Vines and Vinedressers

Biblical Text: John 15:1-8

For a second week we have one of the “I AM” sayings in the Gospel according to John – “I AM the vine”. And I think this saying invites us to ponder a couple of things. First what it reveals about God which is central to the mystery of suffering or in this case spiritual struggle. The Father as the vinedresser and the son as the vine with the point being greater fruitfulness invites meditation on pruning coded as struggle and how God prunes or limits himself in some ways. The second revelation is what it says about fruitfulness. Vines and branches are made to bear fruit. It will happen. The deeper question is if the branches stay connected to the vine. Measuring fruitfulness is usually fruitless, because it is aimed the wrong way. If there is fruit you will see it. The main concern of the branch is to stay connected – to abide – in the vine.

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Abiding in the Vine

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Biblical Text: John 15:1-8

Why does faith feel attenuated or faint today? What is different today than even say 100 years ago? It is a question that I find myself asking over and over. And I think that that answer is what we refuse to take seriously. We will take faith itself seriously, sometimes so seriously it is just “the big lie” or maybe the necessary lie. We take works deadly seriously. Well maybe not Christians as much catechized on grace, but the world right now is all about justice which is nothing if not a demand for good works. But what we do not take seriously, as something worthy of contemplation in itself, in Himself, is God. The ground of all faith and works, the precursor to these things, is God. We are invited to abide in Christ. He is the vine and we are the branches. That is not an image of faith, but of union. And we feel that ache of desire without understanding what it is pointing at. We always get turned inward which finds nothing when the object of desire is outside of us.

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Roses, vines and tools

Biblical Text: John 15:1-8
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“I am the true vine…remain in me.” That is the core of the text. As I say in the sermon reflecting on the seven I am saying of Jesus in John, I am the true vine and my Father is the vine dresser to me is the more complex or deepest. Unlike say the good shepherd which makes immediate intuitive sense, or the bread of life which also has a real referent, we know vines and vine dressers, but applying it to humans and the Christian life quickly gets tough.

What I try to do here is trace out a matrix of Biblical meaning and I throw it against an episode of my personal life. Writing and delivering sermons is a process of reading and proclaiming three different things. The biblical text is of primary importance. It has something to say that is for all people. But the congregation and the preacher also need to be read. A perfectly fine sermon for Saint John the Divine parish might be horribly wrong for Saint John the mundane. Likewise there can be perfectly orthodox sermons given by Pastor Emo that given by Pastor Study would be false. That is why we hold the Sermon to be God’s Word for the people of that time and place. It is also why the sermon is a spoken form.

I can’t really describe this one beyond saying I think you’d have to listen to it.

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