Scripture for Sunday: John 15:1-8       

I am the vine, and you are the are the branches. Abide in me, and I will abide in you.

These words speak to the human desire to be a part of a meaningful community. We want to belong somewhere and matter to the people around us. You might find satisfaction in belonging to Rotary International for their humanitarian work or a church choir. When the Stellar Sea Eagle came to our shores, we got a close-up view of bird watchers. We watched their rituals of imitating the bird calls they knew and comparing telephoto lenses. Remember the sitcom about the Boston bar named "Cheers." The song refrain said, "Sometimes you want to be where everyone knows your name." Belonging somewhere matters, whether you are a veteran, a congregationalist, or a polar plunger taking a winter dip in the ocean. 

Jesus offers this rich metaphor of belonging in faith. We are like all the branches that make up a grapevine. Being a part of the vine connects us to the earth's vitality, water, and soil nutrients. A vine grounds us in place and holds steady in a storm. Together, we open our leaves, soak in the sun, and produce chlorophyll for the energy of the whole. We store the abundant energy in grapes that produce fruit for food and the sparkling delight of champagne or a rich Multipuciano wine.  Alone, you are just a few leaves that can't survive in solitary confinement, but together, we are part of creation's abundant, generative power. 

This scripture comes at an intense crisis point in the Gospel story. It is the last thing Jesus says in the upper room at the Last Supper. In John's Gospel, Jesus washes the disciples' feet to emphasize service to others. Then, he reveals that one of the disciples will betray him. They will all fall away, and Peter will deny him three times. Jesus understands the pressure bearing down on their tight community. Then Judas leaves. Imagine being in the room, feeling the tightness in your stomach, the place where you feel fear that you will be cut off and alone. 

Then Jesus speaks his assurance that this small band will survive his betrayal and death. "I am the vine, and you are the branches. Abide in me, and I will abide in you." Jesus uses the word "abide" seven times. In Hebrew culture, seven is God's number for completing the divine action. Creation is seven days. At death, we mourn for seven days. Peter asks if he should forgive up to seven times, and Jesus says 70 times seven. Everything in The Revelation happens in sevens. Abide in me, Jesus says, and I will abide in you, as complete as the seven days of creation. John uses the Greek root word meno, which means stay in place, endure, and hang on. The Message Bible translates this: "Make your home in me, and I will make a home in you." 

By remaining in the vine of the Jesus movement, the disciples not only survive but thrive and bear much fruit. We aren't Christians only to abide and be taken care of so we can sit around eating grapes and drinking wine. We bear fruit. Jesus speaks of bearing fruit six times here in eight verses. Leaves aren't on the vine to get a tan; they are energy producers and storage units that give life. Without green plants of all kinds turning sunlight into energy, human life as we know it would not exist on land. The Apostle Paul draws on this metaphor in Galatians, spelling out the fruit of the Christian community;

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness, and self-control. (Gal. 5:22-23)

The hardest part of the text for me is the pruning. Just as I was getting comfortable being a part of the vine, abiding in God, and even bearing excellent fruit, then pruning made me cringe. A mark of a successful gardener is pruning appropriately. My neighbor's garden produced much larger, brighter tomatoes. I asked what she did with fertilizer and what kind of tomatoes she grew. She said I needed to prune all the suckers. Any little branch not supporting a flower or growing tomato must go. This advice sounded judgmental. Doesn't every branch produce energy for the whole plant, and the more the merrier? No, if the branch bears no fruit, it is a sucker. All the energy of my tomatoes would create big, bushy green branches but smaller fruit. 

It was challenging for me to cut off living, green branches. It made me a little sad to see its work be in vain. I had the same problem with beets and radishes. The directions on the package advise you to plant many tiny seeds and thin them 4-5 inches apart after they appear. I love seeing the little green shoots of radishes spring up so quickly. I wanted them all to have a chance, but then I harvested small radishes and beets stuck together. I learned to prune, and my garden was more fruitful, but still not like my neighbor down the street. Lora had the best tomatoes in the community garden. They were as big as softballs and still delicious. Her vines were stripped so naked of green foliage that they looked indecent and vulnerable. But the fruit was enormous.

So, I learned to prune my fruits and vegetables to be more productive. But I realized that my pruning issues were not just about gardening. Being unable to trim back my to-do list and goals was a chronic problem that limited my accomplishments. Ten years ago, my calendar was packed. I was on three city boards related to housing and homelessness, deeply involved with the UCC Massachusetts Conference, a General Synod delegate, coaching clients, and a full-time pastor. I didn't say "No" to new opportunities because they were all good. Each thing was an opportunity to make a difference. 

However, I noticed that I had made little progress on things I truly wanted. I wrote my sermons fast and sloppy and never got around to writing projects I had in mind. My spiritual life was an afterthought. A good friend said, "Todd, you do many things well in ministry, but you don't seem to have joy in them. Where is your joy?" I thought, "Is that even possible?" I thought the nature of being a pastor was to hold together the impossible and strive to be all things to all people, as Paul said in I Corinthians 9:23. If I put my life on a graph, it looked like the figure on the left:

From “The Disciplined Pursuit of Less” by Greg McKeown

I expended energy in multiple directions, making a millimeter of progress in a million directions. I discovered that if I pruned my tasks, I could go further in what was truly important with the same amount of energy (see figure on the right!) 

A significant part of the change during COVID was a forced pruning of my busy vineyard, and I realized many things didn't matter. I spent more time in the garden, taking walks, and my spiritual life flourished. As things started to re-open, the old normal felt abnormal. I discovered less is more. When we moved to Maine, I decided I would only serve on two boards, the Community Resource Council and the Maine UCC Personal Committee. These two fit my values and interests, and I have more time to work on sermons and my spiritual life, where I get joy and satisfaction.

But to live differently, I had to learn a powerful word. No! We discover "no" at age two and use it for everything. Saying no is a natural development for defining a self and setting boundaries with the world. As opportunities expand later in life, we forget and start saying "yes" too often. I worried about missed opportunities and what other people expect of me, and my life was filled with busy things, leaving too little room for what made me fully alive. I started saying "no" and expected significant pushback. But most people accepted the change. I could bear it when someone was upset because I got my life back. 

If this is a struggle for you, a great book suggestion is "Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less" by Greg McKeown. He taught me to know what is essential to do and then protect my time and energy, letting go of the rest. 

Here are Jesus' words again in this light:

He prunes every branch that bears fruit so that it will be even more fruitful.

At the biggest crisis of the Gospels, Jesus says, "I am the vine, and you are the branches. Abide in me, and I will abide in you. We can't abide in God, and God can't abide in us unless there is room in our lives. If you want a deeper faith, reflect this week on what might need pruning to free more energy. Bearing good spiritual fruit needs energy to grow. I know how hard it is to snip off all the little energy suckers, but it leads to a deeper connection with the ground of our being. Prune. Abide. Thrive!

Thanks for reading and being a subscriber. I always appreciate reading what occurs to you while reading in the comments. This week, is there one thing you will prune for the sake of what you really need?



Next Sunday I will be reflecting on John 15:9-17, where Jesus says, “I call you friends.” I always considered “What a friend we have in Jesus” a little too cozy, but reading Diana Butler Bass made me reconsider.