How many folks here like to “savor the flavor” of a really good glass of wine? Wine is often associated with special events, and surely with fine meals. In fact, there has been quite a bit of evidence provided to show that a glass of red wine once a day is a heart healthy practice.
When you think of fine wines, if you’re so inclined to think of wine at all, you may at first think of France. The French have a long history of vintage winemaking and they have provided the names for most of the well-known wines whose names are familiar to us. For example, Champagne, Bordeaux, Chardonnay, Burgundy are all regions that provide the names to certain types of French wine that, in order to be authentic, must have originated in that region.
The stuff that ball players spray on each other after the World Series, for example, might be called champagne, but if the bottle came from anywhere other than a specific region in France, it’s just “sparkling wine.”
Now, while the French may seem to be the classic wine snobs, some more adventurous winemakers have lately been branching out, so to speak. Some French winemakers have left behind the conservative and highly regulated regions of their homeland and come to America’s more freewheeling wine country around another area quite well known in our country for it’s fine wines. The Napa, California, region because, as Philippe Melka puts it, “Here, you not only have a lot more options, but there is an excitement about trying new things.” Nicolas Morlet, who descends from a long line of champagne producers, agrees: “It is completely different here. We have the freedom to fully realize our passion, to push our limits with every vintage. We aren’t working under a classification made in 1855 or a constitution of grands crus (French for “great growth”).
Still, some things are absolute about winemaking. One foundational principle that applies to both Old World and New World wine is that great wine is always a reflection of a particular vineyard. Repeat: Great wine is always a reflection of a particular vineyard.
If you want to pick a good wine, in other words, you have to know the source.
It seems to me, and perhaps to you as well, if you stop to think about it, Jesus knew a little about wine himself. We often see him at parties in the gospels and it appears He knew exactly what kind of wine would blow the minds of the guests at the Cana wedding feast (John 2:1-12).
We should not be surprised then, that He used this metaphor of a vineyard to describe His relationship to his disciples — as we see here in this morning’s Scripture.
Jesus knew, even back then, the best way to tell what kind of product you were getting would be to look at the label and see from where in the world it came, in other words, the source. In this case, speaking with the disciples, the source isn’t a place but a person — Jesus himself.
Jesus is the Vine. Jesus begins by saying that he is the “true vine,” the source of growth and fruit-bearing, in a vineyard that is tended by the “Father.”
God is the Winemaker: The Creator God is thus the real winemaker, the one who tends the vineyard and assures its quality.
The vineyard has a long and storied history. The Bible uses the metaphor of the vineyard several times in the Old Testament to describe God’s relationship with Israel. In Isaiah 5:1-7, for example, God plants and tends a vineyard but it yields “wild grapes” or inferior fruit — a metaphor for the turning away from God and lack of faith of Israel and Judah. The Bible uses the same vineyard imagery in Jeremiah 2:21, Ezekiel 19:10-14, and Hosea 10:1. In each of these cases, however, Israel is the “vine” and the ultimate source of poor “fruit.” In the Old Testament, “fruitfulness” was another way of saying “faithfulness,” thus a lack of good fruit meant that God’s people had failed to be the true, nourishing vine that would strengthen God’s reputation in the world as the ultimate fine winemaker. Therefore, the winemaker saw the necessity to do some pruning and replacing, which is what the prophets saw the exile as being all about.
In the New Testament, we see God replant the vineyard with a new stock and that new vine, the “true vine,” is Jesus himself symbolizing the new Israel, God’s Chosen One, and the One through whom the whole world would be saved and blessed.
We understand the vine is the source for good fruit, yet there’s a vital link between the vine and its fruit.
The “branches” are thus the focus of Jesus’ teaching with his disciples. “I am the vine,” says Jesus to His followers, “you are the branches” (v. 5). Notice that the disciples of Jesus aren’t the “fruit,” the end product, but the conduit for the vine’s nourishment. The quality of the fruit thus depends on the branches’ connectedness to the vine itself
What Jesus is describing here is the necessary interrelationship between Himself and his disciples — a relationship characterized by mutuality and indwelling, but one that is also focused on bearing grands crus (great growth) for the whole world.
