There is a dense bush of some sort outside our church. It has broad leaves as big as a bear's paw, purple veins and celery-stalk trunks. Each summer it stretches seven feet toward the blue sky. And every autumn, Gene -- who is 90 years old, and cares for our gardens like his children -- cuts it to the ground.
He pushes his ancient steel-wheeled wheelbarrow across the stony parking lot, and with clarity and determination he fells this beautiful monster in the maw of his wooden-handled garden shears. Then Gene lays the leafy carcass to rest in one of his composting piles. An inch or two of stubbly stalk and a sparse patch of brown grass is all that remains. What is left is space; like an empty lot where a house or a forest has burned down.
Once, standing outside in the slanting October sunlight, I asked Gene about this annual ritual. He took off his gloves and said, "You have to do that. It drives the life back into the roots." He motioned toward the earth with both hands. "If you don't cut it back all the life comes out; sooner or later it will die."
Lately, I've been thinking about pruning. Not so much the pruning of plants but of the bushy-ness of life, my own and our life together as a community of disciples. Maybe it's a middle-aged thing, this realization that we just can't do everything. We have to choose: this and not that.
Ironically, the journey with the One Who Promises Life Abundant often leads to burnout, exhaustion, or simply a lack of clarity. Take a block of well-aged Protestant work ethic, sprinkle it with a lived salvation by works and an endless list of pressing things crying out for attention and you've got a recipe for disaster.
One recent Sunday morning is a source of considerable shame for a pastor who fancies himself one who empowers others. Before worship I found a note: "The photocopier is jammed. Can you run these pages off?" I did. Then the person "on coffee" called, "I don't know how to use this pot. Can you make the coffee?" I didn't. After worship, for the fourth time that morning, someone complained to me about the temperature in the sanctuary. I snapped, a little. "There are 40 adults here and I'm apparently the only one who can go over there and turn the knob on the thermostat?" Folks were understandably embarrassed for me.
Photocopying, making coffee and managing the thermostat are all necessary for the functioning of our little church community. They are not normally things I take care of. Nonetheless, I think I heard God challenging me that morning to take a look at what I was doing to give the message that I could do everything; at how my ministry is witnessing to salvation by works rather than to life abundant.
Since then I've been working at pruning.
Pruning can be a painful discipline. We are praised for our accomplishments. We measure our own worth by what we get done. In the church we practically venerate the "tireless" volunteer or pastor who neglects her own health and family to serve God (by which we mean "the church," as though it was the same thing). A minister who tries to take two days off each week, as I do, is considered a slacker, somehow not truly dedicated.
As a people we are tremendously gifted at sniffing out a new social need, worship technique or study program and giving it a whirl. We are terrible at deciding not to do something. Sitting on regional church committees, I am amazed at how quickly we thump the table with satisfaction and add some worthwhile task to our "To-Do" list. We are even more ready to add to the "To-Do" list of others. I have yet to participate in a meeting where we cut with the kind of clarity and determination with which Gene prunes the bush outside our church. When we do prune, it is just enough cautious snipping to allow for something else to be added.
Some months ago, in spite of dwindling resources and energy, our denomination blocked a remit to prune a level from its four-court bureaucracy. For many, that decision was based on a fear of loss of power by the grassroots. I wonder how much life is drained from those roots to serve on the church's various levels. Ministers and volunteers alike are spending far too much time and energy on work that serves the institution. That goes double for the financial demands of keeping that sap running in so many branches of bureaucracy.
We end up with bushy lives and churches. Lately my prayer work has been about trying to separate the bushy-ness of my life from that which is bearing fruit. Pruning is about forcing energy down to deep places, down into the roots in ways that will return in the shape of fruit. In a world where people are constantly pushed to "do more with less" perhaps we need to be the voice calling for "less to be done with more."
That can be especially tough for us preachers, pastors and priests. "Linda" has been every congregation's dream-come-true. She organizes fund-raisers, attends all Bible studies, helps lead worship, and works with the youth. And she loves it.
Lately, she and I have been talking about pruning, about her need to choose: this and not that. As her spiritual companion I have had to encourage her not to do some things. I confess this is hard work for us both, but Linda, and people like her, are the life-blood of our congregations. We need to care for them.
Life-abundant requires pruning. I need to witness to that in my own life, if I am to speak of the Word of grace. I need to support it in the lives of others who are longing to know a God whose love is not contingent on our being busy. There will always be important things to do; we need to be asking if they need doing now. If my energy, or our corporate energy, is constantly tangled up in the production of still more branches, there will be no energy left for producing -- and tasting -- fruit. Will I be too busy starting this activity to be present to the Christ when he comes in the form of a homeless person "interrupting" my bushy day? Will I be too pre-occupied with the needs of "my" congregation to encounter my own poverty of spirit?
In the end, pruning is an act of faith. It is about trusting God to use what we have to offer, about embracing our limits, our weakness, and trusting God to use that too. It is about acknowledging in the way we live that "kingdom come on earth," and in our lives, is God's holy work, not our own. Pruning is about the humility to acknowledge our absolute dependence on God. It is about forcing our life energy down deep; back down into our roots and making space for tiny new shoots to push up in the most surprising places and ways.
