In his book, Candles in the Dark, a book that I’ve shared from frequently during this Easter season, Rowan Williams writes about life in the church as people working and moving together in “glad responsiveness to one another…an attentiveness…love and intelligence enhanced by the common life, the gift of the Spirit in the body of Christ, a community where we become more human, more ourselves, in this deep shared understanding and responsiveness.”
Jesus is getting at this same idea of glad responsiveness to one another, this working and moving together, when he speaks of himself as the vine and us as the branches.
The branches of a vine are hard to tell apart from one another, or from the vine itself. The branches of the vine entwine, and circle around one another, supporting one another and sharing the nutrients from the vine itself.
Jesus used this image of the vine and the branches to describe the community of the church. As the church we are to bear the fruit of God’s love. God’s love is the ground of our being, and when we grow out of the vine that is Jesus, God’s love flows through each one of us and we bear the fruits of love together, each of us a glad and responsive part of the vine.
So as we love God, and then love one another, we bear the fruit of love that feeds the people out in the world, and “they will know we are Christians by our love.”
Jesus is not thinking about their individual gifts and talents when he talks to the disciples about the vine and the branches. He has just washed their feet, and he is trying to help them understand the sort of love that he wants them to have for him and for one another after he is gone.
He reminds the disciples that their individual gifts and talents are not the reason that they are the branches of the vine, that they did not earn their way into Jesus’ presence.
Jesus says to them—“you did not choose me, but I chose you.”
A shiver of delight and amazement should run up our spines at these words. God’s grace, and God’s grace alone, has brought each one of us here today. God’s grace has filled us with the desire to grow as branches on the vine of love that is Jesus, and to bear fruit together.
Have you ever been grape picking?
When I was a little girl, my grandfather had a huge sheltering scuppernong vine out the back door. It sprawled between the chicken coop and his big gray weathered barn.
We’d go stand under the gigantic mother vines that had entwined and encircled one another, and had formed a lush green ceiling above us, which even in the heat of the late summer provided a cool shade.
We’d reach up into the branches that dangled enticingly down, heavy with big, brown succulent grapes. The ripest grapes would practically drop into our hands, and we’d gorge ourselves on the pale green pulpy fruit hidden within the golden brown skins that exploded with sweet juice when we bit into them.
We never even thought about the individual branches and each of their attributes. That ecstatically growing and fruitful vine, with all of its branches and fruit, was one glorious entity. To go into the green shady world under that vine was to enter a magical, rich delicious place of sustenance and joy.
I hope that people who come through these church doors find themselves so sheltered, drawn in because all of us have been entwined and encircled around the vine that is Jesus into a great shelter of love.
I hope that the people who come into the shelter of our branches will find rich sustenance, and deep joy. And they will, if we are bearing the fruits of love because we are the branches of the vine that is Jesus, growing out of the ground of God’s love.
That’s the amazing and shivery part! Jesus has chosen us to be the branches that bear this sustaining and joy filled fruit of God’s love, and God will make sure that we stay rooted in our vine Jesus AND will give us the strength and the courage and the nourishment we need to bear the fruits of love.
God’s presence in our lives, helping us to bear good fruit, is a great source of joy, and joy is also a theme that runs through today’s lectionary passages.
When Peter is speaking to Cornelius and those who have gathered with him to hear what Peter has to say, the Holy Spirit appears and falls upon them, and they begin speaking in tongues and extolling God. The very first fruit of love that these Gentiles bear is joy over God’s presence with them and in them!
And as a result, Peter is filled with joy and love, acceptance and generosity and he fully endorses their inclusion in the vine by saying that these Gentiles should be baptized. True joy brings about generosity as well. As Mark Twain says, “To get the true value of joy, you have to have someone to divide it with.”
Psalm 98 is full of joy at God’s presence. Not only do people celebrate and rejoice because of God’s mighty acts, but so does all of creation. The sea and all that is in it, the lands and all that dwell therein resound with noisy praise, the rivers clap their hands, and the hills ring out with joy when the Lord comes.
All of creation joining in joyful celebration brings the hearer such joy! The joy of hearing the waves crashing onto the beach, hearing the birds singing at dawn, hearing the leaves brushing against one another in the wind—such joy!
Today is Rogation Sunday, the Sunday we ask God to bless the earth, the soil, and to bless the harvest to come. Asking God to bless the earth, the soil and the harvest serves the purpose of reminding us that creation too is a branch that entwines and encircles the vine that is Jesus, so we can relate to this earth with glad responsiveness and attentiveness because we are at one with creation as well as with one another. We can relate to creation with the shared understanding and intelligence that frees us all, including the earth, to bear fruit. The Psalmist already knew about our oneness with creation, and knew that our awareness of this oneness leads to joining with creation in our praise to God. All of us, all of the branches of the vine, we people along with the creatures and the plants, sway and shout with joy in praise of our creator and sustainer.
So today, we Christians are full of joy that our Lord, the vine, is here to sustain us, the branches, as we await the day of his coming again. And as we wait for that glorious day, may we continue to bear the fruits of God’s love, so that God’s joy may be in us and that our joy may be complete.
Resource: Williams, Rowan. Candles in the Dark: Faith, hope and love in a time of pandemic. London: SPCK. 2020.