Meditation 281
John 15: 1-8
This passage begins with one of the “I am” statements that Jesus makes in John’s gospel. When Jesus said “I am” he would have gotten the attention of the faithful people, because “I am” is the way God had chosen to be known. (Exodus 3). When Jesus said “I am the true vine” he was using words that were loaded with meaning. He was claiming oneness with God and he was using the known metaphor of a vine to describe the caring of God.
Here in John’s gospel, we see that God tends “the Son-vine, pruning the branches for abundant fruitfulness. Grapevines do need pruning; grapes need sun but not too much. So, in this image the Father does that precision tending for the perfect balance of light and shade.”
God is a very good vine keeper and the careful work is described further. the branches on the vine that bears no fruit are pruned and removed. The words for prune and remove in John 15:2 and cleansed in v. 3 are very similar in the original Greek and the way Jesus uses them so close together would have caught the ear of his first audience. “The work of the gardener-God continues the Son’s cleansing work of love.”
“The overwhelming thrust of the passage is fruitfulness. The words bear fruit appear six times in these eight verses. Fruit-bearing is not something that the branches do by force of will. The fruit happens organically because the vine is true and the gardener good. But the branches of this passage do choose to abide.”
“Abiding is important in John, where love of God means mutual indwelling. …the vine image is [a] … way of talking about abiding places (places where one is deeply at home), and both the vine and the abiding places are ways of talking about love.”
“Abide is one of the two imperatives of the passage. The branches have to abide because without the vine, they are fruitless; they can do nothing. And if they do abide and Jesus’ words abide in them, then [they will ask] …. There can be little doubt that what the branches will ask for will be shaped by the one who tends them; they will surely ask for the fruitfulness for which they have been pruned.”
(Quotations from Meda Stamper. Working Preacher)
The image of God as the caring vine keeper who tends the vine and branches so that the branches bear fruit is comforting and encouraging. I can’t help but feel that Jesus was being very generous when he said that we are the branches grafted into the vine. The branches of a vine do need a lot of care as described above, but they stay in place. The branches are not actively disobedient the way people can be, going off in our own direction on impulse. (In this way the sheep/shepherd image is more accurate). Regardless of how we are in relation to who Jesus is, he remains as the vine. Jesus is the one who gives life and God is the very good vine keeper who gives good care so that we may bear fruit.