The Cost of Friendship — Saturday Sermons from the Sidelines

Read John 15:9-17

“I give you a new commandment,” Jesus tells his disciples in John, chapter 13, “that you love one another.” In case they didn’t get it the first time, he rephrases it. “Just as I have loved you,” he says, “you also should love one another.” What does he mean?

Scientists disagree on the nature of human nature. In his book, The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins puts it clearly. “We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.” Existence is nothing more or less than competition for survival—right down to the level of our genes. History, according to Dawkins, is not only written by the victors. It is created by the survivors.

Even so, Dawkins argues for love for others at the cultural level. “Let us try to teach generosity and altruism…,” he writes, “because we may then at least have the chance to upset [our genetic] designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to do.”

Why Dawkins thinks we should work against our natural design is a mystery to me. But he represents a large segment of our cultural narrative these days. Love for others, in this view, is a recent invention that requires us to overcome it on the basis of genetic self-interest.

Other scientists see humans able to love one another by nature. That altruism may well extend far into the non-human animal world. I would encourage you to read Frans De Waal’s book called Mama’s Last Hug.

The title is based on a reunion between Mama, an old chimpanzee, and Dr. Jan Van Hooff, a Dutch biologist. Mama was on her deathbed, crippled with arthritis, refusing food and drink, dying of old age. The meeting was so moving that the video overwhelmed the Internet. You can find it here: https://youtu.be/LFXTCGeAV9s.

De Waal and others in the field have demonstrated empathy and compassion in most higher sentient animals. “Our brains have been designed to blur the line between self and other,” he concludes. “It is an ancient neural circuitry that marks every mammal, from mouse to elephant.”

I’m with Frans de Waal on this. But we Christians go further. We believe humans are created specifically to love one another. As N. T. Wright says, “Love is not merely our duty. It is our destiny.” We are created by the source of all Love for the purpose of loving. We sin when we turn that love in toward ourselves rather than outward toward others.

“I give you a new commandment,” Jesus tells his disciples, “that you love one another.” Jesus calls us to be our truest selves. Love for others is what full and flourishing humanity looks like. If we want a clearer picture, we just need to look at Jesus. “Just as I have loved you,” he says, “you also should love one another.”

Now we get more specific. We begin in John thirteen. Earlier in the evening, Jesus had washed his disciples’ feet. Then he explains his actions. “If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.” Humble, self-giving service is what love looks like. Even a chimpanzee can get it.

Love always costs the lover. Two disciples are clear about that. Judas doesn’t like what he hears. He goes out to hand Jesus over to the enemies. Peter doesn’t believe what he hears. He goes on to deny three times that he ever knew Jesus. When it comes to love, betrayal and denial are always the easy outs. But betrayal and denial turn us away from others and into ourselves.

Humble, self-giving service is what love looks like. Love always costs the lover. But refusing to pay the price is nothing short of a living death. I would like to quote C. S. Lewis on this every week. But once in a while will have to do. In his book, The Four Loves, he writes,

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”

The heart that is defended is the heart that is dead. Yet, we live in an era when walling off our hearts is the order of the day. Altruism is for idiots. Love is for fools. Compassion is for clods. Others are enemies. We live in the world of Richard Dawkins—“robot vehicles blindly programmed” to preserve only ourselves.

If we follow Jesus, we cannot be part of such a world. “Just as I have loved you,” Jesus says, “you also should love one another.” Who are the others around me? Others are different from me—different in color, in ability, in language, in income, in orientation, in gender, in age, in politics, in ethnicity, in citizenship, in religion, in species. Loving another will cost me at least a part of my life. But not loving will cost me my humanity. Even a chimpanzee gets that.

“No one has greater love than this,” Jesus then continues in John 15:13, “to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Jesus’ relationship with disciples as friends is not an example of the human phenomenon of friendship. Nor is it the prime or supreme or perfect example of that human experience. Friendship doesn’t define Jesus. Jesus defines friendship – for his disciples, including us. “For Jesus [at least in John’s Gospel],” Gail O’Day writes, “friendship is the ultimate relationship with God and one another”.

Jesus calls and invites his disciples to live as friends with Jesus, friends with one another, and friends with those whom they serve. “Jesus is our model of friendship – because he loved without limits,” O’Day writes, “and he makes it possible for us to live a life of friendship – because we have been transformed by everything he shared with us. Through friendship,” she continues, “we come to know God and through friendship we enact the love of God. We can risk,” she suggests, “being friends because Jesus has been a friend to us” (2008, page 27).

Our reading declares that Jesus calls his disciples “friends.” It does not focus, however, on the benefits of friendship with Jesus. Our text focuses much more, in fact, on the responsibilities that accrue to that friendship. “Jesus does not merely talk the language of friendship,” O’Day writes, “he lives out his life and death as a friend and he commands his followers to do the same” in verses 12 through 14 (2008, page 23).

We who are the branches draw our life from the Valid Vine. We have that promise in the foreground of today’s reading, and we dare not forget the source of our life. Without that life “we can do nothing,” as we read last week. With that life, we can love one another as Jesus loves us. “The commandment to love as Jesus has loved may be the most radical words of the Gospel,” O’Day argues, “because it claims that the love that enabled Jesus to lay down his life for his friends is not unique to him.”

O’Day is not arguing that Jesus’ friendship is one example of human friendship in general. In that regard, it is indeed unique. What she means is that Jesus’ friendship as a capacity to be a friend is something he shares with disciples. “This love can be replicated and embodies over and over again by his followers,” he notes. “To keep Jesus’ commandment is to enact his love in our own lives” (2008, 23).

What can it mean to lay down one’s life for one’s “friends?” Clearly, the “friends” Jesus means here are other disciples. That is perhaps too narrow a framework for understanding the whole of New Testament theology, but if we simply started by loving other Christians as an obedient, intentional, and concrete practice, our world might change a great deal.

For example, it is indisputable that some of my Christian co-religionists are Black, Brown, Native, AAPI, and of other ethnic heritages. They are, in terms of John 15, my “friends.” Will we white Christians be willing to give up our power and privilege, our wealth and property (or even some of it) in order to fight the racism that infects our churches and our lives?

Here is a website that lists a number of actions that white people can take to fight racism – “103 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice” (it used to be 75 things, but hey, we’re trainable, right?). If you can’t bring yourself to grapple with the systemic racism that exists in our country (and it does, not matter what some public figures would have us believe), then at least consider taking these actions because millions of your “friends” will benefit from those actions.

Working for justice always has a cost for those of us who are privileged, positioned, propertied and powerful. That’s the deal, so, white friends, let’s deal. I don’t believe the folks who think they can make real justice painless for the privileged. Loving our friends will cost us something that we experience as “life.” Otherwise, it’s probably not love.

Judas betrayed Jesus. Peter denied Jesus. But God’s love does not let go. Peter was restored to his vocation, as we heard a few weeks ago. Loving one another works that way. Let me close by praying these words from a favorite hymn:

O Love that will not let me go,

I rest my weary soul in thee;

I give thee back the life I owe,

That in thine ocean depths its flow

May richer, fuller be.

May it be so among us. Amen.

