Vines

Faithful Dependency

John 15:1-5

Dependency. 

The word is anathema in our time and place. We refute it. We deny it. We proclaim a cure for it. No one wants to be dependent. On anything. On anybody. Dependency is weakness. Dependency is a flaw.

It is also scriptural. 

If there is a constant theme within scripture, it is the absolute affirmation and declaration that human beings are completely and utterly dependent. Being human is dependency embodied.

Begin with the basic doctrine of Providence—if not for God, nothing would live, for God provides every necessity for living. With regard to God’s human creations, that goes well beyond the basics of food, shelter, and clothing, extending to the necessities for a full heart and complete spirit—God provides love, grace, and hope to fill us and make us whole. God even ordained that human beings would never be able to thrive in isolation or as rugged individuals, but rather will only find true soul health when they twine together as partners (cf. Gn. 2:18-24). 

God’s will for humanity is not that we grow beyond this existential state of interdependence, but rather that we fully realize it as we bring to fruition the kingdom of God on earth. 

Which means we have some serious work to do.

We can get started by taking seriously Jesus’ statement John recorded for us. As so often happens with scripture, it is better to start at the end and work back into the metaphor Jesus employs.

Apart from me, you can do nothing.

Jesus states it flatly and directly—we are completely dependent on Jesus if we are to get anywhere in living life as it is meant to be lived. We bristle. We get itchy. But we know that Jesus never spoke anything that was not rooted in the proclamation of God’s absolute love for all humanity, therefore, we cannot hear this statement as a disparagement of who and what we are, but rather it must be some sort of invitation into a deeper understanding of who we are to be. 

So how do we see that truth in this statement?

Now we are ready to look at the metaphor Jesus employed to illustrate our relationship to the God who made us. The grapevine is an old metaphor in scripture. Many of the prophets used it as an analogy for Israel’s relationship to God. Israel exists because God planted her. Israel flourishes because God cultivates her. It is perfectly in order then that Jesus brings the metaphor forward as he establishes the new community of faith before God. In Christ, the old vine has had all sorts of wild and wooly shoots added to it. God seems to be after some sort of bizarre vintage made up of grapes, strawberries, raspberries, even a few apples, and maybe a couple of onions, just for piquant! Check out that wild list of members of the audience to Peter’s Pentecost sermon, then couple that with Peter’s dream of God’s picnic descending from heaven (cf. Acts 2:9-11; Acts 10:9-16), and you get the idea. If this bizarre grafting is going to hold, it is going to take power far beyond anything you or I experience in human society. Our tendency is to fly apart at the seams left to our own devices. God has other ideas. God’s going to make this vine grow. It is going to blossom and bear fruit. It is going to become the greatest plant in the world!

That begins when the Church realizes that it is not really a human institution in any way, shape, or form. It is the garden of God, and God remains the farmer in charge. What that means for us within the Church is that our primary move is welcome. God is going to send all sorts of people to join us. God is going challenge all of our assumptions and presumptions about what the Church is supposed to look like. Our task is not to argue with God, but accept God’s direction and cultivation. Peter didn’t wait for the “right” people to make up the congregation, he launched into preaching to whoever was in front of him. Peter didn’t question this mess of picnic presented to him, he saw it as a challenge to accept it, and suddenly there he was having dinner with Cornelius, a Roman who was liturgically wrong on every front, but who hungered for God—Peter saw no option but to welcome him. 

Go, and do likewise.

That is the voice of Jesus before us right now, right here. Our world is so desperately broken. Our world has gone wild, overgrown with all sorts of spiritual, emotional, and intellectual poison ivies. It is time for us to begin cultivating the hope that redeems, the love that saves, and the grace that offers everyone everywhere the chance to get it right. 

And that begins with the acceptance of dependency. We have to welcome being led. We have to welcome direction. We have to welcome God.