Vines, vines everywhere are vines

I’ve made the confession before and I will likely make it several more times throughout the course of my life…I am a failure at plant care. To say I have a black thumb is putting it lightly. If a plant lasts a month in my care it is akin to a miracle.

As useless as I am with plants, they continually amaze me. What amazes me the most is how they manage to subside using what we as humans consider to be absolute rubbish…quite literally I might add! A plant lives in the dirt; something that we avoid like the plague, lest we end up with a speck upon ourselves. Beyond that, a plant is happiest when covered in poo and the decomposed remains of our supper last night. In essence, a plant uses what we avoid.

But then, the plant produces amazing things that we want desperately. As I’m typing this out, I’m looking at a lovely bouquet of flowers that was the result of a plant growing in our waste. The food that we eat is produced from the leftovers that we couldn’t use. A plant comes from humble beginnings but becomes quite important.

In particular, as you’ve likely guessed by the title, I want to point out the vine. It plays a very important role as it helps to produce one of the most delicious beverages known to man (and woman!) kind.

The vine also plays a large role in several biblical accounts. In the Old Testament the vine is used to describe God’s own chosen people.

In Genesis we see that Joseph is described as a good and fruitful vine. The faithful nature with which Joseph served God provided the roots for a continually growing vine. We see the vine growing throughout the Old Testament as more and more people are added in, as the lineage develops further, until, just like the plant, the vine of Israel is widespread and what started out as the beginning of a living bough had developed into a large, powerful vine.

As we know from the various stories of the Old testament, this vine wasn’t necessarily as effective as it could have been. Jeremiah points out the way in which this vine that had been planted from the hardiest of seeds, that God’s chosen people, whose good and perfect beginning was described in the book of Genesis, very quickly morphed into the wild and degenerate vine that was being threatened. God’s people no longer represented the perfection in which they had been created, but they had grown their way, did not produce good fruit and were no longer the good vine that God had intended them to be.

This is the situation that we’re faced with when we look at the account of the True Vine as described in John 15. Going back to what we know about the analogy of the vine, we are aware that the vine is representative of God’s chosen people. Much like we would describe a family tree, the lineage of the Israelites is portrayed by the imagery of the vine. We are aware that the vine was corrupt and wild, not producing good fruit. In John 15 we see a comparison between the corrupt vine, and the true vine, that is the vine that is Jesus Christ.

In this passage we are reminded of our need to be connected to the true vine. As we look back on the bible many years later we can see how the Israelites failed. We know that when they were left on their own they turned wild and corrupt. They were unable to maintain the perfection for which they had been created. Lest we think that we are any better than they were, this verse reminds us of our need to be connected to the true vine, in order that we would also be able to produce good fruit. Like the Israelites, when left untended we are wont to turn corrupt and wild as well. We depend on Christ to provide us with the goodness we need, we depend on God the father to remove the sin and all bad things from us in order to allow us to grow. We are dependent upon God to provide for our needs, to feed us and to keep us healthy.

As we read through this passage in particular, it’s very clear about the role that God plays in our

development, care and maintenance but what remains a little more vague is what this idea of bearing fruit looks like for us. It goes beyond producing something to eat, obviously, and it isn’t even constrained to bearing fruit in terms of growing the church and increasing the population of believers. When we’re talking about the fruit being produced and how it proves us as Christ’s disciples, it’s helpful to look at Galatians 5:22-23.

It spells out quite clearly that these are the fruits of the spirit. Through the spirit’s work in us, as Christians connected to the true vine and tended to by God the good gardener we desire to produce these fruits that are encouraged by the work of the Holy Spirit. As a result of being fed by Christ and tended to by God we are able to produce these fruits that have been laid out in this passage. This is the work for which we were created; the reason we have not been tossed in the fire.

We are not able to create this fruit on our own. We depend on the work of God to turn the rubbish that we’ve been given in life into the fruit that we are called to produce. Just the same as the plant uses the most unusual, and often least desirable items to produce good fruit, God uses us, and the rubbish of our lives to produce good fruit, whose benefits can be seen in what we do, in who we are, and most importantly, in what we believe.