Text Study for John 15:1-17 (Pt. 4); 6 Easter B 2021

I know people struggle with the idea that love can be commanded by anyone, even Jesus. He is not demanding the presence here of an emotion. That’s a modern, Enlightenment, and Romantic way of reading the text. Instead, Jesus is instructing his disciples in a set of practices. They are, after all, “learners” (the literal meaning of the Greek word for “disciples”). We teach children how to love and to be loved – sometimes in words but mostly through example.

“Love” is not a feeling. It is an action. Or more properly, it is an ongoing set of actions. Therefore, “love one another” is a commandment. This commandment is found in verses 12 through 17. Therefore, these verses indicate a unit marked by an inclusion. This paragraph (12-17) is at the center, textually and thematically, of the Farewell Discourse in John. The inclusion begins and ends with the “love one another” commandment.

We must be careful how we interpret the word “commandment.” We would tend to hear that word as a law, a requirement, or a command. However, the Hebrew behind that word has much more the sense of a teaching that is put into practice. It’s probably worth some time to explore that Hebrew term, mitzvah.

The Hebrew noun is really a participial form of the verb zwh, which means to “order, direct, appoint, or command.” We Christians might think first and foremost of the “Ten Commandments” in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. Of course, in Exodus 20, there are more than ten “commandments,” and they are not called “commandments” at all, but rather “words.” Likewise, in Deuteronomy 5, there are more ordinances than ten, and once again they are not called commandments.

But I quibble a bit. The plural of the word does appear in Exodus 20:6. Following the prohibition of idol worship, the Lord promises multi-generational punishment for those who bow down and worship idols. The Lord also promises “steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments” (the promise is paralleled in Deuteronomy 5:10). It’s worth observing that “love” and “commandment” show up in the same verse already at this point.

The noun in Hebrew can and does indeed mean “command,” or “commandment.” The word appears over 180 times in the Hebrew scriptures in a variety of contexts. In traditional Jewish usage, the word can refer to a commandment in the Scriptures. It can refer to a religious duty or obligation. It can also refer to the deed or deeds necessary to carry out that obligation. Thus, it often refers to the actions, especially of kindness, compassion, or love that result in carrying out a religious duty or obligation.

We children of Luther have a deep and wide bias against “commandments” (even though they make up more than half the volume of our catechisms). We are sure that the commandments are “Law,” and that the Law is bad since it leads to works righteousness. We know we are not saved by works but rather by faith.

So, any discussion of commandments seems contrary to the Good News of justification by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. This line of thinking is not particularly Lutheran (as in being rooted in the specifics of Luther’s theology or Paul’s theology, for that matter), but it is certainly a baseline in popular Protestantism.

This bias causes us to be very confused about a passage which makes loving a commandment. I think the word “instruction” would be a much superior translation here in the place of “commandment.” But I think that “obedient practice” is perhaps the best translation of all. The description in Deuteronomy 30:16 (NRSV) captures this sense of the word:

“If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess.”

Jesus engages in the obedient practice of laying down his life and taking it up again (see John 10:18). He has received the commission to carry out this practice from his Father. Jesus offers a description of this obedient practice as the conclusion to the Book of Signs (see John 12:49-50).

The Father has given Jesus the words to speak. What Jesus speaks is “eternal life.” The “commandment” is linked here in the Farewell Discourse to the “example” (or, as I prefer to translate, the “template”) that Jesus gave to the disciples in the Footwashing in chapter 13. (See Moloney, pages 114-115).

Jesus’ obedient practice requires that he will go away into the glorification by crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension which has been the goal of his mission from the beginning. As he prepares to depart in chapter 13, he gives his disciples “a new obedient practice” – that they should love one another. This practice imitates the love Jesus has embodied with and to them. When others see this practice, they will know that the disciples belong to Jesus.

Schrenk does a good job of connecting the scriptural dots for us. “The new factor is not the law of love as such, nor a new degree of love,” he writes, “but its new Christological foundation. They are to love one another as those who are loved by Jesus. They are to actualize the basic love of Jesus. Thus,” he concludes, “the loving self-giving of Jesus is the root and power of the new” love (page 553).

Jesus promises that the disciples (then and now) are not on their own in living out this obedient practice. Instead, we receive another Encourager, “the Spirit of truth” (John 14:15-16). Even though the lectionary committee splits this section of John’s gospel (John 15:1-17) over two Sundays, the passage from John 15:1 through verse 17 is of a piece. “The vine can only be understood in light of its definition as an abiding in love, and the fruitfulness of this love,” Meda Stamper writes, “as described in John 15:16 only makes sense in light of the vine.” The point is that we remain connected to the Vine by the Encourager.

This verse is, among other things, the conclusion to the conversation that began in John 3. God loves the world in a particular way. God sends the Son into the world to die so that the cosmos might have abundant life. In John’s Gospel, Jesus expands on and illustrates that love over and over. It is, for example, the identifying mark of the Good Shepherd that the Good Shepherd lays down the Shepherd’s life for the sheep.

Love, as described in John 15 is, therefore, a set of obedient and intentional practices that flow from our connection to the Vine and make that connection more intimate as we continue our obedient and intentional practices. Loving does not graft us into the Valid Vine. Rather, loving is the clearest sign that we are branches of that Vine and the surest expression of the life we share with that Vine and with the other branches. We did not choose Jesus, after all.

What can it mean to lay down one’s life for one’s “friends?” Clearly, the “friends” Jesus means here are other disciples. That is perhaps too narrow a framework for understanding the whole of New Testament theology, but if we simply started by loving other Christians as an obedient, intentional, and concrete practice, our world might change a great deal.

For example, it is indisputable that some of my Christian co-religionists are Black, Brown, Native, AAPI, and of other ethnic heritages. They are, in terms of John 15, my “friends.” Will we white Christians be willing to give up our power and privilege, our wealth and property (or even some of it), that is, our “lives,” in order to fight the racism that infects our churches and our lives?

Here is a website that lists a number of actions that white people can take to fight racism – “103 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice” (it used to be 75 things, but hey, we’re trainable, right?). If you can’t bring yourself to grapple with the systemic racism that exists in our country (and it does, not matter what some public figures would have us believe), then at least consider taking one or more of these actions because millions of your “friends” will benefit.

At our house, for example, we support through weekly donations a black congregation in our community. I don’t think we’ll ever attend there or be involved in any significant way. That’s for the best. We don’t attach any strings or conditions to the gift. We don’t assume we know anything about how that money should be used. In fact, it’s not a gift at all. It’s repayment on a debt long overdue.

I think every white Christian church should dedicate ten percent of its revenue right off the top for repayment to a congregation or organization rooted in a different heritage and history. If there’s some sort of partnership or relationship that develops, well and good. But connection with and listening to white people should not be a condition for us making the reparations we need to make in order to begin to approach justice.

Perhaps that would be one small step in our obedient practice of loving our friends. If we could make progress on that practice, we might be better positioned to love others as well.

References and Resources.

deSilva, David A. “Patronage and Reciprocity: The Context of Grace in the New Testament.” https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/ashland_theological_journal/31-1_032.pdf.

Eng, D. K. (2021). ‘I Call You Friends’: Jesus as Patron in John 15, Themelios 46.1 (2021), 55-69. Themelios, 46(1), 55–69. https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/i-call-you-friends-jesus-as-patron-in-john-15/.

