The Vine and The Branches

I might as well start with full disclosure.  I love this passage of scripture.  It is a love story, perhaps the most profound love story of all time.

Jesus is speaking intimately to His disciples.  He is talking about relationship and dependence on one another.  He is saying our relationship with Him and with His Father doesn’t work unless we are one with the other, each doing our part.  The relationship Jesus is describing is not one of our dependence on God. Jesus is speaking of a relationship that is absolutely interdependent.  Jesus is using an analogy that makes the Father, Son, and Disciple all part of the One.  They are all part of God.

 Jesus paints a picture of the Father at the root and from that root grows a strong and supple vine. Jesus tells us he is the vine.  What good is a root that is just in the ground and never sends forth a shoot?  The root is incomplete without the vine.  They are interdependent, root and vine, they are One.  In Jesus’ analogy He tells us again that the Father and Son are one.

But Jesus doesn’t leave it there.  He tells the disciples that they/we are the branches.  And that brings us around to the same question.  If there is a root that is incomplete without a shoot that becomes a vine, so too is the vine incomplete without the branches.  God the Father, Jesus our Savior and His Disciples (you and me) are fully dependent on one another. Jesus is saying that even with all of our gifts and limits we are interdependent with Jesus in the mission of God.  Jesus is telling us that God’s work in the world depends on us.  We are vital to the work of God. Without the branches there is no lushness.  There is no fruit.  There is no reason for there to be a root that sprouts a vine if there are no branches that sprout the flowers that give the fruit.  God the Father, Jesus his Son and we are absolutely interdependent on each other.

Jesus tells us in this Gospel that we are called to be the bearers of the lush fruit of God’s Word to our world.  The fruit of the vine must be eaten, shared, and enjoyed.  It gives life, sustenance, and hope to the world.  So too must we.  Jesus is the vine we are the branches.  It is only together that we bring the message of God to the world.  It is overwhelming to recognize that as much as we depend on God, God depends on us.

Think about that, God depends on us to bring the fruit of the vine to the world.  Holy cow!  I can never again allow myself to shrink away from speaking and living the Gospel, God depends on me.  Feelings of doubt, inadequacy, shame or whatever else holds us back, God gently prunes from us. Jesus says it is tossed out into the fire.

Just think, God loves and trusts me enough to depend on me!  No one and nothing could pull me from the vine that gives me life.  As long as I am one with the vine, this humble, simple branch that I am will bear fruit and give glory to God.  Amen. Alleluia.

In God’s Unending Love,

Gwen