Vines & branches

John 15:1-16

          Where I live, there are  many vines and brush so thick you could get lost in it. There's no telling where it begins or where it ends. It is however, thick and healthy and it holds together the loose sand that basically holds up a mountainous hill that leads down to the water. Those vines are crucial to the maintenance of the bluff outside our home and in fact in is illegal to trim it or cut it. It seems like a very wise law.

           If God is the vine and we (all) are the branches it is truly a great analogy. It says so much about who we are and just where we go astray as humans.

           So often we think that we can live life on our own, be self made and not dependent on anyone else.  We are not the vine though, God is. At the very least we are dependent on Him.  In addition, just like the branches on the hill, it is not one branch that holds the mountain up, it is all the branches and the vine.  You can't have one without the other. You may last a while alone and then the mountain crumbles. It's team effort so to speak. We all know about team building and it's benefits. We simply were not created to live alone, we were not designed to live alone, we were created as part of the whole of God's creation. 

    The analogy goes not simply for us as individuals but carries over to all of God's creation.  Whole peoples cannot summarily be dismissed. We are all of God's creations. On a global scale there is great import to this thought. Who can we dismiss? Who would we like to dismiss?  And yet we are all together on this planet, all God's creations, each to contribute, each to live in love.

      I think that the process of extinction holds some truth here. Thinking we are the most important if not sole purpose of this planet, very often we live life so that an animal population becomes extinct. It's not like I am raising my hand in warning that this could happen, it certainly has already. And yes, it can happen more.  By our own human behavior we eliminate one of God's creations and what is the result? We throw the world off balance, we play God, tinkering with the plan He created. Is this so different than when we act alone or as if others don't exist? What happens when we act in a solitary manner that dismisses our brothers and sisters? locally? globally?

      When we think we are a branch that survive without the vine or the other branches we are foolhardy at best. This holds true at home, at work and in our community, whatever community you wish to imagine.

     God is the vine, put your love and trust in him first but never dismiss the others. If you do not love them, you do not love God.

         

‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.