I don’t know a lot about vines and grapes. I once had a neighbor that had some. He was planning to make wine in his garage. That was pretty aggressive for a guy in Birmingham Alabama.
The first couple of years he had lots of vines and he spent lots of time arranging them on his trestles and wires. But, I don’t guess he got many if any grapes.
In the fall after his 2nd year I thought he had given up. I noticed a really big pile of vines out by the road for the city to haul off. I could see up on the hill the trellises were empty and it looked like the vines were totally gone.
As for me, I guess I am plant challenged. I have never had any luck with any vegetables or flowers except one year. I had a couple of rose bushes that did well until they died over the winter.
I don’t know how many of you know anything about grapes, but I know that some of you know tomatoes. So, I want to remind you of that knowledge to help our understanding.
I have in-laws that know tomatoes very well. Not too many years ago they were able to plan their tomato year so that from early in the summer to fairly late in the fall they had fresh ones always coming in.
You can go by there anytime in the summer and have a fresh “homegrown” tomato sandwich.
When I tried to grow tomatoes, I thought I was doing well. The plants shot up, they were so dark green. They must have been 4 feet tall. They really grew lots of branches and leaves. They looked so healthy.
But they did not seem to want to actually make many tomatoes. In fact we only got a hand full of small, puny, hardly even red pieces of fruit. Definitely not worth the materials and work I put into them.
My in Laws made it look so easy.
After my failure, my in-laws gave me lots of advice.
I was told, when the plants are transplanted, you need to nip off the lowest leaves and plant them in deep. Just the top leaves showing.
As they grow, the little “suckers” that grow at the junction of the main branches and the stem need to be taken off.
They also told me about mysterious invisible creatures called nematodes and ways of dealing with them.
--- I almost sat outside all night waiting to catch those little guys.
---- But I started to worry a little, these folks were my “in-laws”
I decided that they were pulling my leg.
Nanny (my grandmother in-law) told me you need to prune a little all summer long and then just before the first frost, ….. something you find in the farmers almanac combined with a particular feeling in your bones, then you need to prune the plant for the last harvest.
She said that the secret of pruning is to trick the plant into thinking that it is dying so it will produce and ripen all the tomatoes it can.
Basically, stripping the leaves off the plant makes the rest of the small tomatoes suddenly grow and mature.
I didn’t know so much was involved in getting tomatoes for a few sandwiches.
There is a lot of stuff you have to know.
Stuff you have to do right in the first place and along the way.
And then at the end of the growing season, you gotta practically kill the plant to get the fruit to grow and mature fully so you can enjoy the last burst of fruit before winter starts.
In our scripture Jesus is talking to the disciples, as they are walking toward the garden of Gethsemane. Their path may have taken them by the temple gates which is said to have had Grape vine sculptures between the, or perhaps as they crossed the valley passed through a vineyard where Jesus starts teaching.
It is easy to imagine that He would point to a grape vine or a symbol, point and start the conversation.
He describes himself as the vine…the true vine and his father as the vinedresser.
If Jesus is the vine, that basically means that He is the one that has the connection to the soil and water. He is the base of the plant.
Looking at the bigger view he is the way of salvation for Israel. He is the one connection to God, the messiah.
The vinedresser, God, is the planter and cultivator.
When Jesus speaks to the disciples and even to us today, he never directly explains that the believers are involved….I am not sure that he should have to.
He just goes into describing connections and he talks about branches.
Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
The branches only have two conditions, 1 – does not bear fruit and 2 – does bear fruit. Either way the branch is going to be pruned by the vinedresser.
I am not sure that sounds too good.
Pruned if you do and pruned if you don’t.
It does not sound like it is much fun to be a branch, some how I would rather see the scripture describing, “Pruned if you don’t and Blessed if you do.”
You know with that kind of description it bothers me that it looks like a loose-loose situation.
So what is my alternative to being a branch?
Basically, unbelievers are not branches and they have nothing to do with this teaching from Jesus. This story is being told to the core believers and addresses them and I feel to all believers directly.
So, unbelievers are not under this teaching form Jesus ant there not subject to pruning. However they are also not subject to the promises that belongs to the family of God and the inheritance that goes with that. Generally, the vine dresser is not working for fruitfulness in their lives until they reach for God.
Now, If you have accepted Jesus as your lord and savior then you don’t have any choice. You are automatically made a branch.
When the relationship offered by Jesus is accepted by us we are grafted into the vine. We are made a part of the plant, we become connected to the Vine and we get all the nutrients and energy needed for LIFE from that relationship.
So for the moment, I am assuming that we are all branches with no choice of being “Pruned if you don’t and Pruned if you do.”
Don’t let the negative images in your mind make you worry about pruning. We are not simply plants and not ever realize the good things that come out of pruning.
That said, what are we supposed to be doing?
At first glance it seems like we are to produce fruit. Right?
If that is the first thing that came to your mind you are using worldly thinking.
You have bought into the produce or get out of the way mindset of this world.
