’ve started and stopped singing in choir, moved three times, and returned to a car-owning, house-owning dweller. When one of my great ideas doesn’t pan out, I pout. But perhaps errant shoots are being pruned, so what remains is healthier.

This morning, I’m thinking about parts of my life that have been pruned, clipped, thinned or removed. More important though, I want to think about what remains. What part of me is healthier, tidier, more productive as a result of the parts that have been removed? God is the master gardener, not me. God has a better sense of what healthy and productive look like for my life, not me. God should prune those bits that aren’t helping me be what God wants.

I don’t always like it, and I don’t always see God’s hand in it. But today, I want to be aware of God’s providential pruning of my life.