John 15 1-8
Easter 5 B
John 15: 1-8
May18, 2003
“Attached to the Vine”
Introduction: Jesus said, “I am the true vine, and my father is the gardener; he cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.... I am the vine, you are the branches. If a person remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” This is one of the best images of the Christian life and of what is supposed be like. I want to dwell on this image today and on the promise that is made with it, the promise that says: "If a person remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit". This image of what it means to be a Christian is tremendously reassuring. There is so much grace in these words of our Lord Jesus. This grace is for people who are tired out from all their work, for people discouraged by the fact that they do not feel they are good enough for God, and for people that feel or know that they have they have not done enough to please God. This is because our identity before God as His dear children is not wrapped up in what we do but in who we are
The image of Jesus as the vine and ourselves as branches reminds us that salvation and life, and indeed all good things that we experience and produce, come not because of what we do, but because of what and who we are and where we are. The image of the vine and the branches transforms our understanding. The Law of God demands obedience. With the Law we are under God and under the Law. But as branches attached to the Vine of God in Christ we are not under anything, but we are in Christ. The image of the vine and the branches helps us understands our relationship to God. This relationship is not determined from the perspective of striving to do something by our own power, might and effort. This relationship is determined by our being attached to Jesus Christ His Son, as a branch is attached to a vine.
An avid gardener had planted a cucumber plot. He had been very careful to select the best seeds, planted each one at its proper depth. He fertilized and watered the plants. He worked the soil faithfully to prevent weeds. He sprayed to prevent bugs and blights that afflict young plants. The season was a good one - just the right amount of rain and sunshine, and on the vines appeared broad green leaves and in due course the blooms. They looked magnificent. One day he noticed that here and there certain leaves were dying, certain blooms fading. Most of the leaves remained a healthy glossy green, but scattered among them were those turning brown. He wondered why some of the leaves were dying? He investigated. Stepping carefully among the tangled mass of vines he traced the ones on which the leaves and blooms were dying, until he found that they were all connected to a single stem. There, just above the ground, cut-worms had severed that stem. The entire vine above that point was dying because it was no longer attached to the roots and the stem that had produced it. This story illustrates for us that we die spiritually, that we are incapable of producing fruit, when we are not attached to the vine, or when we are not connected to the roots which nourish us. It also reminds us that when we are attached that the fruit that we produce, comes to us naturally, as a gift of God. God is the gardener who does all the work and the vine he plants, namely His Son Jesus Christ, nurtures and sustains us, and we, because we are in Him we prosper and produce for the world the fruit that it needs. It is the fruit of love towards God and to all people.
All of us want to do good things; we want to do good works and to produce good fruit. Sometime we succeed and sometimes we fail. Many of us - in trying to do good things end up feeling burned out, exhausted and even despairing. Sometimes what we do is not understood or appreciated as much as we would like. In the end we are tempted to become frustrated, angry, and tired. Other people try to do good works because they feel that this is something that they ought to do, even when they don’t want to or have lost the energy to do so. They then become frustrated because of their own insincerity, going through the motions and ending up emotionally and physically drained. Some people don’t care about doing good works at all as they are to busy with their own lives.
What is even more disconcerting is that we all know of people who do not seem to tire of doing good works, who are full of hope and of life, full of care and love for their neighbors and their world. When we see these people we may be tempted to be jealous of them and what they do rather than praising God for working through these people.
All of these are examples of people cut off from the vine. All of these are examples of people trying to bear fruit under the coercion of the Law. It is like me commanding to these branches to bear fruit. Make me a pine cone. It just can’t happen
Let me remind you of what fruit is. Fruit is the excess, the overflow of the life that a plant has taken into itself. The more life that a plant takes into itself the more life it produces. When there is an abundance of sunshine, adequate water and nutrients in the soil to be passed up the trunk and into the branches those branches thrive, and grow, and produce fruit. The plant and its branches don't have to force themselves to grow, they do not have to make a resolution to bring forth sweeter and more succulent fruit, nor do they need to remind themselves to be more abundant in their production. They simply need to be attached to the plant that the gardener has planted, where the conditions for growth and fruit bearing are to be found.