Moloney, Francis. https://repository.divinity.edu.au/2586/1/Moloney_LoveGospelJohn.pdf.

O’Day, Gail R. “I Have Called You Friends.” Center for Christian Ethics at Baylor University, 2008. https://www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php/61118.pdf.

Stamper, Meda. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/sixth-sunday-of-easter-2/commentary-on-john-159-17-3.

Rodriguez, William. “Love and Friendship in Toy Story 3.” Journal of Religion and Film 14:1 (April 2010). https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1480&context=jrf.

Text Study for John 15:1-17 (Pt. 3); 6 Easter B 2021

“No one has more love than this: that one would lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

John 15:13 is the heart of the Farewell Discourse. It is the heart of John’s gospel as well. As always, John uses the smallest words and the simplest expressions to bring forth the most complex ideas and the deepest experiences. This verse is no different.

First, we can discuss what John is not saying. This is not the language of the Synoptic Gospels. There, Jesus is handed over to death by others. The Greek word can mean “handed over” in the sense of “betrayed” or “presented.”

Jesus notes in Mark 10:45 that the Son of Man came to “give his life as a ransom for many.” The word for “give” is related to the word for “handed over.” In the Synoptics, this death is something that happens to Jesus, and he is obedient to the Father, the one who does the handing over.

That’s not what happens in John’s gospel. Jesus is never the passive victim. He is always the intentional actor. The word that is often translated in John 15:13 as “lay down” is the simple and extremely common Greek word that means “to put, place, or lay” something. This basic sense is the “local” sense of the word. There is no direction built into the term.

There is a second, “transferred,” sense of the word which means to establish, to bring about a specific state, to institute, or even to make. This expression – to put one’s life on behalf of others – is specific to John, as Maurer notes in his TDNT entry (I:152ff.). The expression is found in John 10 (verses 11, 15, 17, and 18), John 13 (verses 37 and 38), here in John 15:13, and in 1 John 3:16.

Maurer writes, “The Greek-Hellenistic parallels…all denote taking a risk rather than full sacrifice of life…” (page 155). But he suggests that the contexts in the Johannine passages make it clear that something more is going on. In the Hebrew scriptures and the Apocrypha, the cognate Hebrew word means “to hazard one’s life” (see Judges 12:3; 1 Samuel 9:15, 28:21; Job 13:14).

We might think that “offer up” is a better translation that “lay down.” But Maurer is not convinced. “Yet the emphasis in all these [Johannine references],” he writes, “is on the actual sacrifice of life…John thus adopts the form of the Greek expression…but gives it a new sense in order thereby to reproduce in his own way the Synoptic” understanding in Mark 10:45 and parallels (page 156).

Maurer suggests, as do others, that John relies (as do the Synoptics) on the description of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53:10 (NRSV) – “Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain. When you make his life an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days; through him the will of the Lord shall prosper.” The phrase the NRSV translates as “offering for sin” Maurer renders as “give as an atonement.” So, we can see the connection to the Synoptic texts.

Yet, the question in interpreting John’s Gospel is always the same. If John wants to say the same thing as the Synoptics, why does John use different words? Before suggesting some responses to that question, perhaps we should take one more look at the different words John uses.

We go back to John 10 and the Good Shepherd imagery. “I am the Honorable Shepherd,” Jesus tells the anxious disciples. “The Honorable Shepherd lays down his life for the sake of the sheep” (John 10:11, my translation). We have the same word here for “lays down,” although it is in the indicative rather than the subjunctive mood. This is certainly what the Honorable Shepherd does.

It’s interesting that early copyists weren’t entirely comfortable with the wording. A few early manuscripts substitute the word for “give” in place of the word translated as “lays down.” It seems likely that these early scribes wanted John to be more consistent with the Synoptic “atonement” story and thus made the terminology more consistent.

John’s Gospel, however, is not having it. The insistence that the Honorable Shepherd is the active agent is heightened in John 10:14-15. “I am the Honorable Shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me,” John writes, “just as the Father knows me and I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sake of the sheep.” Jesus is not acted upon but acts willingly and with intention.

Again, a few early manuscripts aren’t crazy about this Johannine innovation and seek to substitute “give” for “lay down.” To finish off the point, however, Jesus makes it emphatic in verses 17 and 18. “Through this the Father loves me,” Jesus continues, “that I lay down my life, in order that I take it (up?) again.” There is no question of an “outside actor.”

One wonders how the early copyists could make the change they did, given the context. “No one takes it up from me, but rather I lay it down on my own. I have the authority to lay it down, and I have the authority to take it (up?) again” (John 10:18, my translation). Twice in these verses, the first-person pronoun is emphatic – almost as if John is anticipating the objections of the future copyists.

Not only is Jesus the active agent in putting his life at risk for the sake of the world, but no one else can do what he does. At the end of John 13, Peter declares that he will follow Jesus immediately. But that cannot happen. Peter declares that he will lay down his life for Jesus. That will happen later, but first comes a dark chapter.

Peter makes his promise, and Jesus makes the prediction of Peter’s denial. Only Jesus can walk this path. Only later can disciples follow, once the way has been opened.

That way of discipleship is then described in 1 John 3:16. If the preacher focuses on John 15:13, it will border on homiletical malpractice to miss the chance to include the First John reference as a way to interpret the Gospel text. The paragraph begins with a reference to Cain and the murder of Abel, his brother (Genesis 4:8). That image is used to describe the way “the world” views human relationships – that we are not our brother’s and sister’s keepers.

“We know that we have crossed over from death into life,” John writes in his letter, “because we love the siblings. The one who does not love abides in death” (1 John 3:14, my translation). Love for the siblings is evidence that the Resurrection life fills us here and now.

Those who do not embody that love are still in the tribe of Cain. “Every one who hates their sibling is a murderer,” John declares, “and we know that every murderer does not have eternal life abiding in them” (1 John 3:15, my translation).

Now we come to the words important for our reflection. “In this we have know (and continue to know) love, that He has laid down his life for our sakes,” John asserts. Then comes the application of the principle for disciples. “And we are obliged to lay down [our lives] for the sake of the siblings” (1 John 3:16, my translation). The words spoken to Peter in John 13 are now put to work in the Johannine community.

We should not think that somehow this laying down of our lives is theoretical or non-specific. The writer of John’s first letter moves to the compelling conclusion in the form of a rhetorical question. “The one who has life from the world and sees their sibling having a need and closes off their guts to that one – how does God’s love abide in them?” (1 John 3:17, my translation).

Let’s take a moment to pause with this verse. The “murderer” gets life (Greek = bios, not psyche) from the “world,” not from God. This one sees (as in “observes,” not merely “perceives”) a sibling who is having (ongoing) needs. The murderer closes off their guts – the location of compassionate response – to the one in need. Such a one cannot be a location where the love God has for the world dwells and remains. In every sense, then, the murderer is the one who not only does not give up one’s life for the sake of a friend. In the act of closing oneself off to the needs of the sibling, one commits murder of a sibling in precisely the way Cain did.

Verse 18 begins a new paragraph in the NRSV. It works best, however, as the conclusion to the preceding paragraph. “Little children,” the writer of 1 John summarizes, “let us love neither merely in reason nor in talking but rather in authentic action” (1 John 3:18, my translation).

