The Branch Abides.

The Holy Gospel According to St. John the 15th Chapter

Jesus said, ”I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been

cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. 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. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such

branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.

Do you prefer the Cordon system or are you more an old world Goblet style person?  Maybe you like the Geneva double curtain or maybe the Lyre OR would you go more contemporary with the Scott Henry or the Smart Dyson?  When Jesus first said, “I am the true vine” he said it to people who knew a lot about growing and pruning grape vines.  Surprisingly, these days, few people in Maine have a deep, technical knowledge of viticulture!  

Well, if we’re going to get anything out of this Gospel lesson, we’re going to have to learn a little bit about growing and pruning grapes... wine grapes in particular!  The first thing to realize is that in the wild, grape vines grow long vines up through the tree tops to spread their leaves and steal sunlight from the tree that supports their vine.  In the wild, they put almost all of their energy into vine and foliage growth and very little is left for making fruit and seeds.  

In a vineyard, the vine grower RADICALLY prunes the plant for a balance between foliage growth on one hand and fruit production on the other.  With too much foliage, you get little or no fruit.  With too much fruit, the health of the vine suffers.  The skillful pruner will shape the vine, while it’s dormant in the winter, so that in the summer there’s a balance between healthy foliage and high quality fruit.  

To get that balance A LOT has to be pruned.  Look at the front of the bulletin and check out the two pictures.  Good pruning means about 90% of the previous year’s growth is cut away!  The first time you prune grapes it feels TERRIBLE!  The biggest mistake people make though, is that they are tempted to keep too much from the past.  “It was good last year, it should be good this year!” is what they think, but that’s simply not how grapes grow!  That wood from last year may have produced the best crop in 100 years BUT, here’s the truth about how grapes grow... GOOD FRUIT DOES NOT GROW ON LAST YEAR’S BRANCHES.  The vine grower prunes 90% of last year’s branches away because the vine grower KNOWS that healthy fruit only develops on new growth.  Good fruit just doesn’t grow on last year’s wood.  Look at that picture again.  In the “after” picture there are only three branches on each side of the vine and on each of those branches there are only two buds that are left for the coming year’s foliage and fruit.  

Jesus is the vine.  You and I are the branches.  The temptation is to hold onto the things of the past that grew such beautiful fruit back then and not let ourselves be pruned by the Vine Grower so radically today.  It seems SO counter intuitive to allow SO much... 90% for crying out loud!... SO MUCH of all that was good from before to be pruned away!  After all, it REALLY was WONDERFUL!  It grew AMAZING fruit!  It was so SWEET.  It was SO PLENTIFUL and every fiber of our being says to hold on to what grew that and do ANYTHING to keep it from being pruned away.  

The thing is... the Vine Grower knows best about growing fruit and Jesus didn’t randomly pick GRAPES to illustrate his point.  Jesus picked GRAPES on purpose, because Jesus knew we, like grapes, grow wild on our own.  Jesus knew that we, like grapes, if we hold onto the parts of us that grew good fruit in the past, we will quickly loose the balance that the Vine Grower knows is best and we’ll become unhealthy and produce less fruit and fruit of less quality in the coming year.  

Our world around us tempts us to believe that more is always better.  Bigger is always better.  Stronger is always better.  Farther is always better.  The lesson of the Vine Grower, the True Vine and the Branches, is that when it comes to growing fruit and when it comes to growing fruitful lives... more, bigger, stronger and farther really aren’t the way to grow the best, sweetest or most plentiful fruit.  The lesson of the Vine Grower, the True Vine and the Branches is that to bear good fruit we need to have cut away from us a frightening amount of what came before.  We need to let go of programs, systems, practices, institutions, attitudes and events that may have grown AMAZING grapes back then, but have become unproductive and wandering without direction now.  

What this lesson teaches us is that we need to trust the Vine Grower.  I know... it’s hard for me too!  But we must allow the Vine Grower to radically prune us as individuals and as a Church and TRUST that God really does know what is best for us EVEN when that means 90% of what happened before is dramatically pruned to just a little shoot with a couple of tiny buds!  

This lesson also teaches us that after we have been pruned, our first job is not to grow vines or leaves or even fruit... but our first job, in fact OUR ONLY job, is to simply ABIDE.  Our job as a radically pruned branch is to simply ABIDE in the vine, to live and be intimately and absolutely connected and allow the True Vine to feed us at the Table and with the Word.  Our job is simply (well, not so simply) to allow the Vine Grower to do with us what the Vine Grower knows is best, live connected with the True Vine, live connected with one another through the True Vine and allow the True Vine to work through us.  

Last week Jesus said, “I am the Good Shepherd” and that left us to be the sheep and the sheepdog.  And yet as sheep and dog we desperately want to tell the Good Shepherd where we should be led, the valleys we want to avoid and what pasture is best.  This week Jesus said, “I am the True Vine” and we are the branches.  Yet as branches, we desperately want to tell the Vine Grower how to prune, what to keep and what to cut away.  Jesus knew that as sheep, dog, branches, Lutherans and Episcopalians we would always have trouble trusting God! 

May we trust the Good Shepherd, the Vine Grower and the True Vine.  May we allow the dead wood of worry and fear that tangle our lives to be pruned away.  May we commit ourselves to abiding intimately and fully with one another in the True Vine and may we trust that in due season, the Vine Grower will make through us an abundant and memorable harvest of fruit which will be made into a beautiful vintage of the most amazing wine.  Amen.