For us the right place to be is in the vine that has been planted by God and which is tended by God – that vine is Christ. Each one of us here today, as people who profess that Jesus is our Lord, believing in our hearts that he rose from the dead, are part of the vine of Christ. Because of this, each one of us here is bearing fruit today. The main fruit that we bear is the confession of faith that bears witness to Jesus as Lord and Savior of the world. Through this we show our love to God. The other kind of fruit is love towards each other and to all the people of the world, this love results in good works. Because we are connected to the vine of Jesus Christ we are able to produce tremendous quantities of fruit that is expressed in faith towards Christ and good works and acts of love for each other and all people.
Jesus Christ says all that is necessary for us to bear fruit is for us to remain in Him. What does it mean to remain in Christ? To remain in Christ, and to remain fruitful, is to remain attached to the vine. Basically there are only two things that need to be done, just as there are only two tasks that a branch attached to a vine does.
First - the branch, through its twigs and leaves, receives energy from the sun to fuel its growth to the end that it will eventually produce fruit. As the branch receives energy from the sun through its leaves, so we too receive energy when we are in the presence of God and receive from Him the light he offers to us in his Word. In the first Psalm we read, Blessed is [the man] whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and on whose law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. The Law in this Psalm can and should be understood as the Word of God. In other words, “Blessed is the man who delights in the Word of the Lord and meditates on it.” In the same way we need to be exposed to the word of God, we need daily contact with the light it sheds, we need to hold His Word in our minds and in our hearts so that we might draw from it the strength and energy we need.
Secondly - the branch, through its connections to the vine or stem of the plant receives moisture and nutrients from the soil, it receives the life giving sap that makes it grow. As the branch is connected to the stem or trunk, receiving from it the nutrients that it needs. The branch is, in a way, in communion with the vine and through that communion it is able to produce fruit. The same truth applies to us. We are intimately connected to God through His Son Jesus Christ. This Communion reaches one of its deepest levels as Christ feeds us His life giving body and blood in His Holy Supper. In His Supper god connects us again to His Son, giving us life that leads to salvation
We are connected as branches to the vine of Christ through faith. His life flows into us because it flowed out of Him when He died on the cross to give life to the world. His cross has become a life giving tree. It is the root of the vine the trunk of the branches. He died to free us from the coercion of the law that demanded fruit from branches that were dead and disconnected. We all were like the disconnected branch, good for nothing but a hot fire. As a branch can do nothing to reattach itself, God, by His grace and mercy has reconnected us to the source of life through the forgiveness of our sins. God maintains this connection, established by God; it is maintained through God given faith. This in turn leads us to remain in Christ, listening to His word, responding to Him in prayer, trusting in Him and worshiping Him. These things both keep us in the vine and feed us - that we might produce fruit. When Jesus said, "I am the true vine, and you are branches", he also said - "no branch can bear fruit by itself, it must remain in the vine".
I want to end where I began, by saying that there is a lot of grace in the words of Jesus: I am the vine, you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit. Just go outside after the service and look around at the trees and plants that are beginning their cycle of growth once again. It is not by law that all these things grow. It is by God’s rich and abundant grace. These plants can’t help but be what they are as they grow and thrive and produce fruit. The same it is for you and me. We who are in Christ cannot help but grow and thrive and bear fruit.
God is a good gardener, indeed he is a great gardener and what he plants and tends is tremendously fertile, tremendously productive. God has planted the Vine called Christ in our midst; He has grafted us into the good vine through the waters of baptism connected to God’s life giving word. He has nurtured us with His Son’s own life giving body and blood in Holy Communion. Through these He provides to us all things needful for growth and bearing the fruit of faith in Jesus and in love for each other.