How many of you have ever looked closely at a grapevine. Well, one of the first things you notice about its branches is that it’s very difficult to tell them apart individually. All the branches twist and curl around one another to the point that you can’t tell where one starts and another stops. Jesus uses this “branch imagery” to express it’s not the achievement of an individual branch or its status that matters. The quality of branches and fruit depends solely on the quality of their connectedness to the vine.
When it comes to discipleship, each “branch” or individual gives up his or her desire for individual achievement in order to become one of many encircling branches — a community rooted and nurtured by Christ, pointing to His reputation and quality, not their own.
Once we understand Jesus use of “branches,” we branches realize we need to stay effectively and fruitfully connected to Jesus. Two things we must realize and remember.
First, branches are fruit-bearing, not fruit-making. “Just as the branch cannot bear fruit unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me … Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing” (vv. 4-5).
We’ve heard these words of Jesus many times, but we also hear the call of a culture of workaholism, achievement and success that can lure disciples of Christ into thinking we can be fruitful through our own efforts. Many are the pastors, for example, who have built large churches and famous reputations only to crash and burn because of moral failure,
frequently the result of a failure to stay intimately connected to Jesus.
When a branch gets the idea that it can make fruit, make wine, on its own, it dries up, withers, and is no longer useful (v. 6). The mission of a branch isn’t to look good or to call attention to itself, but to give all glory to God, the one whose name is on the label (v. 8).
Second, the “fruit” that we are to bear, like the grapes of a fine winery, is full of many textures and flavors. Paul outlines some of these in Galatians 5:22-23 when he talks about the “fruit of the Spirit” which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Another way we might describe the fruit we are to bear is grace. As branches, connected to and “abiding in” the source of God’s love and grace (v. 4), we are conduits, not the end product. God’s grace and love always come to us on their way to someone else; someone who will be able to “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34:8) because we have been faithful branches.
But how do we best stay connected to the “true vine”? It is through our spiritual disciplines that deepen our relationship with Christ. This is where the whole idea of “pruning” comes in. While branches carrying no fruit are removed, even the most fruitful branch is pruned in order “to make it bear more fruit” (v. 2). Branches on a grapevine are prone to growing too aggressively, producing more and more leaves and shoots that can bleed nourishment away from the grapes and sometimes even hide them from the sunlight. A good winemaker knows that trimming back excess growth is key to maximizing the branch’s effectiveness
In the vineyards of Jesus’ day, grapevines grew naturally along the ground instead of being propped up on poles or lattices as they are today. (Wild Grapes when I was a child) The vinedresser would come along to lift and “clean” the vine, pruning away the excess and dead growth. Jesus uses the same image to describe the way the disciples themselves had been “cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you” (v. 3). That “Word” was the teaching and commandment of Jesus… and the disciples’ meditation on and obedience to that “Word” would help them “remain” or stay connected to his “love” — the nourishing flow from the vine (v. 10).
Reading, meditating and praying through the Scriptures is one way in which disciples are “pruned.” The words of Jesus about the kingdom and the story of His life, death and resurrection focus us on what’s truly important for bearing the fruit of His grace and love to the world. When we focus on the “Word,” we are able to cut out all those other offshoots and tangents of temptation and sin that can choke out great growth.
The writer of Hebrews says Scripture is “sharper than any two-edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12). He might have as easily said Scripture is the ultimate set of pruning sheers, trimming us for the life of discipleship Jesus desires us to live. Sometimes, such pruning can be painful as God uses it to lop off old habits and cut away the growth of sin that we somehow think is attractive. Never the less, it’s absolutely necessary if we’re going to embrace our purpose as conduits of God’s grace.
Great wine is the reflection of a particular vineyard, be it from an Old World tradition or an diverse New World experiment.
God wants to tend the finest vineyard ever, the one that takes the ultimate prize for grands crus. (Remember that term.. “great growth”).
May we, as today’s disciples of Jesus, the true vine, embrace our role as branches — channels, conduits for God’s grace, so that when the world samples the fine vintage of God’s love and grace, they will want to know the winemaker!
