June 7, 2024
Life on the Vine, Revisited
One December, when all our children were home for Christmas and my brother Don was with us as well, we decided to make a pre-Christmas trip to Wine Country in Northern California. Growing up in Pennsylvania, we had neighbors that had a grapevine in their backyard. Although it was a scrawny, puny vine, I found it impressive at the time. After all, you could eat the grapes it produced. It wasn’t until this California road trip that I had ever seen a full-scale vineyard and endless rows of impressive vines.
Of course, a working vineyard has all sorts of trellises to maximize both output and accessibility to the grapes (or so I learned on our very informative first tour). They look different in the wild. However different grapes may be, domesticated from wild, they still have a basic logic to them. That is, there is a vine and from that vine come branches or “cordons” from which come shoots or arms from which the clusters or bunches of grapes grow. This is the logic and design of a grapevine.
When Jesus said, “I am the vine and you are the branches” (John 15:5), it was part of an extensive discourse about God being the one who tends to the vine, cutting unproductive branches off to let the productive branches be even more productive. This is exactly what you need to do to make your vineyard thrive. Jesus wants us to stay connected to him, to participate in his divine life with the Father so that we might thrive on the vine, the source of our spiritual life. This is what it takes to make a Christian faith community.
Earlier in John, when describing himself as the “good (or noble)” shepherd, Jesus mentions that “there are sheep who are not part of this flock” (John 10:16) but in the end there will only be one flock. I have been reflecting on these two passages in John’s gospel together, wondering how they might inform each other. I wonder if, as a church we are a cluster, a bunch of grapes, if you will. We are living on the vine, integrated into the life of God through Christ. But there are other bunches on this vine, different churches, distinct yet connected to God as we are. One Vine, many bunches, or as Jesus would later pray that his followers would be one even as Jesus and the Father were one (John 17:21-23): many bunches yet one vine. I wonder if this is the logic of God’s vine, and our part in it? I wonder if we see all Christian churches, whoever they might be, as equally connected both to God and to us?
It strikes me that in this season of declining Christian churches in the “Christian West” we might do well to see ourselves as interconnected, not just to other Covenant churches, but to all Christian churches. As Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35) I wonder if the isolation of, if not divisiveness between, churches in our country is lessening our witness to the world? We are not on our own distinct vine, but instead we are part of God’s larger universal (or catholic) church.
In these fractious days let us pray for wisdom might we consider how we might display signs of harmony and unity with our sister churches of all kinds. Might we be a witness to the unifying love of the Spirit of God, which contrasts the sometimes rancorous spirit of this conflicted age; a witness to the logic of Christ’s Church.
With confidence in Christ,
~ Pastor Todd
P.S. I have accepted an invitation to tag-team with Dr. Robyn Wrigley-Carr at the upcoming event at Saint Mark’s Cathedral, next Tuesday, focusing on the thoughts and prayers of Evelyn Underhill and their relevance to us today. Information about this event is below. Let me know if you have any questions.