“Did you see that?”
“Well, no, darling, I’m driving.”
That’s a common conversation when my wife and I are in the car. I won’t tell you who typically says which in that exchange!
“Did you see that?” We had it again the other evening when walking the dog. One of us could see the full moon, but the other was standing a few yards away and couldn’t see it, thanks to some houses.
Did you see that? You know the experience, I’m sure.
I think there’s a ‘Did you see that?’ moment at the beginning of our reading when Jesus says, ‘I am the true vine’ (verse 1).
At the end of the previous chapter, Jesus says, ‘Come, now; let us leave’ (John 14:31b). The implication is that they leave the room where they have had what we call the Last Supper and are now on their way to Gethsemane.
On the way, it’s likely that they would have passed the Jerusalem Temple. And when Jesus says, ‘I am the true vine’, it’s a ‘Did you see that?’ moment, because there was a
massive golden vine that adorned the entrance to the temple.
There is a description of it in the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus:
The gate opening into the building was, as I said, completely overlaid with gold, as was the whole wall around it. It had, moreover, above it the golden vines, from which depended grape-clusters as tall as a man[1]
Did you see that golden vine? The disciples knew that in the Scriptures the vine or the vineyard symbolised Israel, and that’s why there was a golden vine at the entrance to the Temple. But now Jesus says that he is the true vine.
In other words, Jesus fulfils all that Israel was meant to be. And if you want to be part of the People of God, you need to be connected to him.
And further, if we don’t want the vine we are part of to be condemned like Israel the vineyard was in passages such as Isaiah chapter 5, then there are certain ways in which we need to let Jesus’ Father, the gardener, work in us. And there are certain ways in which we need to respond to his work.
Firstly, pruning:
2 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.
When we read this metaphor about God pruning us, we naturally think of the ways in which God needs to remove sin from our lives. I wouldn’t dispute that, but we hear a lot about that quite regularly and so I’m not going to concentrate on that today. Instead, I want us to think about other ways God works to prune us.
One is when he takes us through adversity. For me, that has been when God has used experiences of ill-health for good. One occasion came when I had a collapsed lung at college and had to face major surgery. On the weekend when it happened, one of my friends was being visited by his father, who had a healing ministry. But when I got back from A and E, Mark’s Dad Reg had gone home.
Eleven days in hospital, a month convalescing, and three months to return to full fitness were not much fun in my twenties. But when I ended up in the ministry, my experience was invaluable when getting alongside others facing major hospital treatment. I guess God had to prune the ‘quick fix spirituality’ out of me.
Similarly, I have not been shy in saying that I come from a family where there is a history of depression. However, it is only in the last twelve months that I have gone public on the fact that I too am diagnosed as someone who lives with the condition. I was very wary about saying that publicly, because I know there are callous people in the church who would say that makes me unfit to be a minister.
But the way it has given hope to others who find the black cloud over their lives means I am glad I let people know. It may be my thorn in the flesh, I wish I didn’t have it, and I’m sure my family also thinks that, but God pruned from me the shallow thinking that unless you are perpetually joyful you are not a good Christian, and this has helped others.
I believe God often prunes good things from our lives for the greater good, just as a good vinedresser will prune good grapes so that others can grow even bigger. God even does that in churches. I know congregations that many years previously began a programme that worked as an outreach. However, these meetings were still going on, even though they now only connected with existing churchgoers. These meetings needed to be pruned. The only question was whether the church would go along with it.
Secondly, remaining:
4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
If pruning is something that God does, then remaining is something that we do in response. We remain in Christ. We remain vitally connected to Jesus.
One paraphrase of ‘Remain in me, as I also remain in you’ is to say that we make our home in Jesus, just as Jesus makes his home in us. We know that Jesus has come to make his home in our lives when we put our faith in him and our lives in his hands. But there is also a question of us making our home in him. What is that about?
It is going to involve us becoming more in harmony with him. God’s work of pruning us to make us cleaner and more useful in his service is part of it, but it also means that we need to pay particular attention to the teaching of Jesus and his apostles in the New Testament. The church recognised the books that comprise the New Testament as those which faithfully convey the teaching of Jesus, his apostles, and his apostolic circle.
Do you have a programme for reading your Bible regularly, preferably daily? Please don’t be like one woman I knew in a previous church who told me that her sole exposure to the Bible was when she heard it read in church and she didn’t bother with it at home in between Sundays. We need that regular engagement in order to connect with the teaching of Jesus.
And that teaching of Jesus needs putting into practice. That’s where it’s important to involve others. Meet regularly with one or more people and hold each other accountable – kindly, of course! If our small groups really did ape some of John Wesley’s small groups, then this would be part of the meeting every week. We would each talk about how our Christian life was going, what reasons we had for joy where it was going well, and where we were struggling and needed support.
Others do it by having a prayer partner or being part of a prayer triplet. Still others have what they call an ‘accountability partner.’ In one previous appointment I used to meet regularly with the local vicar. We would each talk about how our lives and ministries were going, we would offer reflections to each other, and we would finish by praying for one another.
Please don’t dismiss this as just intense stuff for the hyper-spiritual. We are called disciples of Jesus, which means that we are learners of him or apprentices to him. We need to take this seriously in order to remain in him, to make our home in him.
For this is what puts us in tune with God. If we want the blessing at the end of verse 7, where Jesus says,
ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you
then we need to realise that this only happens after the first half of that verse, where he tells us we need to remain in him and his words remain in us.
So please, let’s take very seriously the importance of remaining in Jesus, making our home in him, by giving attention to his teaching and putting it into practice.
Thirdly and finally, fruit-bearing:
Jesus tells us in these verses that we bear fruit for him as a consequence of pruning and remaining. But what is that fruit-bearing? I want to suggest three examples.
Firstly, it’s about how we conduct ourselves socially in the world. Do we do so with righteousness and justice? In Isaiah 5, to which I referred at the beginning, where Israel is a vineyard gone wrong, the prophet says of God,
And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed;
for righteousness, but heard cries of distress. (Isaiah 5:7)
How do people outside the church perceive us? Are we known both individually and as a body to be people who not only stand up for what is right in what we say, but also in what we do? Are we the people in the town who are on the side of the poor, both in our pronouncements and in our actions? Do we treat people well? If we allow God to prune us and if we remain in Jesus and his teaching, then this should be a natural consequence.
Secondly, there is the fruit of our character. You may not be surprised that here I am going to link with what Paul says in Galatians 5 about the fruit of the Spirit. If we are in a vital relationship with God, allowing his indwelling Spirit to shape our lives, then we display love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.
And remember that it’s the fruit of the Spirit, not the fruits of the Spirit. It is not nine different fruits but one fruit with nine flavours. All of these things are meant to grow in our character as we are pruned and as we remain in Christ, with his Spirit at work in us.
Then finally, the most natural meaning of fruit-bearing is that of bearing seed to produce more fruit. We will have the desire for spiritual reproduction, for seeking to bring more people into that same close relationship with Jesus. It would be good if lives filled with both justice and holy character (the fruit of the Spirit) provoke questions among the people with whom we live and work. We also need to be ready to speak about our faith when the time is right.
Conclusion
Did you see that? Well, if you want to see physical vines and these principles in real life, Hampshire is a good place to be. A quick Internet search led me to a list of six in the county on the Visit Hampshire website.
But do we also see the spiritual application Jesus makes for us? He embodies the true People of God, and to be part of that people ourselves requires our submission to God’s pruning and our making our home in Jesus. What follows from such a relationship is fruitfulness in the form of just living, holy character, and the spreading of the Gospel.
Is that what we look like?
[1] Ian Paul, Jesus is the true vine in John 15
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