I Am the True Vine - Apart From Me You Can Do Nothing
by Anne Linington(264)
http://Faithwriters.com
I am the true Vine John 15:1-8
Introduction
This week I have my last tutorial for my Reader training. I have a couple more assignments to do and the three year training will be complete. As Stephen said “It is the end of the beginning”, though there were times when it felt like the beginning of the end!
At the end of any course, school, college or “Uni” there are a mix of feelings: amazement for having got through and that it passes so quickly; hope for what lies ahead, perhaps with a bit of fear or anxiety; gratitude for the friendships made on the way, with a sense of loss too; a fresh sense of identity and belief in your particular gifts and direction;
Others in our Church family are facing change as a result of retirement; Harry from his career as a teacher- a God-given ministry itself, and Stephen as he retires as Vicar here and at the Minster. For them, like Kenneth our Bishop, there will perhaps be some relief to lay down the burden of leadership, whilst looking forward to the shape of whatever ministry forms the next stage of life.
I wonder what Kenneth, Stephen and Harry will be saying over the next few weeks to the people they leave behind? And what will be said to them by those they have served.
I was still quite fragile when I arrived at St. John's, and would like to say a personal thank-you to Stephen for his encouragement and support. I shall always remember his words after he heard me preach for the first time: ...... “You'll do”.
Last week when we came into Church, there was a lot of white smoke coming from the altar candle. Perhaps we should have realised a change of leadership was occurring, (though it's usually associated with a new Pope!).
Context
Today's Gospel reading about the Vine and the branches is part of Jesus' “Farewell discourses” contained in John Chapters 13-17. If you get a chance read it through in one hit. It contains what Jesus wanted to say to His disciples knowing that soon he would no longer be physically present.
John records the words between the events of the Last Supper and Christ's betrayal in the Garden of Gethsemane, so we are talking a matter of hours. When time is short we often crystallise our thinking and say what is really on our hearts and it is recalled by John the disciple who had been leaning against Jesus, ready to catch His every word.
In His actions, words and prayers, Jesus is giving the disciples His final preparation for their future:
He washes their feet showing the full extent of His love in sacrificial service;
He institutes the breaking of bread, and drinking wine so that whenever they do this in the future the symbols will remind them of His broken body and shed blood which by faith they have made their own. We acknowledge this each time we take communion as we will do later in the service.
He tells them that the Holy Spirit will be sent to be His indwelling presence and power.
He prays that believers, Christians, you and I, will be one in the same way that He and His Father are one. This will be the strongest witness to the world that they and we are His disciples.
I am the true Vine; my Father is the Gardener, the vinedresser.. I am the vine you are the branches
A week ago Russell saw a wine-press at a machinery sale out at the Dairyman's Daughter at Arreton. There are in fact several vineyards on the Island, the majority on the East Wight. Much of the process is mechanised with machinery mowing between the vines, pruning and spraying. The machines have to be a specific width to get between the vines, and are made in places like Italy.
In Bible times, vines and vineyards were a familiar sight and Jesus used them to explain some of His teaching in parables. They were a prized possession, sometimes tenanted out, and at harvest a watch-tower might be erected to protect the crop from being stolen.
In John 15, the Supper comprising lamb, for Passover, bread and wine was only recently finished.
They had drunk wine together- the visual image, the smell and the taste was still fresh in their minds, this was multi-sensory learning at its best! Jesus will not drink wine again until He drinks it anew in His kingdom. Some Christians have made a case for being tea-total from that verse, but that
is not what Jesus said, only that He would not drink it until then.
What was the most important image Jesus could convey to His disciples for their continued growth in faith?
“ I am the true vine..my Father is the Gardener; I am the vine, you are the branches”. It is another of the “I am” sayings which speak of relationship, just as we heard last week about the Good Shepherd and His sheep.
In what sense is Jesus the TRUE vine?
Throughout the Old Testament the nation of Israel, God's chosen people are portrayed as a vine;
This “vine” God brought out of Egypt, planting it and watering it – and He looked for fruit. And the vine disappointed despite God calling them through the Prophets to repent of their rebellion.
Even during the time of the Maccabees, the vine was the symbol used on their coins. So Israel saw itself as the vine of God's choosing..His care.. and assumed His guranteed protection.
Finally, God sent His Son to do through grace what the Law was powerless to do, to make a people in which His word would be written by the Spirit in their hearts. This is the “True Vine” of which Christ is speaking, a spiritual vine not a national one.
