The True Vine

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The true vine

(John 15:4) Abide 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. "Abide" is not a word we use often in everyday speech now. It calls to mind the old hymn "Abide with me" -- "Abide with me; fast falls the eventide: the darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide: when other helpers fail, and comforts flee, help of the helpless, O abide with me." You might hesitate to adopt its sentiments as a general guide to living a Christian life. It is a song of devotion for the dying: "Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day;"... "Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes; shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies: heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee; in life, in death, O Lord, abide with me." Not perhaps your way of positively affirming life here and now. Many people feel uncomfortable with too great an emphasis in our faith on what happens when we die. But don't knock it. It has been a great comfort to many believers to have that deep trust in God in the face of death. The common faith today might be more of a this-worldly faith, and what we believe is certainly not only about eternal life; yet the time will come when most of us will have cause to remember these sentiments and we will be glad to know that promise of comfort in the face of death which is a blessing of belief. Good though it is, however, that is not what this text Abide in me is all about. You can see that immediately when you see what comes next. It is about being fruitful in living the life of a disciple of Jesus: Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. That is about being effective in the mission of Jesus to people living this life with us in this world. It is about being connected to the source of life, which makes it possible for fruit to be borne. To abide in him is stay in communion with the Lord of life.

The basic idea of the word "abide" in this passage is to stay somewhere, to continue in some place or relationship or condition or expectancy. So we might continue to dwell or live somewhere, or remain constant in a relationship. The sense of continuity in belonging somewhere or with someone is central. In that sense it is about being faithful. In religious terms it is an aspect of faith to remain devoted, to hold to what we believe, to remain in communion. So "abide in me" is a call to continue faithfully to live in a trusting relationship with Christ, as he will continue to be faithful in his commitment to us.

Alienation

Such a faithful trust and continuity of commitment, in which people are happy with their belonging, is the very opposite of alienation in which people feel that they do not belong, that they are no longer at home where they find themselves. When there has been a breach of trust in a marriage or family relationship people feel alienated one from another; workers whose loyalty to an employer has been unfairly exploited feel alienated from their work; if national sentiment is aroused and manipulated in support of sectional interests and unworthy ambitions people can feel alienated from the country of their citizenship; and even in the church people can feel alienated from the communion to which they belong when they believe their trust has been betrayed. Betrayal of trust is a terrible thing in almost any kind of relationship, especially where the relationship has been founded mainly on trust. A breach of trust is a breach of honour, belonging and identity. Its consequence in alienation is the opposite of abiding or staying or continuing to belong. When Jesus called for people to abide in him he was addressing something very basic in who we are and how we live. There is nothing more relevant to the modern and especially the post-modern world.

Alienation is the bane of the post-modern world. It pervades much of Western culture now. There is a widespread feeling that there is nothing worth trusting, out there, any great distance from oneself, and even the most intimate friend or colleague might let you down. It has an ambiguous feel in regard to knowledge even of oneself: on the one hand people seek to discover and assert a personal identity for themselves, not being content with an identity ascribed by others, but there is a deep uncertainty about who are. Self hatred and self harm far too often accompany self assertion and a search for self satisfaction. There are many outward signs. The self-destructive affects of drug-taking become ever more pervasive; suicide rates among the young soar; apparently random communal violence has been a great problem in some communities. Uncertainty in regard to identity and belonging is nowhere more clearly seen than in the massive confusion we have over sexual relationships, where self-discovery and uncertain identity are often mixed with bitterness, not to mention disease and death. Now social researchers speak of generation X or generation Y as "canny" in their awareness, learning to avoid misplacing their precious trust. They "see through" the various personal, commercial and political deceptions which can follow from too great a trust in anyone or anything. In their way of life, it pays not be too connected! Yet belonging and identity are so keenly sought.

There was an earlier form of it, much less widespread, in the cultural revolution of the sixties and seventies when they said, "Don't trust anyone over thirty!" We who were closer to being young than old then thought it was an expression of youthful enthusiasm for their own ways, and perhaps a little over-confidence in their ability to decide everything for themselves. Certainly I thought then that much of their distrust was justified and most of us had a good deal of confidence in our ability to shape the future. But that confidence is not alienation, only disagreement with the established order. In that sense we were far from alienated from life or our society in general. The "Don't trust anyone over thirty" theme was appealing when dressed in the common clothes of freedom; but it became clear later that the image of casual informality declaring the value of personal freedom, while fairly harmless in a superficial personal sense, was a political and commercial disguise behind which lay a form of aggression that people since have sometimes sensed without being able to say just what it was. The point of power in this don't-trust-the-older-generation was the deliberate promotion of a process of separation in which people were cut off from their roots and made susceptible to manipulation. The anchors could no longer hold. Indeed they seemed pointless, and just drifting along might even appeal, so that "dropping out" became of way of life for some. People who were separated from their origins, who had lost their roots and were seeking new identities were highly vulnerable to exploitation. Political revolutionaries were well aware of what they were doing in that respect and commercial entrepreneurs were later even more deliberate and systematic in their exploitation and reinforcement of that separation of the young from their cultural roots.

