MORE POWER! MORE GLORY!! MORE SPIRIT!!!
SURVEYING THE SITE—John 15:1-17
During this Easter season, we have spent some time
with Jesus considering what the implications of “resurrection living” might
mean for us. To fully understand the implications of this “resurrection life”,
we find ourselves going back to those learning moments we had with Jesus before
the trial, crucifixion, and resurrection.
This week, following the Last Supper, we join Jesus is in his after-dinner speech, the Farewell Address, already in progress. Here Jesus uses two metaphors. The first—house or household—was in John 14 where Jesus told us that the Father’s house has many places for rest. This week, in the second metaphor, we are told of the vine. Through it the themes of belonging and joy are introduced. Let us listen to Jesus’ words as he tells us for the last time that he is the I AM.
READING THE BLUEPRINT
[Jesus says], “I am, I AM, the true vine, and my father
works the land. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch
that bears fruit he makes clean so that it bears more fruit. You have already
been cleansed by the word I have spoken to you. Rest in me as I rest in you.
Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it rests in the vine, neither
can you unless you rest in me.
“I am, I AM, the vine. You are the branches. Those who rest in me and I in them bear much fruit because, apart from me, you cannot do anything. Whoever does not rest in me is cast away and withers, like a branch. Such branches are gathered together and burned.
“When you rest in me and my words rest in you, ask for whatever you desire, and it will be done for you. My father is glorified by this in order to bear much fruit. So, my disciples, ‘Come into being’.
“As the father loves me, so I already love you. Rest in my love. When you keep my commandments, you will rest in my love just as I have kept my father’s commandments and rest in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you and that your joy might be full, like a fetus fills the womb. This is my commandment in order for you to love one another as I already love you.
“No one has greater love than this—to lay down one’s life for the beloved. You are my beloved when you do what I command you. I do not call you slaves any longer because the slave does not know what the master is up to. But I have called you beloved because I have spilled my guts out to you concerning what I have heard from my father.
“You did not choose me. I chose you! I appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last in order that the father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commandments in order for you to love one another.”
ROUGHING IN THE HOUSE
Rudolf Bultmann and others have suggested that the Gospel of
John is a compilation of at least two Jesus narrative traditions that have been
brought together into a single story. When you read the end of chapter 13 and then
go directly to the beginning of chapter 18 to continue, you notice there is no
break in the narrative. The Farewell Address, chapters 14-17, belong to a
separate narrative.
In this section, Jesus uses a common speech form known as symposium. It is not a monologue as it welcomes questions from the listeners. As such, it is more of a conversation. Its purpose is three-fold. First, it honors those gathered; Jesus calls his disciples, friends. Second, it instructs; Jesus gives his commandment. Third it entertains; Jesus uses rhetoric to give them things to ponder.
In the assigned pericopes (readings), we read the Farewell Address in chunks. These chunks distance the beginning of the speech from its other parts. So, we do not connect the house of many resting places (usually translated rooms), with the resting places of abiding in this passage of the vine.
When we do this, we see a house that is far away in a land we often call heaven where a place is being held like a reservation at a major hotel. We see the vine as being disembodied from the garden and transplanted into a wine yard (vineyard), pointing us to eucharist.
But, when these stories are connected with the rest of the conversation Jesus is having with his disciples, we can see the retelling of the wilderness journey of the Israelites. In that journey, their clothing, like the fruit, never wears out, and neither do their sandals.
We can see the wilderness journey where the joy of the Lord is the freeing of the Israelites from the oppression of Egypt and the joy of the people is to live with God, where the relationship between God and God’s people is secured with the giving of the Law in order for the Israelites to live in harmony with one another.
We can see the potential of God’s beloved community living
into an egalitarian relationship. This is not a relationship of slave and
master. It is a relationship of equals.
We can see that our Father’s house is all of creation and that we are on a journey where we will need to find resting places, like the resting places alongside the Roman highways. But while the resting places along the Roman highways were for Roman dignitaries and Roman soldiers, the resting places for the people of the Way are for all people.
We can find resting places in Christ as Christ finds rest in the relationship in the Father. These resting places are places of welcoming hospitality, agape love. Instead of finding that place of belonging in a place far, far away, we can find ourselves connected to Christ and one another, depending on one another for life and fruitfulness here and now.
PUTTING UP THE WALLS
Paul Tillich claims that revelation is not of value unless
the community can accept it. This means that salvation itself is a communal or
corporate condition. It is this corporate, Christ’s body, incarnational
presence that Jesus addresses in this extended conversation.
Each “you” and “your” statement in this passage is plural. Jesus is speaking to his disciples at the meal, but he is also speaking to all his disciples (learners and followers) throughout the ages. Ultimately, Jesus is speaking to us. Jesus is trying to tell us that we are connected to one another in order that identity and life might be ours.
In the last of the “I AM” statements, Jesus proclaims that he knows who he is. We may read these statements as an indication that Jesus knew that he was truly divine, but whether that is how Jesus understood it, we will never know. What we are given is that Jesus claims his place as a person among persons. He emphatically says, “I AM.”
In verse 8, he tells his disciples to take up their identity too—"So, my disciples, come into being. (Step into the relationship that is waiting for you. Know who you are) This is my commandment for you. (Know your identity because in that way you will be able to love, welcome, show hospitality to one another.)”
Jesus’ joy comes from knowing who he is and knowing his relationship with the father. This joyful knowledge will also lead to Jesus giving the Advocate, Comforter, Holy Spirit as a way to know his presence in the future.
The central metaphor that links us to God’s constancy is the vine that gives us strength to produce the fruits of the spirit. That connection provides the resting place in God’s love. Through this metaphor we are called, commanded, to enter into the relationship of agape love, to give and receive welcome and hospitality. There, God’s eternal care continues to provide identity, support, and entwined purpose as we continue to bear witness, fruit, of God’s intention for the world—that it might be saved.
HANGING THE TRIM
“We offer in thanksgiving to thee the fruits of our little
lives that they may in turn be to those others whose names we do not know
somewhat of strength and inspiration that apart from us they may not find
fulfillment and apart from them we may not know ourselves. We thank thee, our
Father, for so holy a privilege, and we offer our thanksgiving and our
dedication as our response not only to thee, but to the life which is ours [in
you]. … The deepest need in me must also meet the deepest need in [my
neighbor]and then I work for myself. When I work for him [sic], I work for
myself for better or for worse. No man is an island. We are tied together in
one bundle.”—Howard Thurman
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