Abiding in the Vine

When I was a little boy I used to spend a lot of time at my maternal grandparents. They had a modest, well kept bungalow in “uptown” Kelowna, better known perhaps as Rutland. My grandparents shared a passion for the care of their yard. The lawn was as thick and as tightly woven as any carpet. My grandfather would mow it in one direct one time and then two weeks later would mow it in the opposite direction the next time. My grandmother had a beautiful rose garden out front and a vegetable garden in back. There were all kinds of flowers and plants in the back yard which required a lot of tender, loving care throughout the growing season.

At the very back of the yard there was an apple tree. I thought the tree marvelous because it grew more than just one kind of apple. In fact it could grow four different kinds of apples. My grandparent would hire an arbourist who over several years built a relationship with the apple tree. I can remember in early spring when the tree was pruned, it would be the ugliest looking thing I had ever seen. But as time passed from spring into the summer, from the ugly barrenness of the pruning phenomenal growth occurred, and the tree would change. Blossoms into buds and buds into fruit. By the end of July the Tree would be so loaded with apples that my grandfather would have to prop up the limbs of the tree so that they would not break off because of the weight of the fruit.

I can also remember one year when my grandparents had someone else come in had prune the tree. The results were less then satisfactory and the tree did not yield the kind of fruit that it normally did. And the next Spring, the regular arbourist was back and there were apples galore!

So how does this matter to the Church? Well first we need to remember who God is and then see what God is doing. The Church needs to learn to abide in God – not just the individual Christians. It is easy to make this all about each person and how God works in each person’s life, though this is important in the growth and life of the Church. John’s recount of life at the table with Jesus reminds us that this is not just about individuals, this is about the community. And the people that are being removed are people who have been unproductive in their faith and practice of that faith. We have been chose and appointed not just to be fruitful. We have been appointed to bear much lasting fruit. In other words there are things that God has called us to do and there are things that God wants to accomplish in us. We cannot stand in the church parking lot or on the sidewalk and claim to love God and be good people if we then turn and mistreat and disregard the people around us. We can also never know the full extent of the height, the depth, and the breadth of God’s love for us. So that same love calls and challenges us to keep love those we find around us because of the circumstances that we find them in.

We are called by God to be the living sacrifice he wants to me in recreating the world into the new creation that will someday manifest itself. We are to live out the dyings and risings of Christ. This is how God “prunes” us a makes us ready to bear the fruit of the spiritual life and to live the life of his Son in this moment. In this way we are slowly becoming the people and the Church that God created us to be in the first place. And if we are becoming the people and the community God intends then this has a benefit of being there for the rest of the world that they too might be drawn in and begin to live the abundant life that God offers. Being in Christ the vine is hard work. It is hard work to stay with him and harder still to be pruned by the Father, but then though such things we are empowered to be the followers and leaders that we are meant to be. We living out the promises that God has made to humanity. This is the life that we are all called to in the Church that others might find abundant life and eternity with us and with God.