I AM: The True Vine

Two weeks ago, I would have told you that we were facing a losing battle in our yard. The beds were all weed-filled, the patio was covered in pollen,…I didn’t even want to go outside and start. But we did, and over the last week and a half, the patio has been cleared, new herbs and flowers have been planted, weeds have been pulled, mulch has been spread…and now, I can’t wait to keep going.

What changed? I had forgotten. My awareness of the joy of abiding in the yard had withered over the winter months. Cut off from connection with the dirt, I stopped longing for it. It happens every spring to me. Once I am outside, gardening gloves on, I don’t want to leave. I love shaping and tending plants. I love stepping back and seeing a bed freshly tended and mulched. But, more than that, I love the time to be quiet, to notice the bird’s song, to hear the dogs bark, to listen to children laughing in the distance on their play set. I love finding snails, returning worms to the dark, moist earth. I love to dead-head my flowers and, years when I’ve planted tomatoes, to pluck the suckers.

“My father is a gardener,” Jesus says. He tends his vineyard. He prunes his vines so that the sunlight falls on the leaves of the branches, and they bear fruit – what Jesus is telling us God does is God plucks the suckers from our lives.

Just like tomato plants, grape vines grow wildly if you let them. At every joint where the branch meets the stem, a little shoot grows, and it will grow into another branch if you leave it alone. What happens when you don’t pluck the suckers? They take the nutrients and use them to grow more leaves instead of focusing on growing fruit. They weigh down the plant so that it winds up dragging in the dirt, where it is more likely to be infested by bugs or to develop mold or fungus.

When the gardener does prune and pluck the suckers, every leaf soaks up the sun, gets plenty of air circulation, and the plant produces abundant fruit. And gardeners will tell you that you can taste the difference in the fruit.
Jesus says in the same way, God prunes us. The word he uses is katharos, the Greek word from which we get the word catharsis. It literally means “clean” or “pure.” God removes the unclean suckers in our life that keep us from rising up out of the dirt so that we can bask in the light of the Son and bare much fruit, if we abide in Christ. Because Christ is the vine and we are the branches.

Jesus is our life-source. A branch that becomes disconnected from the vine quickly dies and is good for nothing. It will be thrown on the brush pile and burned. Eleven times in these 10 verses, Jesus uses the word “meno” – stay/remain/abide. “Abide in me, and I will abide in you.” “Abide in the vine.” “Abide in my love.” “If you obey my commands, you will abide in my love.”

If you obey my commands, says Jesus, to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love one another as I have loved you, laying down your life for your friends, loving your neighbor as yourself, you will abide in my love, for as you have done it for the least of these, you have done it for me.

There are three branches in our lives that connect us to the vine so that we are bearers of fruit. Abiding in God. Abiding in community. Abiding with those at the margins. Everything else in your life and mine is a sucker that keeps us from bearing the best fruit.

As a church, we have to prune suckers too. Each activity, each idea, each option – will it strengthen our relationship with or knowledge of God? Will it strengthen the relationships of the Farmington family, will we know one another better and be better able to support one another? Or will it strengthen our relationships with those at the margins – the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the at-risk, the imprisoned, the refugee? Everything we do as a congregation, if we are going to bear the best fruit, will strengthen one of these relationships.

If we want to abide in Jesus and Jesus to abide in us, we have to ask ourselves three questions:

What are the ways I am abiding in God? We abide in God through the study of God’s Word and through prayer. If you don’t have a devotional routine, you might want to pick up a devotional guide in the rack outside the Sanctuary. Or, there are several great online devotional and prayer resources. I’d be glad to help you find one that is right for you.

What are the ways I am abiding in community? We abide as the body of Christ, as brothers and sisters brought together by the Holy Spirit into a congregation to live out our faith together. We abide with one another through fellowship and support, by knowing one another and being there for each other.

What are the ways I am abiding with those at the margins? We abide as we establish relationships with those who are at the margins. How are you getting to know people who don’t have the background you do? People who don’t have the comfort and security you do? People who don’t have safety nets in their lives? People who are at-risk? People who are vulnerable?

These are the branches that bear fruit. It is easy to let time go by, though, and to grow into a wild bush with branches weighed down to the ground. It can seem as helpless as my yard did two weeks ago. But Chris and I got out there and started pruning, started weeding, started planting…and now it is beginning to bloom. What about us? Will we let God, who is a master gardener, prune our lives? To remove the dead branches and pluck the suckers. Will we tend our lives to obey Jesus’ commands, to love God, love one another, and love our neighbor, so that we abide in his love?

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.