Apple Butter Christians

   Starting Wednesday on an age old tradition among the people of Bonsack UMC began; making Apple Butter.  The process began on Wednesday with volunteers peeling and cutting over 100 bushels of apples.  Around tables folks gathered to participate in more than just the tasks at hand, but in the midst of the cutting and peeling God used the time to weave together lives and hearts through fellowship, sharing, and uniting the participants in a common task.
    At times God used the discussions and sharing to reveal the fruitfulness of God’s love among the lives at work, and in bringing them together that same blessing was a reminder of God’s collective blessing to and through this congregation.  At other times the discussion and sharing mirrored the very act in which they were participating.  Some deeper discussions took place, and vulnerability was revealed, so that the Spirit was able to peel back the skin and expose the need for some cutting and trimming of the soul in order to lay back the meat of who those folks are called to be.  It is through such sharing that they will be transformed into something sweet and good.
    The cutting and peeling was finished in a day and a half, thanks to a lot hard work, and now those cut and peeled apples sit, waiting to be taken to the next level.  They sit exposed to the air, and though some darkening and discoloring takes place, they are simply preparing for the next stage of their purpose.
    Tonight, Friday, these discolored apple pieces will be ground up into even smaller pieces and mixed into large kettle.  Cinnamon, sugar, water, and other elements will be added to them, and over the next 12 hours or so, they will be boiled down.  A fire underneath, the brew will be stirred constantly throughout that time so it won’t burn and to mix it all together, and then at the right time, the first will be extinguished and the apple butter is ready.
    Those same workers who stirred the pots will then take pan after pan of the mixture to the kitchen where jars await for them to be packaged and sealed.  A team of folks will take that final product and package it for sharing and blessing.  Some folks will have purchased the product and some will be given away as a gift from this community of faith, but all of it is offered as a reminder of the sweetness of God’s love, the fruit born and given among a people through whom God works and blesses to be a blessing.

    Just before Jesus was taken away by the authorities, put on trial and killed, He had a ‘sit down’ with the disciples, and part of what he shared with them was the importance of bearing fruit for the Kingdom.  He talked about how bearing fruit, however, was not easy, for in order to bear the best fruit, we must be pruned and shaped.  He also spoke of how there are times when that fruit is plucked from the branch but in doing so can still be used for Kingdom work.  But the bottom line is that, as Jesus says, “He is the vine, and we are the branches.”  (John 15) If we cling to this truth and allow ourselves to be shaped into the fruitful people God intends us to be, then God makes away to feed the world, even through us.

    In reflecting upon the process of making apple butter, there are many parallels to how God shapes us as Christians.  After all, we are the very product of the true vine.  We are Christ’s body that is called to serve but always connected with Him.  Subsequently, there are times when we are invited to go to the next level, and often that means we are often led to a place that is outside our norm.
    It’s like we have to be plucked from one area and moved to another, but it doesn’t stop there.  If we are really going to be changed, the unwanted parts have to be peeled and trimmed away...prepared for that next stage, if you will.  But that’s not all either.
    God doesn’t just leave us there raw and exposed.  No, God takes the changed self and places us in situations, or among people, who can show us the new way God is inviting us to follow.  We find ourselves in congregations or small groups or among friends who witness what this new life might look like, and it’s as if God has just the right recipe to make us a part of something sweeter through which we can bless others.
    In the end, what emerges is someone new but transformed.  Someone whom God can then use to bless others.  Someone whose essence is that of the very tree from which it came, but is now prepared to sweeten the world through their witness and love.

    One of the traditions in making apple butter is that in each kettle, a few pennies are placed and stirred in with the mixture.  They say it helps to keep the apple butter from sticking.  Maybe so, but I tend to think that maybe this is God’s way of reminding us that, no matter how much we lean into Jesus, we are still a part of the world and the world is part of us.  In fact, the world flavors us a bit, and it can even keep us from adhering to God’s plan.
    And yet, just as with the apple butter, when we are surrounded and enveloped as part of the larger recipe of God’s love, God’s influence and work is more powerful than the world.  And what can be a hindrance can actually be that which flavors our lives, so that we know the world’s ways enough, that we can take God’s ways and transform what we know of the world through witness and love.

How do you need God to “boil you down,” so that you can move the next stage of God’s plan for your life?