Sermon Audio

She goes off to a solitary place and lets out a blood-curdling scream. He goes off to the range and empties a handgun’s clip in no time flat into the paper target. She kicks her husband and the kids out of the house and sets herself to making the kitchen and dining room spic and span. He goes out to his shop and makes 15 bird houses out of every last bit of scrap wood he has. They go to the studio where she throws some clay on a wheel and makes a vase, while he throws paint on a canvas and calls it art. These are but a few of the ways people find to vent—both destructively and productively. Venting is very cathartic.

Catharsis—from the Greek word of like pronunciation—is cleansing. Webster’s tenth edition calls it, “purification or purgation of the emotions (as pity and fear) primarily through art” or “purification or purgation that brings about spiritual renewal or release from tension” or “elimination of a complex by bringing it to consciousness and affording it expression.” To translate the Greek word simply, we would say cleansing or purging, perhaps purification. And it is a word that our Lord uses in today’s Gospel lesson, twice:

I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.

The Word of God is an amazing thing. It makes a thing what it is, as we confess concerning Baptism, which “is not just plain water, but it is the water included in God's command and combined with God's word,” which does great things. How does water do such great things?

Certainly not just water, but the word of God in and with the water does these things, along with the faith which trusts this word of God in the water. For without God's word the water is plain water and no Baptism. But with the word of God it is a Baptism, that is, a life-giving water, rich in grace, and a washing of the new birth in the Holy Spirit...

Water and the Word is God’s catharsis for you, for it is by this Word that you are made clean. Baptism is a cathartic which purges sin from you and onto the One who instituted this Sacrament and took all sins as the Lamb of God and died with them on the tree of the cross, to rise again on the third day. And by Holy Baptism, you are made a branch on the True Vine.

From there you receive from the Vine what you need to support you in this life and all that you need to prepare you for the life to come. For from Him comes all grace and every blessing as you continually hear His cathartic Word, which purges from you the sins you have committed—the very words of absolution that you hear from here ever week and as often as you visit your pastor privately for confession: “You are forgiven for all of your sins.”

Your life is in the Vine, and from Him flow to you the very juices and sap which bring to you life—Sacramental juices, you could say. For it is in the Sacrament of the Altar that you receive the very Body and Blood of your Lord and Savior for the forgiveness of your sins, life, and salvation. Once the people of God were directed not to drink the blood, for the life of the creature is in the blood. Now, we are directed to drink the blood of His Lamb who takes away the sin of the world (cf. John 1:29) because our life is in His blood, shed for you and for all for the forgiveness of sins; and where there is forgiveness there is also life and salvation, as we confess concerning this Sacrament.

“You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.” That is only one use of catharsis that we heard in today’s text. The other comes before that.

Jesus said, “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” There are branches on the Vine which bear no fruit. These are often referred to as those people who may confess with their lips that Jesus is Lord, but believe it not in their hearts. (cf. Romans 10:9-10) While that is certainly part of it, I contend that there is another part. The bearing of fruit is a phrase used elsewhere in Scripture by our Lord, who said through John the Baptizer, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance...” (Matthew 3:7b-8)

What is it we say of repentance? Repentance has two parts: contrition and faith. Therefore, to bear fruit—bear fruit worthy of repentance—is to have contrition and faith. Those branches that bear no fruit the Vinedresser takes—a word which is related to catharsis in Greek in-so-far as it lacks the prefix κατα. He lifts and takes away these fruitless branches. He puts an end to the fruitless branches. Later, this same verb also came to mean kill: He kills these fruitless branches, or as Jesus also said in today’s text: “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.”

To these fruitless branches is proclaimed the Law of God, but it falls on deaf ears. They hear the proclamation of God against their sins, and they refuse to listen to it. There is no contrition there. So, these branches are removed from the Vine. They heed not the call to repentance, and so to them is not given the gift of forgiveness. They are removed from the forgiving and life-giving Sacramental sap from the Vine; no sense in allowing them to rob God of His grace for the fruitful branches. At the end, should they remain unbound to the Vine, these taken-away branches are gathered and thrown into the fire, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. (cf. Matthew 25:41)

As for the fruitful branches, all is not well for them, either. Yes, they certainly bear fruit in keeping with repentance. To them is given the gift of contrition and faith, and by faith, they receive and not refuse this grace. Yet, they are attacked on all sides by forces which seek to remove them from the vine.