At the time of the Vietnam War, the end of which 25 years ago we have been remembering recently in May 2000, when there were genuine and ultimately most important social movements not only in regard to that war but for civil rights and other forms of liberation, the young people in the vanguard of social change then had good reason to distrust their elders. The war was an issue in itself, but the emotions it aroused combined with a deeply felt need for other changes in a society which had left too many wrongs in place for too long. Yet despite all the new evidence of alienation it was also an heroic time. There was real hope and people were prepared to commit themselves to practical action. Things are different now. There is much less confidence that social and political action will make a difference. Cynicism is more common. It is at least partly due the fact that when revolutions happen change becomes an end in itself. No one dare stand in the way of "progress". More is destroyed than was intended. The baby is thrown out with the bathwater. Once the connections with one's roots are cut it is very difficult to recover what was worth keeping in the tradition. There is a barrier to rediscovery. Minds are closed. That is especially so in the attitudes of popular culture to the church. Mainstream Christianity is the last place many people will look even when they genuinely seek goodness and truth. Alienation from the church is constantly reinforced in Western countries by the media and entertainment industries, often for their own commercial and ideological ends, more so perhaps in Australia than almost anywhere else as secular humanism has become more or less an established religion. But there is alienation from all sorts of institutions, not only the churches; and it occurs not only from those outside but among the members. Alienation is a social sickness going far beyond healthy question asking and struggles for allegiance. At depth alienation means that the questions are not worth asking and no one and no thing deserves allegiance. Well I must stop this. You will be starting to think I am nothing but an old grouch! But you do see the point. Alienation is the very opposite of faith and a blight on our Western ways of life.

Let us turn away from these negative thoughts and look to Jesus, the true vine, and see what John was telling us about him. In John 15:1-8 (and following verses) Jesus himself is the true vine, the source of life: belonging to him we dwell in that source, and bear fruit to his glory. If we fail to keep that connection we become dead and useless, fit only to be cut off, indeed we are alienated. The Christian alternative to alienation is communion, spiritual belonging, sharing the new life of God, dwelling in him, abiding in his love by belonging to Christ, the true vine.

Old Testament background

As we are often reminded if we pay attention to scripture in detail, Jesus taught about himself and his early followers understood him against the background of the Old Testament. We have had reason to remember this in the Easter season. Jesus taught about himself by reference to the Hebrew scriptures to help the disciples understand the meaning of his death and resurrection.

The vine with its many branches which belong to Christ can obviously be seen as an image of the church, even to the extent of accepting judgment upon its unfruitful branches and the constant reminder of the source of our life with which we must stay connected. The church is sometimes called the new Israel, and it is worth noting that when Jesus spoke of himself as the true vine people would still remember that the nation of Israel had previously been likened to a vine. For example: in Psalm 80:8-15 Israel is described as a vine brought from Egypt and planted in a new land. It spreads widely, and bears fruit that many enjoy, but it was allowed to fall into ruin, a result of the people forgetting their origins.

(Psalms 80:8-19) You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it. {9} You cleared the ground for it; it took deep root and filled the land. {10} The mountains were covered with its shade, the mighty cedars with its branches; {11} it sent out its branches to the sea, and its shoots to the River. {12} Why then have you broken down its walls, so that all who pass along the way pluck its fruit? {13} The boar from the forest ravages it, and all that move in the field feed on it. {14} Turn again, O God of hosts; look down from heaven, and see; have regard for this vine, {15} the stock that your right hand planted. {16} They have burned it with fire, they have cut it down; may they perish at the rebuke of your countenance. {17} But let your hand be upon the one at your right hand, the one whom you made strong for yourself. {18} Then we will never turn back from you; give us life, and we will call on your name. {19} Restore us, O LORD God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved.

There was danger and destruction, and the messiah is called for (`the one at your right hand').

Often in their history (and in this the children of Israel are not alone) the people of God are disobedient and break away. For Jeremiah, at a time of national crisis, when the future is threatened, Israel is a choice [or true] vine; but becomes wild, useless.

(Jeremiah 2:21) Yet I planted you as a choice vine, from the purest stock. How then did you turn degenerate and become a wild vine?

In the words of Ezekiel 19:10-14 at another time of danger, they have a mother like a vine, the stem like a scepter, that is with the power of a king ... it is plucked up and replanted in a desert, suffers fire and no longer has a strong stem or scepter (or king) and they thus are in need of a new king or Messiah.

