Speaker 1: Welcome to the commons cast. We're glad to have you here. We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to comm
Speaker 2: If you have been tracking with this, you know that we are spending some time in what the gospel writer frames as Jesus' last instructions. Scholars refer to these chapters as the farewell discourses, because they are seen as Jesus' final thoughts and they're offered to his friends before he is betrayed, before he'll be accused, and ultimately executed. And just like John's gospel, our journey toward Easter can't skip over the injustice that's at the heart of Jesus' story. We can't overlook the wrenching emotional cost that his death must have exacted on his closest friends. Just like we can't glibly flip the pages of Jesus' earnest final directives.
No. It's important to stop here because these words deserve our attention. Last week, we finished up a discussion of John 14, and Jesus' attempts to clear up his disciples' confusion, they are asking all these questions. And time and time again, Jesus reminds them that, yes, things are gonna get dark. I think we should assume that his friends could almost feel it in the room.
Then Jesus reminds them that, yes, in seeing him, they had seen, they had broken bread with, they had journeyed with, they'd encountered the fullness of the divine. And in all of these words, Jesus seems to be inviting his audience, both ancient and modern sitting here today to trust God's character, to trust. And this is where Jeremy ended up last week, to trust that in the simplest of choices to follow Jesus' teaching and to model our lives in whatever way we can on his example, that there in the rough uneven fabric of our lives, God comes and God makes God's home with us in our simple faith, our faint and our wavering trust that becomes the way that God appears in the world. Today, we're gonna move on into chapter 15. But before we do that, why don't we just pause for a moment, center ourselves, pray with me now.
God of all, of all we know, God of the mundane rhythms of our lives and the intricate patterns of our stories, the sorrow or maybe even the anxiety that we carry in our bodies today. You are also God of all we do not know. God of the limits of this expanding universe and of the trajectory of days to come. God of the version of ourselves that we have yet to find and discover. And so we settle here in these moments now.
We ask that you would be our guide into the words of Jesus, that our hearts and minds would be open ever so slightly to your goodness. We ask this in the name of Christ our hope. Amen. So right where we left off last week, the end of John chapter 14, we find this phrase where Jesus has been talking for quite a few minutes and then he says, come now, let us leave. And what's curious is that there isn't a reference here to the disciples getting up.
No one seems to move from around the table where they're eating the Passover feast. It's actually gonna be another three chapters before we read that Jesus stands and heads out across the Kidron Valley to the Garden Of Gethsemane where his story will continue to unfold, which makes this phrase come, let's leave now a really mysterious inclusion. One of the things that I love about it is that it's a reminder that all of the profound theological statements that Jesus always or ever makes, they're constructed from his or his friends' memories. They're there in the flow of a conversation between bites of food and between someone saying, could you please pass the wine? All of it marked by the cadences of friendship.
Mean, I know I'm not the only one that has stood up and said, I really have to go, and then stood at the door and talked for another thirty minutes. Right? And I think that this kind of normal human encounter, it's a great backdrop on which to work out just what it is that Jesus is getting at. We're gonna jump in here. We're gonna talk about vines, green thumbs, and glory revealed.
And I wanna read you a few verses. There's a lot of repetition in the chapter, but let's stay together. Jesus said to his friends in this moment, he said, I am the true vine, and my father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. So remain in me.
I as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself. It must remain in the vine, neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine, and you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit.
Because apart from me, you can do nothing. If you don't remain in me, you're like a branch that's thrown away and withers, and such branches are picked up and they're thrown to the fire and burned. This, all of it, is to my father's glory that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. Okay. So some repetition there, a bit of lengthy passage, but it's also probably a familiar one to some of us, maybe even a famous statement of Jesus.
Because if you've been around the church in your life and in your history, you may have heard this text discussed before. But more than for us, it's also important to note that this metaphor that Jesus is using of a vine, this would have been very familiar to his Jewish friends. See, there are lots of uses of this kind of metaphor throughout the Hebrew scriptures. For example, we read in places like Psalm 80 where it speaks there of how God transplanted a vine out of Egypt, cleared ground for it in a new place and how it took root and filled the land. And we read a little later on in Isaiah chapter five.