• For one thing, we can mention those fruitless branches again. Their robbery of God’s grace against the fruitful branches is poisonous to the fruitful branches. Their presence on the vine can be disastrous for the fruitful branches, as they demonstrate a total lack of faith and deference to their Creator and Lord, which the fruitful branches could easily take as an example and turn to unrighteous living themselves. Therefore, the Vinedresser removes them from the vine, in order that the fruitful branches may be spared.
• For another thing, there come along parasites that attack the leaves and fruit of the branches. Insects and disease nip at the leaves and fruit and kill them. The effects of the Old Man on us all kill us to God on a daily basis:
  • Diseases ravage our bodies, tempting us to curse God and die, as Job’s wife tempted Job.
  • Or we offer our works to God, supposing them good and worthy of merit before Him, without ever acknowledging that they are dead works before Him, as the prophet Isaiah reminds us (cf. Isaiah 64:6) for which we deserve nothing but God’s wrath.
  • All that we think or say or do that places us in the place of God is a sin that strikes at the leaves and fruit of the branches. As it has been said, “If it’s about you, then it’s not about Jesus, and if it’s not about Jesus, then it’s wrong.”

Dear branches, this is your plight, even while connected to the Vine here in this temporal, mortal existence. Daily, you transgress the Law of God—your leaves and fruit are dead and dying—you sin. And so, to you, as much as to the fruitless branches, is proclaimed the Law of God; to you is proclaimed the same word that John the Baptizer proclaimed: “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance...” And by the grace of God, you do:

O almighty God, merciful Father, I, a poor, miserable sinner, confess unto Thee all my sins and iniquities with which I have ever offended Thee and justly deserved Thy temporal and eternal punishment. But I am heartily sorry for them and sincerely repent of them, and I pray Thee of Thy boundless mercy and for the sake of the holy, innocent, bitter sufferings and death of Thy beloved Son, Jesus Christ, to be gracious and merciful to me, a poor, sinful being.

In faith, you express your contrition, bearing fruit in keeping with repentance. And by grace, you are saved, as the words of Holy Absolution are pronounced over you. As a fruitful branch, you are purged again of your sin, you are pruned of your dead leaves and dead fruit—catharsis. You are clean because of the Word spoken to you—the Word grasped by God-given faith which declares that God the Son took on human flesh as yours, and took your sin into His flesh, died with it on the cross, thereby removing it from you as far as east is from the west, and rose again from the dead on the third day in order to give to you the victory over death and sin. This is what flows to you branches from the Vine.

This pruning, however—this catharsis—is never enjoyable. That which is sinful in you is expunged—purged—from you. It is as if you are losing a limb, an image Christ Himself used: “If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.” (Matthew 5:29-30) The proclamation of God’s Law against sin is painful to hear—Old Adam simply hates to hear that he is wrong, and he fights again it—to hear the Law of God against our sin is offensive. No one likes to be told that they are a sinner, and God’s discipline—any discipline—is never enjoyable, even as the author of the letter to the Hebrews attests. (Hebrews 12:11)

Yet, hear it we do—we are told of our sin, our transgression against the Law of God, we endure God’s chastening—and by grace, we confess our sins, and by grace, we are forgiven of our sins. Remember, dear branches, none of this is of yourself, as St. Paul writes to the Ephesians (cf. Ephesians 2:8-9), and as we also confess: “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him...”

It is now that we can speak of your fruits as your good works—those things you do and can only do with the cooperation of God, the Holy Ghost, who called you by the Gospel and enlightened you with His gifts, making you a branch on the Vine, by which He sanctifies you and keeps you in the true faith, richly forgiving you all your sins and the sins of all believers. (cf. Small Catechism, Creed, Art. III) So, yes, even your repentance, that fruit, is a good work done in you, to you, and through you by the Holy Ghost. Also to be considered good is what is done in service to your neighbor, as you demonstrate to him or her the life that you have in Christ, the Vine.

More than this, though, is the work of God he Spirit in you, through whom you are sanctified, being made holy, set apart from all of the dead, worthless branches. His work is to keep you and the whole Church with Jesus in the one true faith, so that you can be sanctified, so that catharsis may take place in you—that you may be pruned—so that you can hear and believe these words, which are very true of you because of Him and our Lord: Your sins are purged from you, you are clean because of the Word spoken to you; the Word of God makes you what you are: forgiven for all of your sins.