You probably think that it is natural for a Christian to stop producing and retire as our lives change. That’s worldly thinking!
Worldly thinking believes that success is proven by the growth of the company or club or Church.
Worldly thinking believes that speed and activity are the tools that bring success, because it about what we do that makes things happen.
It is really easy to get pulled in by the worldly thinking.
Our instant world tends to keep us busy and going a bunch of different ways, diluting our energy and resources.
Things move fast so we have more time to do more things.
Our scripture today suggest a different focus, not instant, not produce…. produce … push --- push…..
-- So if producing fruit is not the point here, What is?
I believe a hint can be found in the use of one word in today’s scripture. 8 times in the section I read today, we hear the word “abide”.
Webster defines “abide”
1 : to wait for
2 a : to endure without yielding b : to bear patiently
3 : to accept without objection
The world teaches that in order to get ahead and be productive… you have to do something … Right!
It has become unnatural for us to wait for anything.
How does abiding result in fruit?
How can sitting around give us results?
It doesn’t!
We are not just talking about sitting around.
We are talking about taking time to be connected to God, through our relationship with Jesus.
In our busy world, when we are working so hard to produce, a lot of the production is just leaves and stems.
They are like my tomato plants, they looked great but there was no reward to me the worker.
The plant just lived for itself. It consumed the resources I provided and was big and healthy looking. But they did not do what Tomato plants are expected to do….
Our lives get filled up with a lot of stuff that just drains off the energy, the nutrients and make us focus on living for today.
No direct expectation of a distant future, no worries about what heaven will be like for anyone except us.
Our scripture today explains that the focus that we should have is being connected to the vine. We are unable to do anything for God if we are not in a living, healthy relationship with Jesus Christ.
As “ branches,” all we need to do is allow the Gardner to tend us and everything else comes naturally.
So what is being connected to him?
How do we abide in Christ, how are we tended?
How about listening to Christian music at home or in the car? Just like secular music there are several styles they you may like, but you have to listen a little, before you will know.
How about using a daily devotional like the Upper Room that seems to be left on the table over there. Us it as a 2 to 5 minute guide to a daily devotional.
Perhaps there are other books or devotionals that will guide you in your personal study on interesting topics in the Bible.
How about coming to Sunday School, if you have not been making it a regular part of your week.
Something really radical, how about volunteering to lead a short term study on a topic in the Bible that you are interested in. (The teacher of a subject learns the most in any class situation.)
How about coming to our Sunday worship service with Jesus on you mind and being open to the worship we experience in music, prayers and sometimes even the sermon.
Abiding is an intentional act. Maybe I need to redefine the word, how about comparing it to listening. Listening is definitely intentional
Robert W. Herron describes listening like this, Good listening is like tuning in a radio station. For good results, you can listen to only one station at a time. Trying to listen to my wife while looking over an office report is like trying to receive two radio stations at the same time.
I end up with distortion and frustration. Listening requires a choice of where I place my attention. To tune into my partner, I must first choose to put away all that will divide my attention. That might mean laying down the newspaper, moving away from the dishes in the sink, putting down the book I’m reading, setting aside my projects.
Abiding in or listening to Jesus is hard to do, because it is not just sitting there.
It means paying attention to the relationship that you have already accepted with Jesus Christ.
Have ya’ll ever noticed what married couples are like?
When a couple has been together for years they think they know everything about each other. They finish each others sentences. They know likes and dislikes.
But something else often happens, the longer they are married the more they take each other for granted. They don’t always listen to each other the way they did when they were dating and first married.
I am not sure that new Christians have a lot of trouble abiding and listening for a word form God. They are so aware of the changes in their lives that they do many of the things I mentioned because they are constantly listening for god to speak and to help them change.
I am afraid that it is the Long time Christian that tends to take the relationship for granted.
Folks, the message for all of us this morning is that we set aside some of our day to grow our understanding and relationship in Christ.
We need a special time to grow and mature and especially listen for what Jesus has to say to us as a branch. We need to wait for the Gardner that will prune away the unnecessary parts of our lives.
But that will never happen with a minimum exposure to the vine, to God’s word and other Christians. Minimum exposure really means a minimum relationship, minimum opportunities for the vine dresser to make us useful in his vineyard.
If we are abiding in Jesus we will really develop under God’s plan for us. Not just as individuals but as a church.
We will automatically produce fruit. Because, that is what we are designed to do not what we learn to do.
For my neighbor in Birmingham the next spring after his radical pruning of his grape vines, brought him some new growth. I had not expected him to be out in his back yard directing vines back along the trellises. It seems that the roots that had developed over two years made for quick growth and grapes.
I don’t think it was any surprise at all to my neighbor the amateur vinedresser. I can assure you that that our vine dresser has great expectations for each of us and will never act in a way that would inhibit what you were designed to do.
I want to encourage you to consider your connection to the vine, are you taking time to make sure you are receiving what you need through that connection?
We will be working on the second half of today’s scripture next week.
All Glory be to God!