There we see God framed as a gardener, as the keeper of a vineyard, how God labors over this vineyard and clears it of rocks and plants the choicest of vines there, only to see this vine yield bad fruit. Then we have another example in the prophet Ezekiel. Prophet there speaks of a transplanted little seedling. It's placed in good soil with abundant water, becomes a splendid vine, but then how that vine withers becomes useless. And there are lots of references like these.
All of these uses of vines and vineyards is allegory and metaphor for the nation of Israel's history. References to its deep connection to God's providence, God's benevolent intervention in their delivery from slavery in Egypt. Yes. But it's also there rooted in the story of an emerging nation, a flourishing vine, and then how it withers over time because it rejects divine law and the blessing of that law. So much of the story there is marked by this deep sense of loss.
Now in addition to the fact that this metaphor would have been familiar to the disciples because they read their bibles, we also have historical texts that describe the exterior of Herod's temple during the time of Jesus and his disciples, how the temple was overlaid with gold and that as part of its facade, there was this golden vine that stood over the entrance to the sanctuary. Actually, may have wrapped around the pillars, and what people could do is they could bring a gold leaf or a gold grape cluster as a donation, and they could attach these as a free will offering to this vine. The disciples would likely have been familiar with this ornate installation. We also know that the Maccabean Jewish rebels, about a hundred and sixty years before Jesus is alive, they emblazoned their coins with the victorious symbol of a vine and clustered grapes. And we know that participants in the Bar Kokhba revolt about a hundred years after Jesus' life, in the revolt against Rome, they would do the same with their money.
So when Jesus tells his friends, listen, I am the true vine, he's tapping into more than metaphor here. The word translated in English as true there, it's just the Greek adjective aletheia. It refers to the veracity or the genuine nature of a thing. And what Jesus seems to be saying is, look, you know this metaphor. You know how we use it in our scripture and in our ritual to represent all that our nation was meant to be.
And you know how we put it on our money as an emblem of how violence will bring identity and freedom and prosperity from our enemies. You know these things. You know those vines, but you also know me. You've seen the way I live. You've had years over tables to test the veracity of my claims, and you have heard me say that to look at me is to see a divine path through the world.
I am the genuine source for the life that you seek, and I am not going to lead you astray. Now, the thing about metaphors is that they lend themselves to a myriad of interpretive options. And this is what makes them fun. Right? But it's also what can leave us so baffled and confused by them at times.
And I think this happens sometimes here with this one. See, many scholars believe that it's essential to read this text that I just read to you in light of how Judas, Jesus' friend and disciple, how Judas has just recently left the room. Judas has defected, and how maybe Jesus can sense that Judas is actually out there in the night now conspiring with his enemies. And we are gonna see that, in fact, that is true, which can offer some explanation for maybe why Jesus sounds so urgent here. How in this metaphor, he identifies that there are some who are not going to stay with him.
How some will not choose to follow him. How some will not remain. How these deserters are then represented as branches that are removed and cast aside. Now listen. I I actually really appreciate this human perspective on Jesus' experience.
I can even see how the loss of his friend may have caused him to react and want to hold on to some others. This isn't the whole picture. Right? And, alternatively, there are some commentators that feel this urgency in Jesus' imagery is actually a product of John's gospel being written a little later than the other gospels. John was likely composed and consolidated decades after Jesus' resurrection and decades into his followers waiting for him to come back.
Were there hope for an end to injustice and a new beginning, it may have been ramping up to a fever pitch, and this is why maybe they remembered Jesus' teaching with this eschatological sort of stay true or you're going to burn kind of intensity. Right? And I get this too, but I'm not convinced this is why Jesus is using this metaphor here. There are some other interpretations of it. This image of a vine that are intriguing, and they generally involve connecting the metaphor to Jesus' teaching in the following verses where he famously tells his friends, love each other.
