Psalm 148, Isaiah 41:14-20, 1 Peter 3:8-18, John 15:1-10
Vines and branches in the Father’s Vineyard
The Psalm appointed for today is a long, enthusiastic summons to praise the God who made the heavens and the earth and all that is in them. As such, it is a fitting response to what David tells us in the 19th Psalm: The heavens are declaring the glory of God, and the earth shows forth the works of his hands. Everything that God has made is stamped with his glory. It is these thoughts which were likely on the Lord’s mind when he explained to Nicodemus how God worked to redeem sinners. And, when Nicodemus had difficulty understanding our Lord’s teaching, Jesus exclaimed, 12If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
What we see and know of the material creation around us provides us the vocabulary, if you will, for spiritual truth that God would have us to know and to live by. No better concrete example of this can be found than the gospel lesson we heard a short while ago. In it, Jesus takes the things of this world – particularly, the things pertaining to the cultivation of grapes – and uses them to teach his disciples what they are to expect from Jesus and His Father in heaven as they continue to live their lives in Christ’s service.
Jesus gave this teaching to his disciples on the night in which he was betrayed. In so much of the upper room discourse, Jesus obviously has his eye on how his disciples are going to fulfill the mission he will leave with them when he finally departs the earth. This Thursday evening, by the way, you have the opportunity to mark that occasion, with a worship service that remembers Jesus’ ascension into heaven. But, Jesus’ teaching in the upper room, before he was betrayed, was looking beyond the ascension, to how the disciples – and later on people like you and me – were going to live their lives as Christ’s disciples.
None of us here are vinedressers, but the cultivation of grape vines has not changed a lot in two millennia, and there are a great number of them still in the world. This will come in handy in a moment when we ponder a couple of statements by Jesus which have disturbed some people over the years.
Unlike many of his other parables, Jesus – in this parable – interprets key parts of it immediately. “I am the true vine,” he says, “And my father is the vinedresser.” Did you ever wonder why Jesus said he was the “true” vine, rather that simply to say, “I am the vine, and my father is the vinedresser?” I think Jesus point is simply this: “there are vines and vinedressers, and you know them well. They are everywhere in the world. But, behind them all, above them all, as the reason for them all, I am the Origin of all vines. They are all pictures of me. I am the true vine, the rest are simply copies.”
After identifying himself as the true vine, and His Father (by implication) as the true vinedresser, he then explains in these terms how the Father works with the branches in the vine. And, at this point, we come to the first statement in Jesus’ teaching that has caused some to be disturbed. In the translation from which I read a moment ago, the text says this: “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, he takes away.” I suppose you can see how and why this would be troubling. But many have argued (and, I agree with them) that this is not an accurate rendering of the underlying Greek text.
The translation problem is this: the verb which our translation renders as “takes away” is the Greek verb airo. There are four ways this verb can be rendered in English. It can mean “to lift up or pick up”. For example, this is what the verb means when Jesus tells a paralytic in Matthew’s gospel to “pick up your bed and walk.” It’s the verb used when Matthew writes that they PICKED UP twelve baskets full of bread after feeding the 5,000.
Or the verb can mean to lift up something that is low or fallen down. It is used in this way in a Psalm that Satan quotes when tempting Christ in the wilderness. Satan says, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will LIFT you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’ ”
Or it can mean, “to lift up with the purpose of taking away.” This is the verb we find in the mouth of John the Baptist who hails Jesus as the lamb of God who TAKES AWAY the sin of the world. From this meaning, it is easy to see how it can also be used in the sense of “to remove.” John says the women came to the tomb and found that the stone had BEEN REMOVED.
The translators of our passage, I fear, were not vine dressers. The branches of vines, if left to themselves, are always going to go down, into the dirt, under the rest of the plant, and in that position they will not bear fruit very well, and if they do, the fruit will rot and decay. So, what the vine dresser does is to lift up the branch, and to support it, to trail it along a stick or a rope that runs horizontally above the ground. The point is that the branches need support, as well as nourishment, and that is what God the Father, the true vinedresser does. If the branches are not bearing fruit, they are lifted up so they get more sunlight.
And, when the branch he has lifted up begins to bear fruit, then he prunes it, so that it can bear more fruit. A flourishing branch will sprout grapes, and many leaves, and the buds of new strands of vine. But, the vinedresser is concerned that the fruit be as great as possible, so he trims away everything that is not the fruit which he wants.
In this kind of vine dressing, the vinedresser is also concerned to clean the branches, to take away parasites, mold and fungi that might grow on the plant, to remove insects and their nests, and similar things. Jesus tells his disciples that they are already clean, because of the word Jesus has taught them. And, by this we get a key insight into the value, indeed, one of the main purposes of the Word of God – to cleanse us, to do the things which Paul speaks about in 2 Timothy 3:16, when he tells us that Scripture is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. In the figurative language Jesus is using here with his disciples, it is the Word that Jesus has taught his disciples that renders them clean.
And, the cleanliness is not for its own sake, of course. It is for the purpose of maximizing the fruit from the branch. Jesus tells them to abide in Christ, just as the branches abide in the vine. Why? Again, it is the fruit – “As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.” Jesus main idea at this point is the work of the Father to maximize the fruit in the branches. That is why it is important to exhort them to abide in the vine, so that the Father can do his work with the branches – lifting them up, supporting them, cleaning them, pruning them – all so that the fruit they produce will come forth and come forth abundantly.
