“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man
remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do
nothing. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish,
and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much
fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples (John 15:5-8)
When I got home this
spring, one of the things waiting for me was a yard full of branches that had fallen
out of our birch tree. I collected the biggest ones and threw them in the
garbage. I also filled a garbage can with pine needles and pine cones that
formed small drifts on the driveway. They aren't the grape vine branches that
Jesus was talking about, but they served the same function. Since they aren't
attached to the birch tree any more the most they could do is rot and fertilize
the ground, but in the meanwhile they would look terrible and trip people or
damage my lawn mower. I'm not sure anyone crafty could have come up with
something to do with them. For the most part, they weren't good enough to use
anyway.
I don't know whether
this big reveal is big because of what it reveals about Jesus, or because of
what it reveals about humanity. Jesus tells us that our function is to be
connected to Him, and to function based on that relationship (bear fruit.) A
branch that is not connected to its vine (or tree) is dead. There is a chance
that someone crafty might find a use for it, but chances are better that it
will be thrown in the garbage or used as kindling.
So it is with people. We
are designed to be connected to Jesus. If we are broken away, we die. So many
people today think that they can live life on their own, disconnected from this
God, or any god. They think somehow they can absorb everything they need from
the air around them or that they contain within themselves everything they
need. They are like branches that have cut themselves off from the vine (tree)
and landed on the sidewalk. They think it worth the risk. If they land just
right, they might take root and be nourished directly from the soil (universe)
but instead, they find themselves in the garbage.
They blame the gardener. If
he had only planted them instead of throwing them out. They forget that they were
already planted. That plant was good enough for the gardener, even if it wasn't
for them. They were meant to be part of a magnificent vine or tree, but fell
away and became compost or garbage because they insisted on being the trunk
instead of the branch.
Of course, if they did
manage to take root, what sort of tree would they have been? They dreamed of
being independent, and equal to or greater than the tree from which they broke
away. Instead, they would always be a lesser reflection, a derivation of the
original, misshapen in whatever ways they rejected of the nature of the
original, and always with some of that
original tree/vine to contaminate the new trunk. Breakaway philosophies,
religions and lives are often like that. They claim to be "just like"
the original, "only better" and the so-called improvements are
the deformities everyone else sees. As
it grows, its branches, too, fall away, hoping to form their own trees, with
their own
improvements further deforming the trees. Instead of magnificent evolution into
better, if they are able to take root at all, they follow the law of entropy.
They devolve, become simpler, less-organized, weaker - mere shadows of the
original, but still holding on to the delusion of being its equal when they are
nothing more than sticks in the mud.
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