Author Debie Thomas considers how the biblical metaphor of a vine and branches invites us to come to terms with our interconnectedness:
I can’t imagine a more counter-cultural and challenging vision of the Christian life than the one Jesus offers in this Gospel. “I am the vine, and you are the branches,” he tells his disciples. “Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me, you can do nothing” [John 15:4–5]. If those words aren’t blunt enough, he continues: “Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned” (v. 6). Burned? Gulp….
We are meant to be tangled up together. We are meant to live lives of profound interdependence, growing into, around, and out of each other. We cause pain and loss when we hold ourselves apart, because the fate of each individual branch affects the vine as a whole. In this metaphor, dependence is not a matter of personal morality or preference; it’s a matter of life and death.…
If God is the vine grower, Jesus is the vine, and we are the branches, what should we do? We have only one task: to abide. To tarry, to stay, to cling, to remain, to depend, to rely, to persevere, to commit. To hang in there for the long haul. To make ourselves at home.
But “abide” is a tricky word. Passive on the one hand, and active on the other. To abide is to stay rooted in place. But it is also to grow and change. It’s a vulnerable-making verb: if we abide, we’ll get pruned. It’s a risky verb: if we abide, we’ll bear fruit that others will see and taste. It’s a humbling verb: if we abide, we’ll have to accept nourishment that is not of our own making. It’s a communal verb; if we abide, we will have to coexist with our fellow branches.
Thomas emphasizes the reality of our shared life, even when messy and difficult:
I can’t imagine that there was ever a time when Jesus’s followers found the metaphor of the vine easy to apply in daily life. But it’s especially challenging to do so now. We live in bitterly divided times. We have good reasons to be cautious and self-protective, even within the church. It’s hard in our self-promoting culture to confess that we are lost and lifeless on our own. That our glory lies in surrender, not self-sufficiency….
If only we would consent to see reality as it truly is. “I am the vine,” Jesus tells his disciples. “You are the branches.” It’s a done deal. Whether we like it or not, our lives are bound up in God’s and in each other’s. The only true life we will live in this world is the life we consent to live in relationship, messy and entangled though it might be. The only fruit worth sharing with the world is the fruit we’ll produce together.
Reference:
Debie Thomas, Into the Mess and Other Jesus Stories: Reflections on the Life of Christ (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2022), 144–146.
Image credit and inspiration: Georg Arthur Pflueger, Untitled (detail), 2022, photo, Germany, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. We are individual pieces in an intricately interconnected weave of reality; together we make a whole.
Story from Our Community:
I love chanting the litany of the saints. While chanting, I feel connected to all the holy women and men who gave their lives in diverse ways for the love of God. It fortifies me to love my enemies as myself and to stand up for justice and peace. I’m so grateful to my many spiritual teachers.
—Claire M.