And we're gonna come to that in a second. Because I find the work of feminist scholar Gail O'Day super helpful here. She claims that Jesus' use of this metaphor is meant to help his friends and those who would follow them as the first Christians, help them understand that they would flourish, quote, only in so far as they recognize themselves as members of an organic unit, end quote. O'Day also contends that at the heart of Jesus' metaphor is this radical, non hierarchical vision of what the Christian community is supposed to look like, how we are all made one and equal in Christ. Christ is the vine we're all attached.
And this is a provoking image. It's one that the church can always get better at mirroring. It's an image in which we see that all of us are equally in need of divine life. All of us are firmly planted and held and cared for by the hands of a divine gardener. And I find this organic imagination compelling.
And maybe it's because of my very limited horticultural experience. I'm gonna tell you about it. See, when we lived in Ontario, I planted these flowering vines in our yard, and I had to labor for years to keep those sickly tender shoots alive through the winter. Now, the past few summers, my wife has planted vegetables in these garden boxes that we have in our backyard. And quick note, she regularly asks if I have watered her plants even though I'm the one that's up before it gets hot to water them in the morning, and I'm out there again after dusk making sure that they each have what they need.
And what I'm trying to say is that we're a good team. K? She's here in the room, so I'm making sure everybody knows what I'm saying. There have been a couple of times when the two of us have laughing and shrieking, we've run out of the house into pounding hail to hold a tarp over the tendrils and the leafy greens that need protection only to find with a kind of sadness that we didn't save them all. And we sit there in the aftermath and we carefully caress those little stalks and hope that they'll return to health.
And, of course, like all good gardeners, we know about deadheading. We practice it faithfully where you pluck the fading and dying blossoms from plants to spark beauty and new growth, which can seem so mysterious until we realize that plants aren't so different from us and that they do better when they aren't encumbered by things that suck the life from them and yield no fruitfulness for them. And this is why I find the organic basis of Jesus's reference so interesting. And to be clear, it's also why I don't think that Jesus's point here is that when bad things happen in our lives, we should assume that we've been cut off. His point isn't that we should interpret adversity in our lives as a sign that we are no longer connected to the vine of God's mercy Or that if we aren't doing the most or giving the most or sacrificing the most, read bearing fruit, that we run the risk of being thrown into the kindling pile beside God's great garden cleansing fire.
No. That's not what this passage is about. It certainly isn't also explaining all the ways that spirit works in us and around us and through the complexity of our world to plant and to protect and to prune us. It can't do all that because it's a metaphor. But what I think we miss if we aren't careful is the foundational assertion that Jesus is making when he uses it here.
It's so easy to only hear the warning when I think that Jesus' intention was to convince his friends and to convince you and to convince me that if we follow his example and his teaching, if we somehow kind of graft our life into the sustaining source that he offers, that we are kept by a good gardener, to convince you that you are held by the green thumb of grace. Because if I, with my limited skill, can be so invested in the smallest of shoots in my garden, healthy or sick, scrawny or fruitful. It seems that maybe Jesus is using this metaphor for God to name the force that is ever and always working to save and secure and cultivate and faithfully bring you to life. Okay. Let's look at a few more verses here before we go.
Because Jesus continues by saying this. He says, as the father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you remain in my love, just as I have kept my father's commands and remain in his. I've told you all of this so that my joy can be in you and that your joy can be complete.
My command is this, love each other as I have loved you. And here we come to the heart of this passage, to one of Jesus' most repeated instructions. We actually saw a version of it earlier in John 13 where Jesus tells his disciples to love each other and that this love will be the evidence of how people are his followers in the world. And here in chapter 15, Jesus repeats this instruction but also expands the theological basis for it. It's not a simple, please get along with each other while I'm gone.