This is the practical punchline for what “no greater love” looks like in the life of the disciple. Laying down one’s life for the sake of the Other is what eternal life looks like here and now.

References and Resources.

deSilva, David A. “Patronage and Reciprocity: The Context of Grace in the New Testament.” https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/ashland_theological_journal/31-1_032.pdf.

O’Day, Gail R. “I Have Called You Friends.” Center for Christian Ethics at Baylor University, 2008. https://www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php/61118.pdf.

Stamper, Meda. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/sixth-sunday-of-easter-2/commentary-on-john-159-17-3. Rodriguez, William. “Love and Friendship in Toy Story 3.” Journal of Religion and Film 14:1 (April 2010). https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1480&context=jrf.

Text Study for John 15:9-17 (Pt. 2); 6 Easter B 2021

For contemporary Americans, friendship is usually a relationship between relative social equals. That is not the case in the ancient Greco-Roman world. D. K. Eng frames the idea of “friendship” in John 15 within the social constructs of the patronage system in Greco-Roman culture.

Eng argues that “friend” here “describes a subordinate relationship defined by obligation.” John’s Gospel has been used to illustrate how the ancient systems of honor and shame, and of patron/client hierarchy, work in and through the social world of the New Testament. I have often relied, for example, on the work of Malina and Rohrbaugh in this regard.

The patron was superior to the client in terms of social status. That status was key to the resources of honor and shame as well as access to good and services and the network of power and influence. Clients asked for favors. Patrons might grant those requests. When that happened a relationship of mutuality was created where the clients owed the patrons honor and the patrons were responsible to act on behalf of the clients.

Since the term “client” was regarded as a demeaning label, patrons often referred to their clients as “friends.” Eng argues that the Farewell Discourse has the following elements: that the disciples are Jesus’ subordinates; that the move from “slave” to “friend” is part of the patron/client system; that Jesus functions as a “broker” between the disciples and God; and that Jesus is, in fact, a “royal patron” who appoints regents in his stead and who, by giving his life for his friends, outdoes the greatest patron in the world of the time, Caesar.

The image of the Vine and the Branches is one example of the superior/subordinate relationship in the Discourse. The branches are dependent on the vine for life and can do nothing without the Vine. As subordinates they are obliged to obey their teacher and lord. Eng points to Jesus’ words about the move from slaves to friends as further evidence of the hierarchical relationship in Jesus’ description.

The relationship between the freed person and the former master involved continuing obedience to the former master and a heightened involvement in the life and affairs of the master. “Jesus gives them full disclosure of what he has heard from the Father,” Eng notes, “elevating them from slave status. While they are expected to obey, they do so with revelation. With an understanding of the affairs of Jesus and the Father, they are not mere extensions of a master.”

O’Day comments on this dimension as well. Friends could expect to engage in “frank speech,” plain talking, with friends – even when those friends were social superiors. “According to Hellenistic philosophers,” O’Day writes, “to be someone’s friend was to speak frankly and honestly to them and to hold nothing back.” Jesus no longer calls the disciples “slaves” (he never did, really, but for his purposes of teaching, the image works), instead he calls them “friends” – “because I have made everything known to you that I have heard from the Father.”

This “frank speech” is a mark of genuine friendship in the ancient Mediterranean world. It is also, as O’Day points out, a source of the disciples’ capacity to be friends with Jesus and with one another. “Jesus’ openness is a model of how we are to treat one another,” O’Day writes, “but is also provides the well-spring that makes our acts of friendship possible” (2008, page 26).

In this time when truth is subordinated to power, when paranoia is a practical strategy, and when friendship is sacrificed on the altar of political allegiance, the plain-speaking confidence of friendship described here is a radical idea, empowered and called forth by Jesus’ friendship with disciples.

O’Day points to the “promotion” from “slaves” to “friends” as the gift of partnership with Jesus in the mission of the gospel and “the source of the disciples’ capacity for friendship” (2008, page 26). Moreover, this gift and capacity equip us to regard all others as “friends” in Christ. She suggests that such friendship “assumes that everyone with whom we speak is our partner and companion.”

Such open speech can be transformative for both parties in the communication “because in holding nothing back, the speaker acts in the intimacy and trust of transformative love. The speaker risks herself in the speaking,” she concludes, “the listener risks himself in the hearing” (2008, page 27).

Eng wants us to see this language of friendship in a “royal” context. The Farewell Discourse comes after the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem. The disciples are called into friendship with the “king.” This discussion of friendship comes after the Good Shepherd imagery which, as we noted in discussing that text, contains royal imagery. The “shepherd” was a standard picture of ancient Israelite kings. Eng notes that “friend of the king” is a typical label in much of the ancient world for a loyal subordinate.

He goes on to note that the title “friend of Caesar” was well-known in the first century imperial system. It is even mentioned later in John, when Pilate is threatened with the idea that he might “be no friend of Caesar” (John 19:12). To be a “friend of Caesar,” therefore, was not merely to be a loyal subordinate. In fact, if Pilate is a model, such “friends” were empowered to act on behalf of the ruler as regents. Once again, as in the case of the frank speech, we see that this friendship is about partnership in the ruling enterprise as well as companionship.

Eng discusses how Jesus hands the authority of this partnership over to the disciples during the Farewell Discourse. That is precisely one of the themes of the discourse. The disciples “are no longer slaves, but friends. The disciples are expected to respond by fulfilling their commission to love one another and bear fruit. Their loyalty is to Jesus in his absence,” Eng writes, “in the same way that Pilate’s loyalty is expected by Caesar in his absence.”

Caesar is described, therefore, as an imitation of and antitype to Jesus. His disciples are the real “friends of the king” and are commissioned to act on his behalf. “Jesus declares the disciples are to act as his loyal client-kings or emissaries,” Eng writes. “His prediction of his departure and commissioning of his disciples to obedience point to the same type of relationship that Pilate has with Caesar. They are to act in place of Jesus, not as slaves,” he concludes, “but as honored friends.”

What does it mean to be “slaves” in the ancient Mediterranean? In Greek philosophy, a slave is not a person. Orlando Patterson (1982) made it clear that to become a slave is to suffer “social death.” He describes this in detail. “Perhaps the most distinctive attribute of the slave’s powerlessness,” he writes in Enslavement and Social Death, “was that it always originated (or was conceived of as having originated) as a substitute for death, usually a violent death.” The cultural rationale was that if the person had not been enslaved, the person would be dead. “Archetypically,” Patterson continues, “enslavement was a substitute for death in war. But almost as frequently, the death commuted was punishment for some capital offense, or death from exposure or starvation.”

Since the enslaved person had died—in principle or theory, at least—the slave could then be treated as having died the death that mattered. “Because the slave had no socially recognized existence outside his master,” Patterson concludes, “he became a social nonperson.” So, enslaved persons in the ancient world are regarded as “bodies” rather than people. Enslaved persons by definition do not have an inner life or what Greek philosophers might regard as a “soul.” Enslaved persons are “animated tools” but have no independent existence. Enslaved persons are regarded as relatively intelligent livestock—“cattle on two feet,” as the Greeks put it.

