I am the vine, you are the branches. St. John 15:1-8
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
The setting in which Jesus said these words to his disciples was replete with images of grapevines and their fruit. It was Maundy Thursday, and Jesus had just had his last supper with his disciples. He had taken a cup of wine, blessed it, and told them to drink from it, “for this is my blood which is shed for you…”1
On the hillside of the Mount of Olives there were olive groves and grapevines. Not only were the living plants, tended by gardeners and vinedressers, there to be seen, but so also were piles of pruned branches, or fires of those branches being burned.
If they went to the Temple itself, the gates of the sanctuary were decorated with the golden vine of Israel. Psalm 80 says “Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt: thou hast cast out the heathen, and planted it. Thou madest room for it: and when it had taken root it filled the land.”
So now Jesus speaks of himself as if he were that vine, and of his Father as the vinedresser, and of his disciples as the branches who live by and in the life of the vine. This parable is rich in application.
Clearly the interior life of the vine is the humanity of Jesus in union with his divine Sonship. It is a life stemming from the heart of the Trinity and poured out in love. All his ministry this love was in action – in restoring life, in teaching the truth, in confronting evil, in forgiving sin; and now, at the end, in the upper room, in washing his disciples’ feet and then supremely in his lifeblood poured out on the cross. As we believe, trust and abide in that life, as we manifest our faith in deeds of love as Christ has loved us, we live and grow as branches of the vine of Christ.
The Father is the vinedresser and the owner of the vineyard. Just as he brought Israel out of Egypt, so he also gives birth to the Church out of Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary. He plants the vine.
The vine requires cultivation. The soil needs tending, fertilizing and renewal. Just so, the roots and branches are given sustenance and life to grow.
The vine needs pruning. A wild grapevine will go to seed. Unfruitful branches sap the strength, drain off life. Half dead branches impede growth. Dead branches need to be taken off, gathered and burned. The pruned branch will be the more fruitful. Everything that tends to divert the vital power from the production of fruit is removed.
These images of vine-dressing apply to the Church corporately and to individual Christians.
Cultivation of faith is brought about by worship, by hearing the Word of the Gospel, by receiving the Sacraments of Christ, by prayer, by reading, marking, learning and inwardly digesting Holy Scripture; and by fellowship and service in the Church. There is a constant need for this; otherwise the roots decay and die.
Pruning comes by repentance and discipline, not only in Lent, but all the time. Adversity also provides occasions for pruning and for the recovery of the productive life-force in the vine. We as individuals and as a congregation receive this purging by God’s Providence for the sake of increased fruitfulness. Every one who has seen a vineyard knows how closely the vines are cut to maximize life and the harvest.
Jesus sets out the necessity of union with him in the starkest contrast with loss of that union. “Apart from me you can nothing.” A branch cut off from the vine may be large and impressive looking, but it will soon wither and dry up, and its wood is good for nothing but burning.
Just as union with Jesus is necessary for life, so fruitfulness is the evidence of that life. Faith without works is dead. The productive fruit of the vine of Christ is the ministration of self-giving love. Just as Christ says apart from him we can do nothing, just so, when we do nothing in the form of works of love, we reveal that we are in fact not in union with him.
One may see the Vine of Christ in the Eucharist itself. We are grounded and rooted at the altar and by the hearing the Gospel. In response, we confess the faith of the Church, pray the corporate prayers of the Church, confess our sins and hear the words of absolution, rise to exchange the peace of Christ, and then prepare to receive Christ as our food and drink under the forms of bread and wine. The life of the Vine is revealed by the liturgy, in which Christ (who is our Priest) first spoke of himself in the upper room as the Vine.
We can receive the Sacrament outwardly, but if we do not feed on Christ in our hearts by faith with thanksgiving, if we do not discern what we are receiving, if we do not see Christ in our fellow members: then we eat and drink judgment upon ourselves. We are branches in danger of being cut off. We ourselves need purging within, lest we wind up separated altogether. We must “duly receive these holy mysteries,” and let our bodies and souls be nourished and cleansed by the life of Christ.
And then we are to live and bear fruit as very members incorporate, as branches in union with the vine. Assisted by this grace and living by its power, we may do “all such good works as [God] has prepared for us to walk in.”
With this now in mind, and with the Sacrament itself before us, let me read more of the ancient Psalm of the Vine of Israel. “Turn again, thou God of hosts, look down from heaven: behold, and visit this vine; and the place of the vineyard that thy right hand hath planted: and the branch that thou madest so strong for thyself… Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand: and upon the son of man whom thou madest so strong for thine own self. And so will we not go back from thee: O let us live, and we shall call upon thy Name. Turn us again, O Lord God of hosts: show the light of thy countenance, and we shall be whole.”
“I am the vine, you are the branches.”
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
