Standing Under the Scriptures
May 17, 2009

Dear Fellow Voyagers,

Our readings for this Sunday are:

Acts 10.44-48: The climax of the baptism of Cornelius the Centurion

John 15.9-17: Jesus, in giving the commandment to love one another, elevates his disciples to be his friends.

Last week, having spent some of our time taking in our rector’s retirement, of which we had just heard, we considered only our Gospel reading, John 15.1-8. This, in which Jesus uses the image of the vine to convey the necessity of abiding in him, is of sufficient importance to have merited our full attention anyway.

We began by noting that the image of the vine, or vineyard, occurs elsewhere in the Scriptures, in the Old Testament as well as the synoptic Gospels. In the other instances, though, it refers to Israel. Here John, who likely was aware of these instances, shifts it to refer to the Christian fellowship, the church. Hence it applies to us.

Jesus’ initial statement, “I am the true vine,” resonates with his “I am the way, the truth, and the life” in the previous chapter. It is of course one of the “I am” sayings in John’s Gospel, signs of the divine speech and presence. Jesus goes on to say that “my Father is the vinedresser,’ which might be taken to imply a distinction between the two Persons, except that the unity of the Son with the Father has been affirmed. The function of the vinedresser is given as taking away the branches that do not bear fruit and the pruning even of those which do. The element of judgment is undeniable here; the Scriptures are not shy about speaking of it. But we noted that the pruning, or cleansing, is not a matter of punishment but instead of edification, of the enabling of the bearing of more fruit. This opens the way for us to regard the difficulties, disappointments, and failures that we encounter in our lives as positives, intended for this purpose. Jesus then speaks of our being already made clean, by the word that he has spoken to us. But we need to open to his word, as we endeavour to be in our class, so that we may truly hear it.

In the following verses (4 and 5) Jesus makes explicit the necessity of abiding in him. When we abide in him and he in us, we bear much fruit, but as with a branch apart from the vine, apart from him we can do nothing. We may and indeed do suppose that we can do something, but Jesus’ word confronts us with the reality that this finally amounts to nothing. Further, one who does not abide in him and thus does not bear true fruit is cast forth like a branch and withers, such branches then being gathered up, cast into the fire, and burned. Drastic as this may sound, it may be taken as a statement only of what separating from Jesus we inflict on ourselves.

Having spoken above of his word, Jesus now speaks of his words, plural, abiding in us. The difference is not just of number but of the use a different Greek word, hremata now instead of logos. This we took as an even more direct allusion to the words of Scripture that we study in our class and thus an affirmation of the seriousness of the enterprise we are engaged in, the voyage we have embarked on. On the basis of this abiding Jesus makes what might seem a totally extravagant promise: “Ask whatever you will and it shall be done for you.” But we recognized that this was not giving us carte blanche, to obtain whatever struck our personal fancy. Instead, if his words abide in us, we will ask for only what accords with his will. Examples of this would be what we need to carry out the ministries that have been given to us within the church and to proclaim the gospel to world. And there are many instances of such prayers having been answered, in the mission field and elsewhere, in amazing ways. It is by bearing such fruit that we prove to be Jesus’ disciples and glorify the Father in the Son (verse 8).

Finally we considered whether this passage might contain the key issue that is confronting the church today and which underlies its current division, namely whether it is only if we abide in Jesus, and his word and words abide in us, that we can bear fruit that is not just of a worldly sort and thus in the end vain but truly redounds to his kingdom.

Faithfully, Fr. Ted