J. B. Harrill notes some development of this idea in Roman law and philosophy. Romans believed that enslaved persons had some measure of interior life, but it was not independent of the wishes and needs of the master. “The Roman notion of mastery,” he writes, “defined the ideal slave not in terms of obedience to individual commands of the master but in terms of having accepted the master’s wishes so fully that the slave’s innermost self could anticipate the master’s wishes and take the initiative. Romans,” he concludes, “did not want automatons for their enslaved persons.” They did not, however, want them to be full-fledged persons either.

Jesus, in John 15, moves disciples from social death of slaves to life as regents of the Divine Realm! And he describes this as the definition of the mission of disciples in the world. But what about this dying business? More on that in the next post.

References and Resources.

deSilva, David A. “Patronage and Reciprocity: The Context of Grace in the New Testament.” https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/ashland_theological_journal/31-1_032.pdf.

O’Day, Gail R. “I Have Called You Friends.” Center for Christian Ethics at Baylor University, 2008. https://www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php/61118.pdf.

Stamper, Meda. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/sixth-sunday-of-easter-2/commentary-on-john-159-17-3.

Rodriguez, William. “Love and Friendship in Toy Story 3.” Journal of Religion and Film 14:1 (April 2010). https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1480&context=jrf.

Text Study for John 15:9-17 (Pt. 1); 6 Easter B 2021

We have moved from Good Shepherd Sunday to Valid Vine Sunday and now on to Faithful Friend Sunday in our Easter meditation. I imagine that lectionary-compliant preachers will, at least in some places, wax rhapsodic about the joys and virtues of friendship – with Jesus and with one another.

Many of us will sing “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” with a small tear in the eye and twinge in the memories. As we do so, by the way, I think we ought to remember how many times this hymn is sung at Christian funerals. So, we should expect that some people will be taken back to the pain and promise of those moments and the re-visiting of griefs, some still quite fresh perhaps. This is always the price we pay for using beloved hymns in our regular services – for some worshippers, they are always bittersweet at best.

Can we find a friend so faithful

Who will all our sorrows share?

Jesus knows our every weakness

Take it to the Lord in prayer

The hymn captures a bit of the spirit of our paragraph in John 15. It focuses almost exclusively, however, on the benefits of friendship with Jesus. Our text focuses much more, in fact, on the responsibilities that accrue to that friendship. Those responsibilities are about “bearing fruit,” which takes us back to the previous paragraph describing Jesus as the Valid Vine and disciples as the productive branches.

As we meditate on Jesus’ friendship with his disciples, we may also catch ourselves humming “You’ve Got a Friend in Me,” from the Toy Story film franchise. I have been a Randy Newman devotee since 1980, when I first heard “He Gives Us All His Love.” I’m more a fan now of things like “Putin puttin’ his pants on/ One leg at a time…” But with the Toy Story theme, Newman grabbed a whole new generation of fans.

You’ve got a friend in me

When the road looks rough ahead

And you’re miles and miles

From your nice warm bed

You just remember what your old pal said

Boy, you’ve got a friend in me

Yeah, you’ve got a friend in me

If you head down this path, you might want to read the Rodriguez article listed in the “References and Resources.” It’s a helpful and insightful review of the Toy Story movies from the friendship angle (as well as from other vantage points). The author sees illustrations in the films that might be helpful for interpreting our text and doing so in ways that will connect with people at an emotional and visceral level. Understanding friendship as the willingness to sacrifice life for the sake of another is indeed a theme in those films.

That being said, the temptation is to take what we think we know about friendship and to make Jesus the best example of that relationship. If we do that, we will have lovely homilies that attract several smiles and copious compliments. We can easily work in the required pious platitudes about mothers, since we will also (at least in some places) be observing one of the High Holy Days of white supremacist civil religion – Mother’s Day (more about the racism connection to the day later, perhaps).

If we do all that, we will go home reassured and relaxed. And we won’t have preached the text.

Jesus’ relationship with disciples as friends is not an example of the human phenomenon of friendship. Nor is it the prime or supreme or perfect example of that human experience. Friendship doesn’t define Jesus. Jesus defines friendship – for his disciples, including us. “For Jesus [at least in John’s Gospel],” Gail O’Day writes, “friendship is the ultimate relationship with God and one another” (2008, page 20).

The first challenge we face as interpreters is that our contemporary understanding of friendship is not the same as the understanding of friendship in the first-century Mediterranean world. In the ancient world, Malina and Rohrbaugh write, “Friendship is a reciprocal affair, with friends mutually seeking the well-being of one another” (page 236). So far, so good. But for us, friendship is usually a relationship between relative social equals. That is not the case in the ancient Greco-Roman world. More on that in the next post.

“For modern readers,” O’Day writes, “Jesus’ definition of love and friendship in John 15:13 – to lay down one’s life for one’s friend – is completely unprecedented…In the ancient world, however,” she continues, “Jesus’ words articulated a well-known ideal for friendship, not a brand new idea” (2008, 21). The notion that a friend would lay down one’s life on behalf of another goes back at least to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.

Therefore, O’Day argues, Jesus is portrayed in John first as the “model” of friendship. She might have noted Jesus’ words in John 13 when he tells the disciples he has given them an “example” in washing their feet (O’Day will discuss this act of friendship later in the article). The word there would probably be better translated as “model” or “pattern” or (best of all, I think) “template.” Jesus doesn’t merely describe this template for friendship, but rather embodies that template in his whole life.

“What distinguished Jesus’ words from this ideal [as described in Aristotle, for example], was not their content,” O’Day suggests, “but the fact that Jesus did not merely talk about laying down his life for his friends. Jesus enacted the ancient ideal of friendship,” she asserts, “he lay down his life for his friends. Jesus’ whole life,” she concludes, “is an incarnation of the ideal of friendship” (page 22). I would substitute “the” for “an” in the previous sentence. That’s what makes it Gospel.

O’Day notes that Jesus illustrates this ideal in the figures of speech concerning the Gate of the Sheep and the Good Shepherd in John 10. He enacts this template, as noted above, in the “sacrament of friendship” (O’Day’s term, page 25) we know as The Footwashing in chapter 13. He presses Peter to think through what friendship with Jesus means as they walk together on the beach in John 21. And in his passion and death, he embodies and enacts God’s love for the cosmos, described in John 3:16.

In this template, Jesus calls and invites his disciples to live as friends with Jesus, friends with one another, and friends with those whom they serve. “Jesus is our model for friendship – because he loved without limits,” O’Day writes, “and he makes it possible for us to live a life of friendship – because we have been transformed by everything he shared with us. Through friendship,” she continues, “we come to know God and through friendship we enact the love of God. We can risk,” she suggests, “being friends because Jesus has been a friend to us” (2008, page 27).

O’Day is not arguing that Jesus’ friendship is one example of human friendship in general. In that regard, it is indeed unique. What she means is that Jesus’ friendship as a capacity to be a friend is something he shares with disciples. “This love can be replicated and embodies over and over again by his followers,” she notes. “To keep Jesus’ commandment is to enact his love in our own lives” (2008, 23).

Loving one another as friends of Jesus, therefore, is not a “work” in a Lutheran sort of sense. It is rather the fruit of that friendship. It is not an accomplishment but rather evidence. It is not so much obedience as it is productivity.

Next time, we will expand and build further upon O’Day’s insights and those of several other commentators.

