Introduction
We are smack dab in the middle of the Farewell Discourse this week. In the Gospel of John, 4 chapters, 4 whole chapters are dedicated to Maundy Thursday. Jesus’ final night and his final meal with the disciples. It begins in chapter 13 with him washing their feet and Judas leaving. Then from chapters 14 through 17 Jesus is sharing his final words with them before he will be arrested. Many call this the “Final Discourse,” the last words to his disciples, to his friends, before he is killed. So, in chapter 15, our text for today, we are in the middle, the heart of his last words to his friends.
And really, the words immediately after this are the essential portion:
9“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 10If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
12“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. 16You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. 17I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”
If you talk with many pastors, they feel that John is just kind of ramble-y. There are SO MANY WORDS! And yet, they all build on each other. While John is wordy, he isn’t often talking just to talk. There is always a theological point or nuance that he is making.
And so, we can’t really understand the vine and the branches without looking at these verses that come immediately after. And we can’t understand that vine and the branches without looking at the entirety of this night and the days to come.
Context
All of this is about connection versus disconnection. The word that John is using is ‘μείνατε’ (abide). Abide can mean “to stay” or “to dwell.” But in this imagery of the branches and vine, Jesus is introducing a ‘connection’ point. There of course are both ‘dwelling’, ‘abiding’, and ‘connecting’ components to all plants. Is a branch really different from the trunk? From the root?
But I think words like dwell and abide are a little harder for us to hear today. There is so much depth to them, that we should try to understand them. However, to be able to start seeing the implications of the wider text, hearing Jesus say, ‘you need to be connected to me in the way that I am connected to God.’ ‘You need to be connected to me like a branch is connected to the trunk of a tree.’ This simpler word might help us when Jesus then continues in the later verses: ‘If you keep my commandments, you will be connected to me and connected to my love.’ ‘And when you love one another, you will be connected to me through that love and even more connected to one another.’
Why is this important?
Because Judas left. And because the disciples too will leave and run. Peter will deny Jesus three times. They will hide in locked rooms. Closing themselves off from the world. Disconnecting themselves Jesus and his love and resurrection hope.
The Danger of Preaching this Text
The danger of this text is connecting it to passages in the synoptic gospels. Texts like Luke 3:17, John the Baptist says, “His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear the threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” Or Matthew’s parable of the wheat and the weeds (Matthew 13:24-30), “30Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, ‘Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”
In these texts, there is a certain inevitability that there will be weeds or chaff that need to be burned. Which is why these phrases and parables are so beautiful for Lutheran theology which help us to preach this as both being of the same person (we are wheat and weed, saint and sinner).
But that’s not what exactly what John is saying here. There is an agency from the branches in this text. If they remain connected (to the word) then they will bear fruit. John is not saying that there is an inevitable reaping. It is only when the branch loses connection from the vine that it is taken away to be burned.
There are two additional dangers that are connected here. The first is the impulse to say that sometimes branches need to be cut away for the plant/vine/tree to survive. I absolutely think that is a preaching tact for some of the plant imagery parables (and those I mentioned before). Yes, horticulturally that is absolutely true. But that is not what Jesus is talking about here. Branches are pruned (by the Word) to bear more fruit or they are cut away because they lose connection. But there isn’t an explanation that the vine/tree needs to be protected. In fact, if they remained connected, they would never need to be cut away. Because in the connection point with Jesus, that is where we experience grace, love, joy, peace, wisdom, and comfort. And if we are connected, deeply connected with Jesus in that way, then how could we fall away and go astray?
And the second point is connected. The vine, the trunk… is NOT the institutional church. It is Jesus who is the vine. When we preach about sometimes people needing to be cut away, we are talking about protecting the institutional church. Those who are harmful, those who are mean, those who would be better connected elsewhere, they should be cut away so that the vine may flourish. Sure, that makes sense. But again, that is not what Jesus is talking about here.
We have no authority to cut anyone away from connection with God (Thanks be to God!). It is God who is the vinegrower. Not us. This is about being connected with Jesus. The love of God incarnate. The Word made Flesh. Being connected with Jesus is not synonymous with being connected to the Church. I believe there are whole churches falling away from the vine because they are leaning into messages of hate or superiority rather than love and grace. There are leaders of this church and others that would rather see every branch burned than see those whom they hate, enter into the loving grace of God.
But it is Jesus who is the vine and it is God who is the vinegrower. This is not about being connected to the institutional church. This is about being connected to Jesus. And there, we will find life.
Preaching Possibilities
I’m not saying don’t go to church. I’m not saying don’t talk to your pastor. But I am saying that there are a whole host of people that go to church almost every Sunday and have little connection to Jesus.
This whole passage, the whole farewell discourse is a beautiful passionate message from Jesus about love. A radical love that could change your life, if you let it.
When Jesus talks about service and serving (in the foot washing), he isn’t talking about just being kind to others and holding the door open. He isn’t just talking about picking up an item that someone accidentally dropped and giving it back to them. He is saying that if we let go of our egos and drop our guards, we might actually connect with the people around us. Hearing the hardships and the beauty of their lives. Hearing their struggles and hurts but also hearing their joys and their hopes. Serving others as Jesus served us is not a surface level service project. It is about a deep and meaningful connection with one another and all of creation. There we see why God so loves this world.
Jesus talks about peace. Not a peace that’s only among friends. But a peace that is illustrated in his non-violent actions on the way to the cross. A peace that is illustrated, when after the resurrection, Jesus’ first words are, “Peace be with you. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of any they are retained.” Commanding the disciples to forgive everything that has taken place and to pursue peace and connection moving forward.
I really wanted to avoid getting overly preachy but it just sort of happened. What I really mean is, it is far easier to be disconnected from Jesus than we may care to realize.
When we allow discord and hate to permeate our lives (I’m pretty explicitly talking about politics here), then we easily fall away from the vine. Both democrats and republicans use such violent language about one another these days. How could we possibly find any connection when we so willingly eviscerate the other with our language?
When we allow resentments to creep up and take hold (recovery people will know this all too well), it is easy to write those people or things off all together and disconnect from them completely.
When we allow xenophobia or superiority complexes to create guards and walls that only keep us around those of like-minded perspectives, will alienate ourselves from God’s diversity and new ways of being that connect us with the greater whole.
While the institutional church is not the vine, connection with Christ, the true vine, is found in the love that we show one other (9“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 10If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. 12“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you).
Disconnection from one another threatens our connection to Christ. If connection to Christ is centered around loving one another, then we have to find better ways to break down the walls and barriers that divide us and find ways for love to guide us in our ways.
Micah Krey 
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