Jesus began this teaching by saying “I am the true vine, and my father is the vinedresser.” Now he says, “ am the vine, and you are the branches.” So, Jesus is here turning his attention to the branches themselves, and we meet the second troubling statement found in his gospel lesson.
5"I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. 6If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.”
Again, it is not difficult to see why this statement can be disturbing. Does it mean that one can lose one’s salvation? Some have understood the passage to mean this. And, if this were the only passage of Scripture we had, I think it would be an idea difficult to dismiss. On the other hand, we have many passages of Scripture, many of them directly from the mouth of Jesus himself, that would contradict this idea. Among these is Jesus’ statement recorded in John chapter 6: “ 37All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out …. .39This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day.”
In light of these statement by Jesus, I think we must understand his statements about branches withering and being burned up in the same sense as what the Apostle Paul is speaking about in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, where there is a very perverse and disobedient brother, who Paul urges the church to deliver over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day Jesus returns. Similarly, Paul speaks of Christians who are like builders, using various materials. Some foolish Christians, Paul says, will build with hay, wood, and stubble. Paul says that “ 13each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. 14If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. 15If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.”
Consequently, I do not understand Jesus’ words here to signify the loss of salvation, but, rather, the removal of the unfruitful Christian from the realm of fruit-bearing. The things about which Jesus is teaching are the things of consequence before his return. Now is the time when Christians may grow spiritually, as a branch grows in the vine. And the purpose of the growth is the bearing of fruit. If a branch bears no fruit, in spite of what the vinedresser does to support it, to clean it, and to feed it through the vine, he simply removes it, so other branches may bear fruit in its place.
Jesus concludes this teaching by explaining exactly what he means by abiding. In verse 5 he says, “He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit.” Then in verse 7, Jesus says, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, …” The parallel expressions show us what it means for Jesus to abide in us: it is by his words abiding in us. Do we, in fact, know the teaching of Christ? This means not only what he said in the gospels, but what his own disciples teaching us in the New Testament, for they were fulfilling his command to make disciples of all nations, teaching them to observe everything Christ had commanded them. To put it bluntly, Christ cannot abide in us, if his words do not abide in us. And, his words cannot abide in us if we do not know his word says. If you want Christ to abide in your more than he does right now, simply read more of the Word of God. It really is that simple.
And, Jesus points to a second aspect of abiding in Christ: not only to be a hearer of his word, but a doer of it as well. “10If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.”
In none of this do we hear anything particularly radical, I think, even though none of us are actually vinedressers ourselves. There is one feature of this passage, however, which I never really saw before, and it is, I think, one of the most obvious ideas in the passage.
Jesus is the true vine, His Father is the vinedresser, the disciples – and this will include you and me as well – are the branches. We know what it means for Christ to abide in us – it happens as his Word abides in us. And we know what it is to abide in Christ’s love – it is to obey his commandments.
What is the fruit? You know, in all the materials I surveyed in preparation for this homily, everyone understood “fruit” to mean good works which the Christian does. And, I don’t think this is an idea that is foreign to the passage. It certainly is not a strange idea in the New Testament at large. The word fruit appears over 50 times in most English translations of the New Testament, and most of those uses are as a metaphor for good works which the Christian performs as he grows in his service to Christ.
But, for all that, Jesus himself points to fruit that is, perhaps, more specific than good works, and that is answered prayer. “ 7If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. 8By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.”
What usually grabs our attention when we hear these words is that phrase “you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.” And, I’ve heard his passage expounded by the prosperity gospel folks as the recipe for getting that mansion or luxury car or whatever else it is you want. Jesus seems very much to be writing a blank check here, contingent upon our abiding in Him and His words abiding in us.
I do not want to “unpreach” this statement, or attempt to explain why it doesn’t mean what it looks like it means. I really hope it means exactly what it looks like it means. But, may I point out to you that if it means what it looks like it means, then we have to take the rest of the passage along with it – that the good fruit, the abundant fruit, that God is attempting to produce in us is found in the prayers that we pray and the answers which God is pleased to provide. I don’t want to say that good works have nothing to do with Jesus’ teaching here – for the rest of the New Testament would encourage us to include those as well.
But, I do think that we miss an important point in what Jesus is teaching here, if we overlook this: that the bearing much fruit, which glorifies the Father, is – first of all – the prayers we pray which he is pleased to answer because we abide in Christ and Christ abides in us.
In this light, may I remind you of something which you yourselves have remarked on in the past couple of weeks – that our times of prayer together in this service have produced some very encouraging answers from God our Father. For these we are, of course, grateful. And, I think sometimes we find ourselves wondering if these outcomes are really the result of our prayers. Why should they not be answers to the prayers WE prayed. And, if they are, we should take heart in these answers. They should encourage us, and make us even more faithful to press on in our prayers, so that by them we bear the abundant good fruit that I think Jesus is talking about in this gospel lesson.
May God grant us grace to find the Word of Christ dwelling in us richly, and that we may also abide in Him through obedience to his commandments. And, may we find, thereby, an ever increasing abundance of good fruit, in the answers to our prayers, wherein God our Father is glorified because he has answered them for Jesus’ sake.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
