From 1985-1992 I lived in Omak, in north-central Washington State. At that time it was mostly ranch and orchard country, with acres of apple and pear orchards. In the seven years that I was there, orchardists began to replace their red delicious apple trees with newer varieties such as Gala and Fuji. In 1997 I moved to Toppenish in south central Washington State. This too is orchard country.
These days if you drive through central Washington, north or south, you will still see many apple and pear trees, along with other fruit. And you will also see fields of grape vines.
Both fruit trees and grape vines are pruned each winter. Even to someone like me, it is obvious which fields have been pruned. After the branches and vines are cut off, soon to be burned, the remaining trees or vines look sparse and thin. Compared to unpruned vines, the pruned ones seem decimated. You wonder if they can survive. Go back six months later in the late summer, however, and those are the vines and trees which are heavy with fruit.
"I am the true vine," Jesus says in our reading today. "And my Father is the vine grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit." This passage is an analogy. Jesus is the vine, God is the gardener, and you and I are the branches.
Pruning is indeed a harsh business. It is also necessary work. The best grapes grow close to the vine where the nutrients are concentrated. The further from the vine the branches grow the fewer nutrients the fruit gets so the grapes will be smaller and more sour. So it is that a vineyard owner does not allow the branches to ramble too far, but does the harsh work of pruning. Bearing fruit and pruning are connected, though they take place at opposite ends of the year.
The Greek word translated here as pruning is katharios. It is the root of our word catharsis, a releasing of emotion, like the cathartic effect of a good cry, or beating on a pillow to vent your anger. It is not fun at the time and afterwards you feel better.
Interestingly, katharios can also be translated as cleansed. "You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you," Jesus said. We could translate that as, "You have already been pruned."
A couple of chapters earlier in John, Jesus had shocked the disciples when he had washed the disciples' feet. Normally that was the job of the lowliest servant. When Peter protested, Jesus told him, "One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean." The word is kathros. As a pruned vineyard is clean, so a clean person has been pruned. Pruning may be harsher than a nice hot shower but the effect is the same.
When Jesus said, "Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit," he was not talking about personal hygiene. He didn't mean cutting your toenails or scrubbing your feet. Jesus was talking about spiritual pruning. Each of us needs regular pruning to remove from us those things, habits, attitudes, or practices that draw us away from Jesus.
Peter's response to Jesus' washing of his feet can give us some insights into the sorts of pruning we too may need. Peter had a pre-set notion about who Jesus was. He had followed Jesus for three years. Jesus was his Lord – his Sovereign Ruler. Jesus was his Teacher – his guide and mentor. Jesus held the superior position over Peter and in the ways of his world, Peter understood that it was his job to attend to Jesus' needs not the other way around. For Jesus to wash his feet turned his notions of leadership upside down. Jesus explains, "If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet." Peter needed to be pruned not only of his pre-set notions about Jesus, he also had to be purged of his own ego about the sort of leader he was to be. His own self understanding not only made it hard for him to accept Jesus' ministry to him, it would limit his notions about how he cared for others.
Pruning vines has basic rules which are true for every vine, and each vine has needs specific to it. So spiritual pruning is specific to each of us. Jesus washed the feet of all the disciples, including those of Judas who would soon betray him. Indeed, he knew that he could not fully cleanse Judas no matter how thoroughly he washed Judas' feet.
So it is that God's pruning of each of us will vary according to who we are. Different Christians understand Jesus in slightly different ways. Some people emphasize Jesus' divinity to the exclusion of his humanity. Others emphasize Jesus' humanity with little attention to his divinity. Our preset notions about who Jesus is are different, and in the end, all of us may need to let go of some of the ways we understand Jesus, whom the church has long claimed as fully human and fully divine. Indeed, Jesus has many titles and each of them challenge us to broaden our understanding. Lord and Teacher, Savior and Messiah, Friend and Shepherd, and even the True Vine. God may have to lop off a bit from my favorite title for Jesus in order for me to gain a deeper knowledge of who Jesus is.
Who we understand Jesus to be influences who we understand ourselves to be. Jesus' model of servant leadership both humbled and awed Peter. Every one of us, I think, must grapple with our own egos. Some people set themselves so low that they need to learn to love themselves. We are to love our neighbors as ourselves and if we don't love ourselves we cannot truly love others.
Some people seem to have such an elevated perception of themselves that they get caught up in their desire for status and prestige: a more important job be that a career or a responsibility at church; more money, more power, more control over how things happen. Snip, snip, bit by bit God cuts away at us because in the end those things take us away from Jesus.
"Abide in me as I abide in you." The word abide comes up seven times in just eight verses in this passage, which ought to tell us how important it is. It can mean to remain, stay in one place, or to endure. The emphasis is on the disciples' relationship with Jesus. This conversation takes place after the Last Supper and just before Jesus is arrested and sentenced to die. Jesus is preparing the disciples for the trials which are to come. Again and again he urges them to stay connected to him.
"Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit." The purpose of a vine is to bear fruit. It is not to provide shade or to look pretty. The purpose of the vine is to bear fruit. Thus branches are pruned to keep them close to the vine so the fruit they bear is sweet and juicy.
As Christians our purpose is to bear the fruit of love. "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in love."
"Beloved, let us love another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God," says our other lesson, from the first letter of John. Only when we stay connected to Jesus can we love each other, much less love our enemies. The early Christian church was characterized by its love. The Twenty-first century church must also be known for its love.
The Staff Parish Relations Committee has worked hard in the last six months to draft a conflict resolution policy. Conflict is a reality. Whether you are at school or work, in a volunteer organization or in the community, with your friends or your family, conflict is going to happen. Conflict can be a good thing, for it pushes us to consider different ideas and to recognize that we each bring new perspectives to the table. We are stronger for those differences. The challenge before us is to manage conflict in such a way that we abide in love. That means respecting each other enough to talk to each other directly, to name problems immediately, and to be specific. The Staff Parish Relations Committee policy for handling conflict between staff and church members is biblically based and hopes for reconciliation, even as it recognizes that sometimes people will still disagree with each other. It seeks to abide in love. It has much to teach us about the other areas of conflict we all face.
In the end it is love which gets us through the hard times. "See how these Christians love each other." That's the fruit we are to bear.