Grace United Methodist Church
pastorwillrice@gmail.com
John 15:1-8
Grapes to me are more than snacks or the raw materials of juice, jam and wine. Grapes to me are about the very ebb and flow of time, the eternal clock of the earth. For, at a certain time every year, as a child, I would awake, inhale and smell the fragrant aroma of acres of quickly ripening grapes in the vineyard across the street from my home in Upstate New York. It never happened gradually. The smell would seem to just suddenly pervade the air one day when many of the grapes reached the peak of their ripeness and the north wind of fall would carry their scent through the window of my bedroom. Jesus said:
1I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower.
While, I would awake suddenly one morning to this miracle, it wasn’t by some sudden accident that this decadent bouquet filled my nose. There was more to the rhythm of the vineyard.
Springtime in
2He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit.
So what were these people doing in the vineyard? Well after they had gone, I would wander through the rows wondering at the work they had done. They always left behind little pieces of string and little broken pieces of withered vine. Occasionally I would find a whole spool of string left behind. All through the vineyard, vines were neatly trimmed back and tied up with pieces of string. Vines that had been lying on the ground were now tied to the wires stretched between the vineyard poles so that they wouldn’t grow toward the ground. Jesus said:
2He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.
That is not a real popular line in scripture. No one likes to be pruned, even by God.
I didn’t learn until years later, when I was in college, that not all vineyards are the same. The vineyard I knew growing up was a pretty large commercial vineyard. In my freshman year of college I had a professor, who also turned out to make the best wine in town. Joe owned a very small vineyard and produced his wine from the grape to the bottle. He didn’t go into his vineyard with a crew of hired hands. He went in by himself. And because he was more meticulous with his small, fragile vineyard than the workers in the big commercial vineyard across the street from my childhood home, he helped me understand better what was going on.
As the mud slowly dried and post-winter turned into spring, I would walk or ride by bicycle up and down the dirt roads that wandered through the vineyard and watch as vines began to sprout leaves and eventually flourish into the green bushy creations that would remain with us until fall. It was sometime in the spring that in Joe’s small vineyard he would walk through and gently pinch off some of the smaller shoots so that the main fruit bearing branches would get all the nutrients. When I think of Joe, who so loved that vineyard and was so gentle with his precious plants, prune seems like a harsh word.
2bEvery branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.
I wonder how clear that is. The word we translate as “prune” is kaqai,rei from kaqai,rw which could well mean “prune” but it could just as easily mean “clean.” When I think of Joe out in his vineyard, I picture him “cleaning” away some of the shoots so that the main branches could flourish and bear more fruit! Jesus said:
3You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you.
That cleaning image I had of Joe might not be so far off since in the very next line the adjective form of that same word comes up: kaqaroi,. You have already been “cleansed” we read this time, not pruned.
4Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.
Without fail, at some point after the start of school in the fall, the aroma would fill the air. Before the giant machines that now do the grape picking in some commercial vineyards would come through, I would wander through the vines searching for the sweetest grapes. They were juice and jelly grapes. The skins were tough, so you would just squeeze out the insides, and toss the skins, but they were so sweet. I would walk through the rows of reds, and greens, and the wonderful purples and dark blues trying to find which ones were the tastiest that year.
Even in our relationship with God. Many folks come and find a relationship with Christ and are completely transformed by it. However, at some point, our relationship with God begins to require something of us, and some, when they reach that point, walk away.
4Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.
Abide in me as I abide in you
mei,nate evn evmoi,( kavgw. evn u`mi/nÅ
Y’all abide in me as I abide in y’all.
This passage is most definitely plural. You all abide in me as I abide in you all.
Can you image one young, little grape deciding he would be better off to go it alone without all those other grapes dragging him down? That is ridiculous.
And that is exactly where this passage is going. To be in relationship with God means that we are in a committed relationship with God, one that is continual, one that involves perseverance, one that is constantly part of our existence, not just there when it is handy. To be in relationship with God means that we live that out together in “costly companionship.”[2] As tempting as it is to live as a Christian that just checks in with God as needed, that just isn’t what Jesus is talking about here. As tempting as it can be to be a “solo” Christian, it just isn’t part of the deal.
Following Christ means a commitment to the sometimes difficult work of abiding in Christ, together with our fellow Christians, while we allow Christ to abide in all of us, together.
[2] N.T. Wright, “The Vine and the Branches”, a sermon at the Eucharist on the Fifth Sunday of Easter, 18 May 2003, Westminster Abbey, available online at http://westminster-abbey.org/voice/sermons/archives/030518_easter.htm, accessed 17, May 2006; internet