To Isaiah, God loved his vineyard, but it became wild and unproductive and will be allowed to be broken down

(Isaiah 5:1-10) Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. {2} He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; he expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. {3} And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. {4} What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? {5} And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. {6} I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. {7} For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting; he expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry! {8} Ah, you who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is room for no one but you, and you are left to live alone in the midst of the land! {9} The LORD of hosts has sworn in my hearing: Surely many houses shall be desolate, large and beautiful houses, without inhabitant. {10} For ten acres of vineyard shall yield but one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield a mere ephah.

Restoration of the abandoned unfruitful old vineyard was the work of God in the coming of the Messiah. Paul compared the new Israel of the Church with the old Israel in the image of an olive tree from which branches are broken off, and new ones grafted

(Romans 11:17-24) But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, were grafted in their place to share the rich root of the olive tree, {18} do not boast over the branches. If you do boast, remember that it is not you that support the root, but the root that supports you. {19} You will say, "Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in." {20} That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand only through faith. So do not become proud, but stand in awe. {21} For if God did not spare the natural branches, perhaps he will not spare you. {22} Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God's kindness toward you, provided you continue in his kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off. {23} And even those of Israel, if they do not persist in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. {24} For if you have been cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these natural branches be grafted back into their own olive tree.

Parables of the vineyard were used to explain the Kingdom

In a similar way Jesus told parables about life in vineyards to teach about life in the kingdom when the Messiah at last came:-

Matthew 20:1-15 Labourers in the vineyard were paid according to God's generosity rather than what they earned.

Matt. 21:28-32 Two were sons told to work in the vineyard; one said he would go and did not and the other said he would not yet went, showing the difference between speech and action, with Jesus commending action.

Mark 12:1-9 [and Matt. 21:33-44, etc.] The wicked tenants killed the son of the owner when he was sent to them after they had dealt badly with earlier messengers from the owner of the vineyard, illustrating the death of the Messiah after the prophets had been rejected.

In these, as in many other ways, Jesus taught what it would mean to be united with himself, the true vine. It is not only about personal devotion, that indwelling certainty of love that comes from knowing the Saviour. True connection with the true vine is indeed about recognizing the Messiah, but in outward actions as well as inward conviction. As noted in passing before, there are outwards signs of discipleship in the image of true vine.

Pruning (or cleansing) makes the vine fruitful

The first main point of teaching in this parable of Jesus about himself is that unfruitful branches have no place on vine

(John 15:2) He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.

The same theme follows in further elaboration in verses 6 and 7 of the importance of the connection with the vine in verses 4 and 5:

(John 15:4-7) Abide 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. {5} I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. {6} Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. {7} If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

Cleansing or pruning, you might say "discipline" perhaps, is emphasised by reference to the Word which cleanses.

(John 15:3) You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you.

Baptism is of course a symbol of cleaning, and it is by such cleaning that people are brought into relationship with the body of Christ. So discipline, cleaning and belonging go together. There is another notable example of cleaning in John's gospel, which again brings out the importance of outward actions as well as words or inward thoughts in relationship to Jesus. In John 13:10, at the Last Supper Jesus washed the disciples feet, they were then `all clean' . But cleansing was necessary as Jesus said to Peter.

(John 13:8) Peter said to him, "You will never wash my feet." Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no share with me."

Cleansing discipline is part of what it means to belong to the vine.

(Matt. 15:13) Every plant that my Father has not planted will be uprooted [like the weeds the enemy sowed in another parable.]
Galatians 5:22 By contrast, [with the fruit of the flesh, vv. 19-21] the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, {23} gentleness and self-control.

Only those who truly belong will survive. Outward visible signs of belonging including fruit, are importantly expected.

The Lord's Supper, the Eucharist

Among the "outward and visible signs" of connection with the source of life we have been given the sacraments, with the central symbol of the cup of salvation in the blood of Christ:

(Mark 14:24-25) He said to them, "This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. {25} Truly I tell you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God."

With the true vine goes the true bread: (John 6:32,35,56-58) The true bread [like the true vine] comes down from heaven. `I am the bread of life.'

(John 6:53-56) So Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. {54} Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; {55} for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. {56} Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.

What then does the church offer to an alienated world? A mystery? Yes, indeed. A discipline of worship and service? Why, certainly. Glory to God? Yes,

(John 15:8) My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.

Back behind it all is communion with the source of life in Christ, the true vine, wherein we have connection with roots deeply embedded in the love of God, a relationship to the life that came out of darkness, from beyond the deepest darkness that could ever come over humanity, to life and being itself incarnate in Jesus Christ.

(John 1:4) in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.

Glory be to him. Amen.