“Abiding in Love”

May 6, 2012
John 15:1-8

Last week, I felt blessed by the message Larry shared with us here. The image of the good shepherd revealed a close and caring relationship between God and Jesus, and between Jesus and us. We understood better, I think, what John was talking about, and what the psalmist meant when he said, "The Lord is my shepherd." We’ve all seen paintings of Jesus with a little lamb over his shoulders and the flock grazing peacefully around him or of Jesus tenderly holding a small lamb – like that given to the children this morning. This image of the ‘good shepherd’ is reassuring and comforting whenever a person feels lost or alone.

But in this week's reading, Jesus uses another image—that of a vine and its branches, to help us to claim this close relationship with him. It is one of the great "I am" passages from the John. "I am the vine," says Jesus, "and you are the branches." In this we see Jesus as the vine connecting his disciples—the branches, and as the source of their nourishment, the source of their love, bringing life-giving water and nutrients to them. His disciples were familiar with this metaphor. They knew grape vines have tangled branches, winding their way around one another in intricate patterns of tight curls making it impossible to tell where one branch starts or another one ends. Not only intricate; it's relationship is intimate, with the vine sharing with its branches the nutrients that sustain it. Even closer than the shepherd to the sheep, this vine is One with its branches.

His disciples have been with him a long time; they have depended on his teaching and his direction. Knowing he will leave soon, Jesus wants them to be able to go on without him. He wants them to stay in fellowship with one other and to abide in his teaching and example. Thus he urges them to remain one—in him and with him. Some have suggested this is to be the key to discipleship—that we be one with Christ, and close to the vine.

John isn't interested in "distinctions in appearance, character, or gifts" as was the apostle Paul, who used the differences among the members of the body to define "what it means to be a body." Instead of stressing our individual roles as parts of the body, John stresses the need to be close to Christ—to abide in him—by loving God and one another as Jesus loved. For John, the mark of the faithful community is how it loves, not who its members are.

The word, "love," is found throughout John's writings. Love is at the heart of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. Love is the measure of faithfulness. It feels like a state of being—thus we are to ‘abide’ in love. This is central to the passage and to Jesus’ teaching to, "Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you" (The Message). Just as we need the air to breathe, we need food and nourishment to live. We need community, a safe place to be; a home. It’s no different today than when Jesus told his disciples, "I am the true vine...”

Jesus’ teaching impacts us both as individuals and as a community of believers.

As individuals, we each have a personal relationship with Jesus, the vine. Remaining close to the vine—where the nutrients are the most concentrated—we bear the best fruit. Abiding in Christ sustains us and allows us to know God’s peace. Abiding in him we are whole, complete, and healthy. Close to the vine is a peaceful place, no matter what we face. Close to the vine, regardless of what we pray for, our will becomes aligned with God's own will. There, close to the vine, we become ‘one with God’—and that is true heaven.

For the church, the image of the vine and its branches is significant because of its "corporate" nature, its focus on community, and the centrality of "the indwelling Christ" to its ministries. In such an image, it’s hard for those looking for new life not to see connectedness and vitality. From this, we see that our bearing fruit as a church comes from the "growth, usefulness, and nourishment" of the whole. The challenge is to be a community ‘living in Christ’ together, accountable to one another, rather than being individuals that stand out from, and rise up over, one another.

Do we see our life in the church as helping our ‘abiding’ in Christ? Are we being nourished? And do we feel connected—like branches to a vine—to the love of Jesus Christ because of it? Are we bearing fruit?

Sarah Henrich says, “Bearing fruit reveals disciples rather than creating them.” In other words, being fruitful doesn’t make us disciples, rather our ‘abiding in Christ’—our growth, our vitality, our love—allows us to be fruitful. If that is true, and I think it is, our fruitfulness has resulted from our growth and vitality as a church family, which must be continued. The question then is, ‘Do we find ourselves connected to one another here, abiding in Christ.

If not to one another in this church, then to what do we feel connected—our colleagues at work, our classmates, our neighborhood, our Facebook friends? One of the challenges of life today is that we may be more connected than ever, yet feel even more isolated. We can be connected to more sources of information and entertainment, even to each other via email and social media, yet can be starved for actual experiences of being in real relationship.

Jesus offers his disciples more than just being connected; he offers actual relationship—real community—to nourish life. Part of what Jesus is saying is that by being connected to him we are connected to each other. He invites us to be honest, to be real, and having confessed our hopes and fears, our dreams and disappointments, our accomplishments and failures, our blessing and our sin, to know what we are accepted, loved, and forgiven. Jesus reveals, after all, the God who loves the whole world enough to send the Son.

In John's Gospel, Jesus warns his followers not to "go it alone, trusting in their own strength. On their own they would be cut off from their life source. They would bear no fruit." This is good news message for today. It's not up to us. Staying close to Jesus, abiding in him, we have a source for all the love, grace and strength we need in life. Close to ‘the vine’—and because of its life force—we become a fruitful community of love.

Because of God's acceptance of us, we can try to accept each other, imperfections and all. We can be a community where we admit who we are and allow others to do the same. We can be places where the hurts and hardships of life undergo pruning for future growth. We can be a community of love—close to the vine—abiding in Jesus Christ.