Making wine with God
This weekend’s reading is the teaching of Jesus, using the vine and the branches as a metaphor to help the disciples understand their ongoing relationship with God. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it remains in the vine, neither can we unless we remain in Him. This metaphor helps us understand that our connection to God is vital for our spiritual growth and bearing the fruits of the Spirit.
Jesus is giving His disciples and us a way to remain connected to Him and God. Jesus, through His human experience, knows it is challenging to handle the human pressures of growth, understanding, and faithfulness. The pressures of life and the world can pull us away from our strongest desire for God. Perhaps that is part of what Jesus meant when He said, “The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,” when the disciples fell asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane. He knew the disciples wanted to be with Him. Yet, life can tire and weaken us. Doubt, hopelessness, apathy, fear, pride, and arrogance can pull us away. We want to follow, but it is hard to remain awake and faithful.
In today’s reading and the preceding chapter, Jesus tells us what is necessary to remain connected to Him after He has gone.
In John 14, Jesus says, “The Father is dwelling in Me, performing His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me.” In today’s reading, He says, “I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit.” These two chapters give us the flow of the lifeblood of God.
Let me try to give you a visual. God is the source of all life. God is the root, the wellspring, the genesis, and the heart of all creation. Jesus, as the vine, is the connection between God and us. He is among us as a sturdy vine, rooted from all eternity in God. We, as branches, spout from Jesus and bear the fruit of God’s love in our world. There is an intrinsic interdependence between God, Jesus, and us.
God communicated the depth and power of His love through Jesus. Jesus, one with God, remains with us as the way we stay connected to the Father; it is through us that God brings the fruit of His love to the world. We are called to remain as branches connected to the vine, which is Jesus. If we stay in Him, we bear the fruits of the Spirit in our world: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Many fruits and vegetables grow on vines, but grapes only come to mind in this passage. The fruit of the vine becomes wine. It is no accident that wine is central to our faith and our celebration of the mass. Wine is “the fruit of the vine and the work of human hands which becomes our spiritual drink.” The wine we offer at mass is the fruit of our lives rooted in God.
Today’s reading is deep and rich in meaning. Jesus demonstrates what we must do to make our lives bear the fruit that becomes the lifeblood of God. He tells us how to remain in Him and to be one with God. He shows us how the fruit we bear becomes the wine we offer in our celebration of the Eucharist. And, the wine we offer is returned to us as the Blood of Christ that nourishes and strengthens us to continue to bear fruit for our world.
It is easy to become detached from Jesus. The winds of life constantly try to rip us away from the vine we cling to. We need not fear because Jesus has a firm hold on us. We need only to hold on tightly to Jesus. We are one with God, His Father, the source and summit of all life through Jesus.
We, the branches, are critical in God’s plan. We bear the gifts of the Spirit for our world. We are one with God in God’s plan of love showered on our world.
In God’s Unending Love,
Gwen
