(John15: 1-8 I am the True Vine)

In the Old Testament, the nation of Israel was often likened to a vine. In Psalm 80:8 the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt is described in terms of a vine being transplanted from the soil of Egypt to that of Canaan. In Isaiah 5 the nation Israel is likened to a vineyard that does not produce fruit. In Jeremiah 2:21 Israel is described as a vine that is sending out degenerate shoots.

If Jesus is the wine then that makes us the branches. I can’t work hard to myself a better branch; all that I can ever do is to be a part of the vine. My growth is the gardener’s responsibility; it is not mine. In the parable of the sower the seeds can’t suddenly make themselves better seeds. You don’t get good or bad seeds; you do get good or bad soil. It is the farmer’s responsibility to help the seeds to grow. Similarly we can’t self-cultivate as Christians and I do not like the idea of describing someone as a better or worse Christian. If I describe myself as having been a better or worse Christian on a particular day, then I am putting the emphasis on what I have done and I am taking it away from what God has done on my behalf. I might feel particularly virtuous praying for three hours each day until I hear of someone in west coast America who is praying for three and a half hours each day. You may feel that you are not a particularly good Christian because you keep on missing church on Sundays. Then when you do make it to church you don’t particularly enjoy yourself. Whatever…all this is about you and about God. If you a part of the family of God then you are a part of the family of God, however keen or otherwise you are to express this. Don’t go putting yourself down in the name of humility. ‘Humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking less about yourself’.

This sounds all soft and cuddly but there is still a hard edge. This is the fact that if you are on the vine you are either a fruit-bearing branch or you are not. Someone is at their most vulnerable when they are half in and half out – sure but not to sure. If you are in this position you can lose out on two counts. You miss both the enjoyment of the world and the peace of Christ. You don’t have to understand to belong because this again would put the emphasis on what you were doing or not doing. ‘God has surprisingly low standards’ and all he is looking for from us is us wanting to understand, exploring, hoping wondering. In a sense what Christianity is saying is that there is such a thing as a free lunch. God so loved the world that he gave his only son Jesus Christ so that all who believe in him might not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). The idea that this is a freely given act of love cuts across a whole set of cultural assumptions and personal expectations – you never get nothing for nothing. There must always be a cost of some sort otherwise it just does not seem right.

The theological mistake, in such a line of thought, is the confusion of justification with sanctification. Justification is what has happened through the death and resurrection of Christ; sanctification is what we do about it - "sovereign grace" alongside  "human responsibility." Jesus talks about their being "much fruit" rather than some fruit This is a comforting words because it is about what Christ has done for us (justification) not what we are going to do in return (sanctification). It is not a call for Christians to become restless and dissatisfied determined to produce more fruit. It is not a call for Christians to ‘abide in me’, even under the (gardener’s) knife – think only of Jesus, drown out all other voices, choke down the rebellion, manhandle the resistance, deny the inner darkness. It is not a religion of repression where "bearing more fruit" is a demand that we get cracking and strain hard to bear much fruit if I wanted Christ to abide with me 

"Clean" is here a synonym for  "justified." - Christians are already clean, justified, and pure because of the Gospel - because of what Christ suffered on the cross. This can still seem an unlikely thing to be offered – so much for so little. One of the prime reasons that people struggle to accept how openhanded God is has little to do with the Bible, or church or Christianity. It has little to do with what I might say to you in church. It is more to do with what we say to ourselves in the quietness of our own home. It is what goes through our head in those last vulnerable moments before we sleep. It is hard to recognise that God accepts us because we are still struggling to accept ourselves.

Jesus always refers to the Father as MY Father, not OUR Father - "True" means "genuine, unique." The point is that Christ is our sole source of spiritual sustenance.