References and Resources.

deSilva, David A. “Patronage and Reciprocity: The Context of Grace in the New Testament.” https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/ashland_theological_journal/31-1_032.pdf.

O’Day, Gail R. “I Have Called You Friends.” Center for Christian Ethics at Baylor University, 2008. https://www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php/61118.pdf.

Stamper, Meda. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/sixth-sunday-of-easter-2/commentary-on-john-159-17-3.

Rodriguez, William. “Love and Friendship in Toy Story 3.” Journal of Religion and Film 14:1 (April 2010). https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1480&context=jrf.

A Little Warm-up for Next Week (Because I’m busy in the garden)

Friends; John 15:9-17

“No one has greater love than this,” Jesus tells his disciples, “to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” That seems like a depressing little sentence in the waning weeks of Easter. All things considered, Jesus, I’d rather not…you know, lay down my life, if I could help it. Maybe you could find someone else for the job.

A mother made pancakes for her son Kevin, and his younger brother Ryan. The boys began to argue over who would get the first pancake. Mom saw the opportunity for a moral lesson. “If Jesus were sitting here,” she told them, “He would say, ‘Let my brother have the first pancake. I can wait.'”

Kevin considered this for a moment. Then he turned to his younger brother and said, “Ryan, how about you be Jesus!”

“You are my friends,” Jesus tells his disciples, “if you do what I command you.” That command is this laying down my life business. It’s no wonder that St. Teresa of Avila once shouted to God, “If this is how You treat your friends, now wonder why You have so few of them!”

All this lay down your life stuff gets pretty grim–except for one thing. Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia! When Jesus talks about laying down a life for friends, this is no academic exercise. He speaks these words just hours before he puts them into action. No one has greater love has no one than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

Jesus calls you “friend.” That’s the point today. Jesus calls you “friend.”

If my calendar is correct, it’s still Easter. We’re still celebrating the death AND resurrection of Jesus. God brings new life out of that death. So that’s what we should expect from God now. Self-giving love produces death-defeating life.

A few weeks ago we heard that Jesus loves us to death–to the point of his own death. Why is that? C. S. Lewis talks about this in his book, The Four Loves. “To love at all is to be vulnerable,” he writes. “Love anything,” he continues,

and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”

God would rather die than spend eternity without you. Jesus calls you “friend.”

Now, let me put a comma in that sentence. Jesus calls you, friend. That is, Jesus calls you and me to live as his friends. Let me illustrate this.

Jesus says, “But I have called you friends…” Brenda and I are “Friends of Iowa Public Television.” We enjoy the programs on IPTV. We receive regular program updates and a monthly program guide. We have a Friends discount card. We get invited to Friends events. We support IPTV financially.

It’s an odd sort of friendship. We don’t really connect with a lot of other people. Instead, we connect with a mission and a set of values. Being friends of Jesus is like that. Jesus names us as friends. And Jesus chooses us to live as his friends.

Living as Jesus’ friends means loving like Jesus loves. That means laying down our lives in various ways for others. It means that we pay attention to the real needs of others. Let me illustrate.

The stranger approached the pastor after service and said, “I’d like you to pray for my hearing.” The pastor placed his hands on the man’s ears and said a passionate, earnest prayer. “How’s your hearing now?” the pastor asked. Looking surprised, the man said, “Well, it’s not until tomorrow.”

It would have been better if the pastor listened a bit more before assuming and acting. Laying down our lives means paying attention to the real needs of others.

This wildly countercultural. In our culture, the purpose of existence is to be happy as an individual. That is not the purpose of human existence as far as Jesus is concerned. The purpose of human existence is to bear the fruit of God’s love.

That may include giving up a life for a friend. That may include enduring discomfort in order to serve. That may include making space for someone else in our pews, our congregation and—most important—our lives.

The purpose of existence is not to minimize individual suffering and maximize individual pleasure. The purpose of human existence is to mirror God’s self-giving love into and for the sake of all Creation. That is not the value system of modern, neoliberal, unfettered capitalism.

Jesus says, “You did not choose me but I chose you.” God is not as choosy as I am about this friends business. We forget where we start in this arrangement. In Romans 5 Paul reminds us that we are weak, ungodly, even God’s enemies, because of the power of sin. Remember what a motley crew sits in Jesus’ audience in John 15. We would probably be much more selective.

Jesus calls us friends. This is more than mere naming. This is about our purpose in life. Baptism, for example, concludes with vocation. “Let your light so shine before others,” we say to the baptized, “that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”

Jesus says, “And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last…” What will we leave that lasts? Will it be a daycare center, a retreat center, a thriving congregation? We know this is about God’s faithfulness in Jesus. God’s word will not return empty. Jesus appoints us to leave fruit that lasts.

You are chosen. You are chosen to bear fruit. You are chosen to bear fruit that lasts. Jesus calls us friends. Let us pray that we live up our name…

Un-Self-Made — Saturday Sermons from the Sidelines

John 15:1-8; 5 Easter B 2021

“I am the Vine, and you are the branches,” Jesus tells his disciples. “The one who abides in me and I in that one, that one bears much fruit…” So far, so good. Now comes one of the most “un-American” statements in the Christian scriptures. When we abide in Jesus, the Valid Vine, we will bear much fruit “because apart from me, you are unable to do anything” (John 15:5).

“America” has often been described as more of an idea than a country. In fact, the idea of America is filled with myths and useful half-truths as well as a great deal of real history. One of those myths is the “Story of the Self-made Man.”

Wikipedia notes that the phrase was first uttered in official records “on February 2, 1842 by Henry Clay in the United States Senate, to describe individuals whose success lay within the individuals themselves, not with outside conditions.” Clay was holding forth on the values and virtues of American industry and wealth in a “free market” system. He argued that government should protect the ability of such industry to be “self-made.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-made_man).

Perhaps you see the irony already.

It is an interesting turn of phrase to come from Clay’s mouth. He was the inheritor of slaves, land, and some social position. Even though his family fell on hard times briefly, his widowed mother remarried well. That second marriage increased Clay’s access to wealth, privilege, and – most of all – political power and connections. Clay certainly made the most of what he received and served the national government honorably and well.

The myth of the self-made man, however, is the very essence of the system of white, male supremacy and inherited privilege.

Even though the phrase was coined in the 1840’s, it was in the 1930’s to the 1950’s that the myth really took hold. Just at the time when white American men received more outside help than at any other time in history, the mythology of the self-made man came to greatest prominence.

In the age of Depression-era jobs programs, the GI Bill, federal encouragement of white, male, home ownership, and postwar protection of jobs for white men, the very same men asserted with vehemence and violence that they owed nothing to no one (the double negative is in the Greek of John 15:5 and works in Greek even if it doesn’t in “standard” English).

“Apart from me, you are unable to do anything,” Jesus says. The clash with the mythology of the self-made man is obvious and therefore must be suppressed.

This mythology is part of the “America” to which Donald Trump longed to return in his slogan “Make America Great Again.” It was more than a desire to make America “white again,” although that is certainly part of it. It was more than a desire to make American “male again,” although that is also certainly part of it.

It is the desire to make un-white and un-male America the invisible and unnamed basis for claims to white, male self-sufficiency. Claims to the contrary are attacked with vehemence and violence. After all, that is another part of what it means to “make America great again.” We witnessed that part of supposed American “greatness” on January 6, 2021, in the United States capitol.