That's what I say to my kids when I'm going out of the house. There's four there's far more depth here. For one, when Jesus tells his friends that he's loved them like the father has loved him and to remain in that kind of love, this is a huge expansive statement. And to explain how big it is, I need you to remember back a couple weeks ago when we worked through this phrase in chapter 14 where Jesus says that his father's house has many rooms, has so much room, and that he's going there to prepare a place. Well, here in chapter 15, the word translated in English as remain, the Greek verb, meno, if you're interested, it derives from the same root of that description Jesus gives of many rooms.
Simply means to remain or to tarry or to linger, which implies that Jesus is saying something like, when you keep my commands, when you follow my example, you find an expansive open place to stay, to remain, to linger. This has happened to me, he seems to be saying. I've followed my father's guidance and instructions. I've loved you guys. And in doing so, I have found the wide expanse of divine love my whole life.
And as Jesus uses the word remain, there's a couple things that come into focus, think. First, he's making it clear that his commands are binding and definitive for anyone who want to claim his name or follow his example. It's not really negotiable. But then, second, it also brings into sharp relief that his commands are completely encapsulated by his instruction to love one another. And this recognition is what led Saint Augustine to write in the fourth century saying, let us therefore hold fast to this precept of the Lord to love one another for then we will be doing all else that is commanded, which summarizes how Jesus' language is both profoundly demanding and profoundly freeing at the same time.
I mean, I'm assuming you're like me, not you know what it means to fail, to fail hard in loving others. It can feel so daunting to care for someone who's ungrateful and to serve someone whose experience is so different from your own or to push for mutuality even when all you want to do is retreat into self preservation. And you know what? I'm I'm assuming that Jesus saw this same propensity in his closest friends, and that's why he kept gently repeating this instruction. It's why he said, if you want to be my disciples, you must love fiercely, but also weakly.
You must love with profound mutuality, but also you're gonna have to do it haltingly sometimes. And also, know this Jesus said, if you do love at all, you will find that life opens and expands beyond your imagination, which makes this passage a kind of spine for the book of glory that we are reading together. Because it will become more and more apparent in the following verses that Jesus knew what love was going to cost him. We're gonna see him working this out, and ultimately, he we'll see that he's willing to lay down his life for his friends as an extension of his example to us. And as we journey toward Easter with this image in our minds, perhaps we're gonna need to come back to this passage I read to you earlier, where Jesus says, this is my father's glory that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
This verse where Jesus returns to the metaphor of vine and fruit to tie it all together, saying in effect, when you love each other, you bear fruit. It's the kind of fruit that grows in those who are connected to me. It shows that you're my friends, and this this is the glory of God. Which is why today, I must ask you before you leave, when is the last time you stopped and stood in awe of glory? The glory of God in your lover's face.
The glory of God in your friends' persistence and their goofy timely texts to you. The glory of God in your dog's wagging tail. The glory of God in that new friendship that you didn't know was coming for you and its tenderness and its awkwardness, but the fact that it's mutual. The glory of God in your respect for someone's story, in your acceptance of their criticism, and then your attempt to be better. The glory of God profoundly there in your quiet response and request for forgiveness and in your measured granting of it to someone who hurts you.
The glory of God in bear hugs and unseen favors and lending hands offered. The glory of God that comes and finds and plants and bears its fruit in you. So take a second and take it in today. Let's pray together. God, we are caught by this metaphor today, caught by the ways that it helps us see our life perhaps.
We can see the contours and places of our growth. We can see the places in us that feel dry and brittle. Perhaps too, we can also see you tending and fertilizing and pruning and helping us to grow. And we know that we don't always remain. We don't always wanna linger in those times, in those places where to grow is to feel and to pass through pain and to be honest with ourselves and to be honest with others and to be honest with you.
So we pray, would you come and give us courage to trust your greening way in us. Come and give us grace to love and let you love us with care and with intention and with simplicity that spreads your glory and beauty and fruitfulness throughout your world. We ask this in the name of Christ, our true hope. Amen.