The True Vine

A Church article with View Comments posted 10 May 2009.
Tags: easter 5, infertility, john, mother's day, sermon, year b

Occasion: Easter 5, Year B
Text: John 15.1-8

This sermon was preached at East Iron Hill Community Church, Maquoketa, IA‎, on 10 May 2009.

Mother’s Day isn’t easy for some people – it wasn’t easy for Jennifer and I for a long time. We were married at the end of 2004, and after about a year of wedded bliss, we decided to get started on our family. We thought that it couldn’t be too hard, after all people turn up pregnant all the time who weren’t even trying to get that way. We went out and bought little odds and ends we were sure we’d need when the baby came. We dreamed, we planned, we saved – and we were so sure it was going to work out. Time passed. Months turned into years. Things did not work out for a very, very long time. And as Mother’s Day rolled by in 2006 and 2007 and 2008, those were dark days for us. When you so desperately want to be a mother or a father, and you see people being celebrated for that, and you can’t – through no fault of your own – it’s a terrible experience.

Mother’s Day isn’t easy for some people. A couple I know found out that they were pregnant, and excitedly spread the news far and wide that they were expecting their first child. Within a few months, they had had a miscarriage. Motherhood isn’t easy. Sometimes children move far away, and Mother’s Day becomes a reminder of the painful distance. For all of its rewards and benefits, for every Mother’s Day card and church breakfast, few things compare to the personal struggle and sacrifice of motherhood.

And, sometimes, having a mother isn’t easy. Lots of people celebrate their mothers on Mother’s Day. But Mother’s Day can be painful to those who can’t celebrate their mother. Some mourn the loss of their mother to death or Alzheimer’s Disease. Others try to forget the abuse.

So it is on many holidays, but especially today – Mother’s Day is a time for celebration and rejoicing for some, but for others, it’s a time of great difficulty, stress, and distress.

Today we find ourselves in the fifteenth chapter of John’s Gospel. Jesus opens with a statement that seems very benign: “I am the true vine…” Yet in those first two words, “I am,” Jesus is making a shocking statement. The way that’s worded in the Greek doesn’t just mean “I am the true vine,” it means “I am the true vine,” not something else. The way it is phrased also connects us to the name of God revealed in the Old Testament – “I AM.” Jesus is making two huge claims here: that he is the Son of God – the “I AM”, and that he is the true, faithful, dependable, actual vine, as opposed to some other vine which is false, untrustworthy, and fake. If we want to understand what it is that Jesus is saying, we need to think a minute about what a false vine is.

The picture of the vine in this story is intended to show us who God is and who we are. Not one of us in this room is a vine – we’re all branches. We have to be connected to a vine to get water and nutrients from the soil and get rid of waste products and impurities. Also, not one of us in this room is a vinegrower, either – that’s God the Father’s job. We’re supposed to grow towards the light, eventually bear fruit – clusters of grapes, probably – and remain connected to the true vine that gives us life. We aren’t in charge – life comes from the vine, and judgment comes from the vinegrower. True life comes from the true vine, Jesus Christ.

But, as I said, if it’s important that Jesus is the true vine, there must be a such thing as a false vine. The vine is a picture of the source of life – so the false vine must be the source of a false life. But what is that? False life doesn’t make any sense. False life is no life at all – false life is death disguised as life, weeds which strangle and kill dressed up as pretty vines.

In short, false sources of life are our human attempts to seek life in created things instead of in the Creator. This is nothing less than idolatry – that we seek life from that which is false. When we seek life by who we think we are instead of who God tells us we are, we put our trust in a false vine. We give up our birthright as branches to play in the weeds.

Our lives have enough weeds in them already, don’t they? Little, insignificant things like missing the bus, having a bad hair day, or the dog tracking mud through the house. Big, awful things like miscarriage, abuse, sickness, and death. And between those poles, thousands of weeds, choking us off.

To this situation, Jesus comes offering an alternative: “Abide in me as I abide in you.” Pay close attention to the assumption Jesus is making: he already abides in us. He’s not calling us to figure out how important he is and come to him on our own. We can’t do that, it’s impossible. We can’t ever make ourselves good enough to come to Jesus on our own. Instead, he points to a situation that already exists. “As I abide in you.” Not “as I will abide in you, if you’re only good enough.” Not “as I might abide in you someday.” “As I already abide in you.” Jesus is already abiding in our hearts. Now he beckons us to come and abide in him.

On its face, we don’t like this much. We don’t like that it’s not up to us. The American ideal is to get what you deserve – and we don’t deserve this. But this situation is our proper place, and we are not in charge. Jesus tells us, in essence, “Dear world: you are a branch. You are not a vine. You are not the source of life, I am. You can’t live without me. In fact, you can’t do anything at all without me. Abide in me.”

If you abide in Jesus, you will produce much fruit and glorify God. Don’t mishear that – it’s not “if you abide in Jesus, you have to produce much fruit.” It will just happen. It’s the natural extension of abiding in Jesus. It’s not another law, because if it was, it would just be another weed choking us off. Another thing that we have to do. No, our response, in gratitude, to the gift of God in Jesus is to bear good fruit.

If you cut a branch off from the vine, the branch withers and its fruit dies. But if you prune and tend the vine, the branches bear lots of beautiful food. We often talk about God as Father, but maybe today on Mother’s Day we can also see God mothering us – a Good Mother, protecting and correcting us, nourishing and sustaining us, teaching and rebuking us so that we can become the good fruit we have always been meant to be.

To mothers who are suffering under the burden of tasks too much for them, Jesus calls you and says, “Abide in me.” To those who yearn to be mothers and fathers and who, for whatever reason, cannot, Jesus calls you and says, “Abide in me.” To those who mourn the loss of children, or whose children are far away, Jesus calls you and says, “Abide in me.” To those whose mothers hurt or betrayed them, Jesus calls you and says, “Abide in me, and let me abide in you and be your Shepherd, your Mother, your Father, your Everything.”

This kind of mothering doesn’t make everything right. It doesn’t fix the brokenness. It doesn’t make all of the hard times of our lives go away – and it probably shouldn’t. But despite the hard times, despite the suffering of this life, in the face of all that is wrong with the world, Jesus promises us this: “I already abide in you, so abide in me. Come and trust me. I alone am the source of life, healing, and forgiveness. Come glorify my Father with me. Come bear fruit with me. Let me be your true vine, and be my branches. Find your comfort and solace in this.”

For when we throw ourselves on the mercy of God in Christ Jesus, and we abide in him as he abides in us, we do know life, healing, and forgiveness. We see the Good Father, the Good Mother, the one whom we can trust with the faith of a child. We know that we will not be uprooted, we will not be choked off by weeds, and we will be deeply rooted in the one who gives us life.

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