Why is this myth so seductive? And why does challenging that myth produce such a violent and vitriolic response? First, the myth of the self-made man means that I get the credit for any and all successes. And I don’t have to share that credit with anyone. After all, “I did it my way.” The Paul Anka lyrics have served as propaganda for presidents from Nixon to Reagan to Trump.

The myth can’t be sustained, of course. No one is a self-made anything. But the more it becomes clear that we didn’t do it all on our own, the louder we say we did.

It’s no accident that Rick Santorum assumes the Doctrine of Discovery (the theological and political background of the self-made myth) in remarks to an audience at the Young Americans Foundation. If there was nothing here when “we” arrived, then by golly we must have built it all ourselves! Hurrah for us (white, land-owning, men)!

“We came here and created a blank slate,” he told his audience. “We birthed a nation from nothing. I mean, there was nothing here.” History has a way of calling stupidity into question, so Santorum tried to qualify his comment, only to make it even worse. “I mean, yes we have Native Americans,” he admitted, “but candidly there isn’t much Native American culture in American culture.”

The price of the myth of the self-made man (and the self-made country) is twofold. On the one hand, others matter only if they are useful commodities – like Africans who were enslaved by the self-made. On the other hand, those who refuse to be useful must be erased from history, memory, and moral calculus.

This is the story of white, male treatment of Native Americans. When Santorum says we “created a blank slate,” he was actually quite right. The “slate” wasn’t “blank” until Native Americans were removed and erased from the frame.

This brings us to the second reason why this myth is so seductive. If I am self-made, then I have permission to simply not give a shit about anyone else. Especially, I am permitted – no, required – to ignore anyone who might need some help to get ahead. After all, I did on my own, right? Why can’t you?

Perhaps the myth of the self-made man goes all the way back to Cain. Am I my brother’s and sister’s keeper? The myth says, no – of course not. Hebrew and Christian scriptures beg to differ.

So, the myth of the self-made man is binary and dualistic. It is the war of all against all. Others are at best commodities to be consumed. Others are most likely enemies to be erased.

“Apart from me,” Jesus says, “you are unable to do anything.” In our American mythology, this is bad news. But in the Christian worldview, this is the best news possible. Remember, Jesus first says, “I am the Vine, and you are the branches.”

We don’t have to do anything apart from Jesus. He is the Vine, and we are the branches. When we abide in him, we will bear much fruit.

For those who don’t think this connection to Jesus matters, I probably don’t have much of any interest to share. You may wish to listen further out of curiosity. Or not. But I have a bit more to say.

We Christians have some elementary sense of what we think Jesus does for us. Through Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension, God has defeated the powers of sin, death, and evil. The battles are not done, but the outcome of the struggle is not in doubt. As a Jesus follower, I receive the benefits of forgiveness, life, and salvation (of course, I believe that everyone else gets those benefits too).

That’s what Jesus does for us. Many Christians never go further than that. I’m so glad, they think, that God has had the good sense to rescue me and preserve my life for eternity. I’m glad (at least in theory) to share that good news with others. That being said, please let me get on with my self-making project.

If that’s all that’s happening, then it’s not really good news for anyone else. But the for part is only half the gospel.

The other half is what Jesus does through us. That’s what is really at stake in this image of the Vine and the branches. God works in us and through us to give abundant life to the world in the here and now. The life we receive in Jesus empowers us to pass that life on. In fact, passing it on is what “abundant life” really means! So I should ask myself each day — How am I being good news for others?

That’s not just a metaphor or a nice idea. It’s how we do church. I am not a self-made Christian. My parents and the generations before them have given me the gift of faith and tradition, piety and practice, that make me in large part what I am. People have gone out of their way to help me accomplish things in life. I’d like to take credit for this life, but I can’t. Naming and thanking all the people who have made me would take more time and space than this meditation!

Self-made is not “God-made.” The best we can do on our own is to produce lives that are knock-offs, cheap imitations of the Abundant Life. The best we can do is produce a life that looks like cut flowers – pretty for a while but destined for death in the end.

“Apart from me,” Jesus says, “you are unable to do anything.” For us as Jesus followers, that’s the good news.

My experience of being filled with Jesus’ life is that I end up doing things I never thought possible. Rarely do I do those things alone. Never do I do those things without help. But that makes them no less valuable. The corollary of Jesus’ words here is Paul’s statement in his letter to the Philippians – “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”

When we are abiding together on the Vine – when we are helping one another to flourish and grow and be fruitful – that’s when we are most like Jesus. When we have the opportunity to help another, we should jump at the chance. It’s another opportunity to live the Abundant Life. When we have the opportunity to be helped by another, we should jump at the chance. That’s the Abundant Life flowing through the Vine as well.

The call today is to be Unself Made. That’s where the real Life is.

Text Study for John 15:1-11 (Pt. 3); 5 Easter B 2021

I will always remember the wondering of an ex-offender who came to faith in Christ and was enthusiastically baptized. Not long after, he came to me with a question that troubled him. He was worried about “backsliding” and falling away from the faith. He was tempted by his old ways of life and didn’t want to risk losing out on salvation. Wouldn’t it be better, he wondered, if the Lord took us to heaven right after we were baptized? After all, why risk anything further?

That question represents the hidden wondering, I suspect, of many western Christians. Once we get past Holy Week and Easter, what’s the rest of it for? Now that Jesus has done the important stuff, perhaps all that comes after is sort of beside the point. Is Jesus good for anything more now than a label for our particular club and the Divine signature on our eternal life policy?

The Vine and the Branches can allow us to think a bit about this question. It may seem that we’re going to engage in some theological mumbo-jumbo, but we need that clear and disciplined thinking to make sense out of this. We can talk for a bit about the “Person” and the “Work” of Jesus Christ and what that means for our life as people of the Spirit-filled Resurrection. What happens “after Easter” seems like a good topic for reflection and proclamation this week.

Many Protestant Christians know a fair bit about the “work” of Christ. The Work of Christ refers primarily the justification of sinners which God brings about through the victory over death won by Christ on his cross and in his resurrection.

In a simple sense, the Work of Christ is what God does in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit for us. In that Work, God sets us right with God and one another so we can be in right relationship with God, with one another, and with the whole cosmos.

We tend to think less about the “person” of Christ. The Person of Christ refers to the presence of the risen Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit in the cosmos and in each creature. Again, in a simple sense, the Person of Christ is what God does in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit in us and through us.

In classical (and over-simplified) Lutheran terms, the Work of Christ is justification. The Person of Christ is about sanctification. We can debate about this description, as Lutherans have for 500 years. But it’s close enough for our purposes here.

The figure of speech we know as “The Vine and the Branches” is more about the Person of Christ than it is about the Work of Christ. It is more about sanctification than it is about justification. It is more about being “right” (righteous, whole, fully human) than getting “right” (righteous, whole, fully human). The figure of speech is more about how the Vine works in us and less about what the Vine does for us.

That in-dwelling, especially in John’s gospel, is always a mutual relationship. Christ dwells/abides/remains in me, and I dwell/abide/remain in Christ. That mutual relationship can produce some convoluted sentences to try to describe the connections.