Into this new vine Jewish believers will have to be re-grafted according to Paul in Romans where Paul speaks of the natural branches ie Israel having been broken off, in order that the Gentiles be grafted in: “if they do not persist in unbelief, God is able to graft them in again (though he uses the image of an olive tree here)
I am the true vine, my Father is the GARDENER, alternative translations use: Vine- dresser, husbandman, the one who takes care of the vine.
There are two tasks to be done:
One to cut out the branches that have not born fruit, because the life-flow from the vine is non-existent; the lack of fruit is proof that they lack life; these are collected and destroyed because of their inability to bear fruit. IN the original context it is most likely to apply to the Jews/ the Pharisees who having an outward respectability have no inner change of heart; In our day it could be those who come along to Church ..appear to be Christians but have no life, no vital connexion with Christ the Vine.
The second group, those who have borne fruit, are to be pruned (original is the same word as cleaned: from which we get cathartic/ purgative) in order that they become even more fruitful: Painful but productive.
Vines are pruned back very hard so that the life-flow from the vine will be encouraged and next season's harvest will be greater.
Abide in me says Jesus
This is what the disciples need to know more than anything else; He is going away but they can still abide in Him and He in them.
There is a sense in which this is passive, we have to allow Christ's life and love to flow through us; but it is active in that we have to do all that we can to encourage the potential for abiding particularly through prayer and reading God's word regularly.
It is relationship first out of which flows service. Sometimes we have been guilty in rushing people into service without getting their devotional roots down first.
Jesus describes His own relationship with His Father as a mutual indwelling (Jn 17)
“ Just as you are in me and I am in you”. This relationship was such that their words, works and will become interchangeable.
Jesus seeks a relationship with His disciples, believers, you and I that is reciprocal,
so that we can be said to abide in Him and He abides in us: a mutual indwelling.
In this state, joined to the vine, pruned back to our life-source there will inevitably be fruit:
Two questions arise? How does the Father “prune” us? What fruit do we bear?
The Pruning
We have said that the pruning is the caring act of someone who wants the branches of the vine to be productive. Having borne a season's fruit the branches are cut back to become even more fruitful.
A while ago at the Priory I watched Steve Darlington do a pottery demonstration, and he told us how this paralleled many of the features of God's work in our lives. One element I remember is that the pot is raised up in the hands of the potter, then it is taken back down again; raised up, taken back down; and this is repeated perhaps three time to smooth it out, to remove blemishes and to create greater strength for the final pot.
Perhaps you, like me have known what it is to seemingly be fruitful, and to lose it all; perhaps the only thing you have left at such a time is your faith in God. Sometimes it is our own fault; sometimes the fault of others or a combination of both: It is always sin and its direct or indirect consequence of being broken people in a broken world: ..illness..bereavement...tragedy..natural disaster:
Raised up/ taken back down...
And it is extremely painful... But there is hope that this pruning process carried out by the Father's hand will result in even greater fruitfulness as we abide in Christ:
“ Apart from me you can do nothing”
Bearing fruit
What sort of fruit should we expect to bear?
There will have to be the fruit of love in all its various dimensions:
Galatians speaks of love, joy peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control as being the fruit of the Spirit. This loving unity for which Christ prayed; that isn't uniformity- we are all different in the way we were born, our personalities and experiences- but we are called to be one.
Fruit of making more disciples
Philip was among those appointed as the first Deacons- men filled with Spirit, designated to take on practical tasks of fair distribution to the widows of the early Church. This freed up the apostles for their primary calling of prayer and teaching
This was perhaps the first “Christian Aid” programme , and as a result the Church grew phenomenally. Preaching the Gospel and practical aid must go hand in hand.
Such was Philip's sensitivity to the Holy Spirit, that he finds himself on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza- a place much in our news. He finds himself running alongside a carriage containing the Chancellor of the Exchequer to Queen Candace of Ethiopia and he is reading a passage from Isaiah's prophecy. By questions and answers Philip is able to preach the gospel and reveal that Isaiah is prophesying about Christ and this official is led to Christ and baptised. This is fruit.
Abide in me...remain in me.. apart from me you can do nothing, but conversely with Christ nothing is impossible.
Even your prayers will become so in tune with my will , as mine were with my Father's, that when you ask, they will be granted, says Jesus.
Finally, fruit-bearing glorifies the Father , in the same way that Christ's life and death glorified God. And it shows us to be Christ's disciples.
One commentator says this:
“ the loyalty that is demanded.. is not the holding of a position, but allowing oneself to be held, corresponding to the relationship of the branch to the vine. In this sense the relationship can be a reciprocal one: indeed it must be”
R Bultmann
Article submitted Saturday, January 16, 2010 & read 154 times.
Leave Your Comments: