Easter 6

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: Easter 6
PROPER: A
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: May 5, 2002

TEXT: John 15:1-8 - "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. . . . . . 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. 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.

ISSUE: Jesus is the true vine, that is, he is the new Israel. What Israel has failed to do Jesus does. He reveals and lives out the glory of God, which is what it means to bear fruit. Just like a client in the Middle Eastern Patronage system was to do, honor the patron. Jesus honors the Father. He encourages his disciples to join in honoring God. Today the world needs to know of God, and to honor his Holy Name and ways.
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The Farewell Address of Jesus to his disciples continues in John's account of the Gospel. In this section of the farewell discourse John has Jesus referring to himself as The True Vine. John has Jesus say, "I am the true vine." The disciples and John's community of early Christians are seen as the "branches of the vine," who are to bear good fruit. It is a beautiful metaphor, but we must be careful not to be too simplistic about what it means, lest we minimize it, and have people believe - as popular secular religion does - that all you need do, as a Christian, is good works.
When Jesus says, "I am the true vine.” several unique images would have been triggered in their minds. Common to the Gospel of John are several so called "I AM" statements. Jesus reportedly says: I am the Bread of Life. I am the Light of the World. I am the Good Shepherd. I am the Door. I am the Gate. These were for the people of this time, especially the Jewish community very profound statements. The name of God in the Hebrew language was Yahweh. Yahweh meant basically, "I AM," being. God is the subject and predicate of all things. God is the Bread of Life, the Light, the Door, the Shepherd, etc., and Jesus reveals and is revealing in these statements the very Glory of God. The "I AM" statements for the early church bound Jesus together with God; it was a closely knit relationship. When he says, "I AM the true vine," this statement got people's attention.
Another thing important to understand that the imagery or metaphor of the "vine" would also get people's attention, and it would have reminded these people of some very profound parables and beliefs in the Hebrew Scriptures, Old Testament, writings. Israel and Judah, the Jewish people, were thought to be God's vine to bear fruit in the world. In Psalm 80: 8-15, Israel is seen to be God's vine saved from slavery in Egypt and planted in the Promised Land. Israel was to bear fruit for the world. Isaiah 5:1-7 writes, "Israel is the vineyard of the Lord Almighty; the people of Judah are the vines he planted." Also, the prophet Jeremiah wrote: "I planted you like a choice vine from the very best seed. But look what you have become! You are like a rotten worthless vine." The imagery here portrays the people of God as being God's vine, but because of their unfaithfulness and turning to false gods, they bore sour grapes and did not bear good fruit.
Jesus then is portrayed by John's Gospel account as the True Vine. He is the new vine to bear fruit in the world. Those who are faithful are invited into solidarity and fruitfulness with him. It is at this point that we begin to appreciate what it means to bear fruit. It is not merely doing good works. It is honoring God.
Jesus was known for doing some good things. But he was not really a social worker, although he embraced the poor, had a healing ministry, and did what we call some good things. What the ministry of Jesus was essentially about was honoring and revealing the accessibility of God to all disenfranchised people, as the available God of Love and God of Forgiveness. Where the first vine (the unfaithful Israelites) failed to truly honor God, Jesus does honor God through his obedience and the calling a fellowship into solidarity with God. God is the vinedresser; Jesus the vine; and the community in solidarity with him is the branches. Life depends upon that relationship with God the Father.
To fully appreciate what it means for Jesus to be the true vine and the church to be the branches, you need also to understand the first century Middle Eastern and Roman culture. In this time the very large majority of people were very poor. The poor were often dependent upon the small wealthier class for special favors such as for jobs, land, goods, funds, or for some position of power. Life was for some dependent upon your patron. In some instances there was a broker who would enable the poor clients to find or become associated with the appropriate patron. In some instances a city official served as a broker. Since it was not always possible because of the poverty to pay back the patron who provided certain favors, the client or poor would honor them, and speak well of them, and refer to the broker and\or the patron as their friend. A person's honor was so important in this culture, so the poor gave to their patron great honor, increasing their prestige and connection of friends.
Out of this kind of cultural background, God was seen as the ultimate Patron. Jesus was God's broker. In the falleness, the brokeness of the community and the human condition, in a time of persecution, anxiety, and weak government, people of the dearly Christian community looked to God for God's favor. Jesus reveals the presence, the loveliness, the generosity, and the abundance of God's love for his creation. In the spiritual poverty of the human condition, the abundance of God's freely given love for his people is seen as grace, the unearned and gracious gift of God, for which we have no means to repay. (When we talk of "God's grace" in the world today, people don't understand that, because our cultural structure is different. We have to earn everything, and nothing is free.) What, however, we can do is to be faithful and to honor God, so speak of God with tones and worship of great Thanksgiving. American culture likes to pay back and to think of ourselves as self-made men and women who don't owe anybody anything. If we owe God anything we think in terms of doing good deeds. Well, and good, but it is also presumptuous to think we can pay back God merely by good works for the Gift of Life and Breath, for the beauty of the world, for Forgiveness, and Consciousness, and Memory, and Reason and Skillfulness with a few good deeds. We as the followers of Jesus Christ who reveals the Glory of God to us owe God Honor and Thanksgiving and Praise, not just good works and deeds.
God is the Vinedresser, the one who provides and cultivates the vine. The true vine is Jesus Christ. He is the broker of God, who like a vine infiltrates the spiritual needy world. We are the branches or canes of the vine of Christ called upon to bear fruit, that is, to honor God abundantly. In the imagery of the Vine, Israel was supposed to honor God but failed frequently in that mission. Jesus becomes to New and True Vine, and the work of the branches, the church today is to honor God's holy name for God's continuing grace.
In the reading from Acts 17:22:31 today, Paul honors God, not by great deeds, but by telling the Athenians people who have worshipped many gods of the unknown God, the God that have not known. Paul bearing fruit begins to honor the Great Patron Father God as he speaks of the Glory of God.
Honoring God is like celebrating Mother's Day. We know only too well that usually our mothers endured much for each of us. Our gifts to them are often inadequate in comparison. How do you repay someone, who has given us life, but to honor them? Is that not more certainly true of our relationship with God who gives life in all of its abundance? That fact is often forgotten, as we become distracted by the world and its demands. Jesus Christ came into the world to get our attention once again, to honor the Father, and to call us back to the source, and he calls us into the family of God, into union, solidarity, and fellowship. He is the Vine, and we are the intimately connected branches to bear fruit in terms of honoring and glorifying God.
The question is sometimes raised, Can I be a Christian and not be connected with the church. The answer is “No.” We are a community in Christ needing God, Christ, one another.
Surely we all know that something in our world, in our culture is missing. It is a very prosperous time, but a time of great cruelty, prejudice, hatred, unkindness, ethnic cleansing, power-plays, treacherous terrorism, to which Sept. 11th bears witness. It is a world broken away from the source of love and creation. It is a world seemingly cut-off from its original source. It's not enough to be nice and do good things alone. We, in intimate union with the Lord of Love, and Prince of Peace, need to speak and live glowingly of the God, who has given to us all more than we could ever desire or pray for. We worship and adore and that's extremely important. Through worship, adoration, thanksgiving, prayer we become united with Christ to be the infiltrating vine that permeates the spiritual hunger and depravity of the world with the fruit that honors the Glory of God and his renewing, restoring, and reconciling way. Jesus' farewell to his people is to see him as the infiltrating, meandering, life giving spirited vine, the source of their sustenance, and to join him in bearing the fruit that honors God in a godless world. And it is only in that intimate relationship with him, that we can do anything of worth or to see the value in our own lives.
Now a word or so about pruning the vine: We are inclined to think of the canes or branches cut off from the vine as a kind of punishment for unfruitfulness or unfaithfulness. They get thrown on the fire, which to many of us is an image of hell fire. People are inclined to simplify the Gospel in to rewards and punishments. It simply means that the older unfruitful branches were cut off and used for fuel, a not too abundant thing in the time of Christ. Branches that did not bear fruit were harmful to the vine. They sapped its strength without much usefulness to the vine. Pruning was good for the vine, and actually increased the fruitfulness of the vine. And its meaning may well mean that in each of our lives, in order to be truly fruitful people, free people, unencumbered people, we need to free ourselves of too much activity, too much material stuff, and be free to allow ourselves to serve God as fully as we can. We can become too possessed by too much stuff that slows us down. When the Israelites left Egypt to honor and worship God, and enter the Promised Land, they didn’t drag the Pyramids with them. They went forward unencumbered. Churches that get too caught up in secular programs, tradition, and real estate can lose sight of their real mission to reveal the Glory of God, and to honor God with heart, soul, and mind.
John’s Gospel and the Farewell Speeches call for the fellowship of Christ to be an abiding organic community of the people of Christ who are a witness to the world of the God of Love. There are many places, rooms and mansion for us to abide with Christ in the Kingdom of God. It is as if Christ were a real vine, and we were the branches bearing a bountiful, fruitful, witness to the Glory of God.