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This passage from John is one that has created great comfort for many people, and at the same time has created profound pain and suffering for others. It has pulled us together and brutally split us apart. This simple story of a vine, growing in a vineyard, both heals and destroys. Many who read this story see it as a reason to turn away from the biblical story.

Let’s begin by recognizing what was going on when Jesus first told this story of the vine. It will help us to remember that stories about a vine and vineyard have been told since ancient times, so it is not something new with Jesus.

The Old Testament prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, talked about vines and vineyards. It’s important to remember that these prophets arose and spoke during times of great threat to the country. They spent their time warning the people what was going to happen to them if they did not behave. The prophets had an ability to say things in ways that people understood, and since most folks back then were familiar with vineyards, they got to the point quickly.

In chapter 5 of Isaiah, the prophet told a story about someone who built a beautiful vineyard on a fertile hill, doing everything needed to create an ideal setting for the vines. But the vineyard failed. The owner said, “When I expected it to yield domestic grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?” He then tore down the protective wall and hedge, let the vineyard become overgrown with briars, and commanded the clouds to stop raining on it. That last detail makes it clear that the owner being described was God, and the vineyard of wild grapes was the people of Israel. Isaiah used familiar language to make his point, attempting to call the nation back from the destruction that threatened them.

Later, Jeremiah told his listeners, “Yet I planted you as a choice vine, from the purest stock. How then did you degenerate and become a wild vine?” (Jeremiah 2:21). In Jeremiah’s time, the word “wild” actually meant “foreign.” So Jeremiah was using the familiar story to warn the people to stop worshiping foreign gods, and warning them what will happen if they do not stop.

Many years later, Ezekiel tells the nation, “Your mother was like a vine in a vineyard transplanted by the water, fruitful and full of branches from abundant water” (Ezekiel 19:12). The mother was the land of Judah, then under threat by Babylon. Because of the behavior of the people of Judah, it was “plucked up in fury, cast down to the ground; the east wind dried it up, its fruit was cut off.” Ezekiel painted the picture that everyone understood. Unfortunately, they didn’t listen to it.

Matthew told how Jesus used the vine and vineyard in a parable of how the vineyard owner’s son was killed by those who were supposed to be taking care of the vineyard.

So as Jesus talked about the vine, the disciples would have put it in context with the long history of stories about vines and vineyards.

Jesus told this little story while he and the disciples were all gathered together after celebrating the Passover seder, and only a few minutes after Judas had bolted from the room as the traitor. If there was ever an opportunity to talk about wild grapes, this would have been it.

In the next few minutes, Jesus was either going to say something profoundly kind and loving, or something that is so brutal and harsh that it will end up dividing and destroying families and nations even today.

Jesus says, “I am the true vine” (v. 1).

Think of what goes through the disciples’ minds immediately. For generations of vine stories, the vine has represented the true way, the true vision for what the people of Israel were meant to be. The vine has been God’s way.

Jesus then began talking about pruning the vineyard, and this is where the problems began. Sounding very much like the doomsday prophets of old, Jesus said, “He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit” (v. 2). And he ends this with the statement that “whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.”

There we have it. Those few sentences have created voices that scream for active pruning away of those who do not seem to bear fruit, those who appear to be producing wild grapes. The passage is used as the commandment to separate ourselves from those who do not produce the fruit that is seen as being appropriate for our vineyard. While laws see to it that these people cannot literally be cast into the fire, it has still been possible to cast them out in other ways. They are banned. They are shunned. They are treated as though they no longer exist. They are seen as infidels, as sinful, or as unclean. It is important that we identify those people who are the “wild grapes,” and that we cut them off from the vine so they do not corrupt the rest of the vineyard, isn’t it? Isn’t that what Jesus is clearly saying here?

And Jesus repeatedly used the word “abide” as he tells this story. “Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away,” and “Those who abide in me and me in them bear much fruit” (v. 6). A quick search of the dictionary points out that there are two primary definitions for the word abide, one of which is “to withstand, tolerate, endure, or put up with.” Isn’t Jesus actually saying that while it may be difficult sometimes to take the harsh step of cutting some people out of the vineyard, if we withstand the pain and tolerate or endure the hurt that may come with it, we are doing his will by protecting the vineyard from the possible corruption from those who are wild grapes? Is that the real meaning?

While it is true that Jesus does say, more than once, the vines that do not produce fruit will be removed, it is important to note he never once suggests that it is our responsibility to do the pruning. Not once does Jesus even suggest that it is our role to judge the value of the vines. Not once. Jesus says, “He removes every branch...” and “Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away...” and “such branches are gathered...” (vv. 2, 6). Jesus is saying that while there may be some pruning of wild grapes done at some point, it is not our job. We are to leave that to the hand of the owner of the vineyard, the vine grower, the only one who has the ability to measure the value of any vine.

The other definition of the word abide is “to remain, to continue in relationship with, to dwell.” It means more than to tolerate, or put up with. It means we believe in something enough to live with it. It is where we stay.

With that in mind, it may help us understand what Jesus is saying a bit better. Was Jesus saying that even if we don’t like what he wants, we are supposed to tolerate him and just go along? That no longer makes sense after he says, “Abide in me as I abide in you.”

The story of the vineyard and vine is a story of everyone being connected and together, rather than of cutting off and separating. It is when the parts of the vineyard are all connected that the good fruit is produced. All of the different parts of the vineyard: the soil, the roots, the vines, the leaves... as different as they are to look at, they each have their value in producing good fruit. If there are unfruitful branches, it is not our problem or our focus. Rather than trying to find those vines that need to be cut off, our only purpose is to work together to produce the fruit the vineyard owner planted us here to produce.

It’s that simple.