In fact, the image of the Vine and the Branches conveys the relationship far better than the prose descriptions in John (which tend to sound like theological word salad in English). And that image reminds us that our mutual indwelling with Christ mirrors the mutual indwelling between the Father and the Son (and, by implication, the Spirit).

As I have noted in other contexts, I find the work of Tuomo Mannermaa and his Finnish school of Luther interpretation both helpful and exciting in this regard. Mannermaa points to Luther’s assertion that Christ is present in the justified sinner by faith.

I am not only “declared righteous” (thank God, that is most certainly true). In addition, and as a result, I am being “made righteous” as Christ works in me by the power of the Spirit (thank God, that is also most certainly true). In language that our Eastern siblings would well understand, we are both saved once and for all, and being saved day by day.

Mannermaa points to Luther’s 1535 commentary on Galatians as one of many locations for this line of thought. “For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God,” Paul writes in Galatians 2:19. The outcome of this death is that “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh,” Paul concludes, “I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Mannermaa describes this as “Christ present in faith.” He doesn’t mean a symbolic or metaphorical presence but rather a real, ontological presence. That’s important for the discussion here. “Christ in me” isn’t merely a symbol or a metaphor. It isn’t something I accomplish through devotion or thinking or imagination. That’s what actually happens when we are baptized into Christ.

The “I” of sin, of being curved in on oneself, is put to death in the cross of Christ. That “I” is being replaced with Christ who lives in me. Paul doesn’t mean that, somehow, I am obliterated as a person. Rather, he means that through the presence of Christ, I am being made into the fully human person I was created to be. The fully human person I was created to be is made for union with God in Christ by the power of the Spirit.

Mannermaa puts it this way. “It is important to appreciate that the conquest of the forces of sin and destruction takes place within Christ’s own person. He won the battle between righteousness and sin ‘in himself,’” Mannermaa declares. “Sin, death, and curse are first conquered in the person of Christ, and ‘thereafter’ the whole of creation is to be transformed through his person. Salvation is participation in the person of Christ” (Kindle Locations 317-319, my emphasis).

My righteousness is certainly a declarative (“forensic”) justification. It is also, Mannermaa asserts, a performative (“ontological”) justification. Luther often talks about this reality as the “Wonderful Exchange.” Christ takes the powers of sin, death, and the devil that live in me and absorbs them into himself. There, those powers are defeated. In exchange, I receive forgiveness, life, and salvation for Jesus’ sake and through his presence.

Mannermaa writes, “What takes place here between Christ and the believer is a kind of communication of attributes: Christ, the divine righteousness, truth, peace, joy, love, power, and life, gives himself to the Christian. At the same time,” he notes, “Christ ‘absorbs’ the believer’s sin, death, and curse into himself” (Kindle Locations 329-330).

“I am the vine, you are the branches,” Jesus tells his disciples. “Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). It is hard to articulate a closer actual and physical connection than that between the vine and the branches.

The branches draw their life from the vine. In a physical, as well as theological and spiritual, sense, the vine is present in each and all of the branches. This is the relationship Jesus promises, offers, and creates in all who follow him.

Therefore, according to Luther, the Wonderful Exchange is not only a removal of sin, death, and the devil, to be replaced by forgiveness, life, and salvation. What happens is, in fact, a “communication of attributes.” This is a technical theological term that up until Luther was typically applied to the relationships between members of the Trinity. But for Luther, it describes what happens to us when we mutually indwell with Christ in faith.

“It is precisely the Christ present in justifying faith who communicates God’s saving attributes to the believer in the ‘happy exchange,’” Mannermaa writes. “God is righteousness, and in faith the human being participates in righteousness; God is joy, and in faith the human being participates in joy; God is life, and in faith the human being participates in life; God is power, and in faith the human being participates in power, and so forth” (Kindle Locations 397-400).

This understanding of our relationship with God in Christ by the power of the Spirit helps me to hear “The Vine and the Branches” as sweet gospel rather than merely an opaque metaphor. Jesus makes this promise of himself to the first disciples and to all disciples who come after.

The Father tends the Vine in order to give life to the Vine, and in that life, we branches find and have our life as well. We are invited to abide in the Valid Vine as Beloved Branches, to remain connected and nourished and growing in him. With that mutual exchange of life and love, we can bear fruit. We can become all that God created us to be from the beginning. Why would we wish for anything else?

I wish I had come across the work of the Finns sooner, but I’m glad to find it now. The presence and power of the Messiah is present in us and in me by the power of the Life-giving Spirit. We draw our abundant life from the Vine.

We are made of the “same stuff” as the Vine as well! For Mannermaa, this means that Luther’s view was relatively close to the Eastern view of salvation as theosis, becoming more and more like Christ (“divinized”) in our union with him.

What is our life after justification good for? The Love of God is poured into us. But it is also poured out through us. That’s why we’re here – to be fruitful branches. In that fruit-bearing, we find more and more of the abundant life promised to us.

Life on the Vine (there’s a sermon title for you — no extra charge) is intensely personal and intimate. It is also of necessity communal. Jesus doesn’t say I am the vine, and you (singular) are a branch. We are branches together.

I can tell you that the last thirteen months of pandemic piety have confirmed both realities in me. I have been nourished as a branch through deeper study, reflection, and prayer. I have been reminded that life as a solo branch cannot be enough to sustain me for the long haul. We are branches together.

You can certainly use the story of the Ethiopian eunuch as an illustration of what happens when we’re brought into Life on the Vine. The second reading has some great lines as well to flesh this out (pun intended) further.

References and Resources

Brooks, Gennifer Benjamin. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fifth-sunday-of-easter-2/commentary-on-john-151-8-5.

Bruce, F.F. The Gospel of John: A Verse-by-Verse Exposition. Kingsley Books. Kindle Edition.

Lewis, C. S. The Last Battle. New York: HarperCollins, 1984.

Lewis, Karoline. “On Withering” (April 23, 2018) https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/on-withering.

Malina, Bruce, and Rohrbaugh, Richard. Social-Science Commentary on the Gospel of John. Minneapolis, MN.: Fortress Press, 1998.

Tuomo Mannermaa; Kirsi Irmeli Stjerna. Christ Present in Faith: Luther’s View of Justification. Kindle Edition.

Vena, Osvaldo. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fifth-sunday-of-easter-2/commentary-on-john-151-8-4.

Text Study for John 15:1-17 (Pt. 2); 5 Easter B 2021

“I am the Valid Vine,” Jesus declares to his disciples, “and my Father is the Vinedresser.” Various forms of the Greek word for “truth” are found in John’s gospel – some thirty-five instances in all. These instances are especially associated with Jesus’ assertions of identity as the One who descends from and ascends to the Father. The Hebrew word for “truth” is transliterated as “Emeth” and deserves some attention.

“Truth” in the contemporary sense is primarily accordance with facts or accepted reality. It is often regarded as something which is either the case as an axiom or can be empirically verified. This is the “correspondence” view of the nature of truth. If we limit ourselves only to the correspondence view of truth, we will go off the tracks in our reading and interpretation of John’s gospel and of the Christian scriptures in general.

“Emeth” has a basic meaning of “reliability.” The word “is used absolutely to denote a reality which is to be regarded as… ‘firm,’ and therefore ‘solid,’ ‘valid,’ or ‘binding” (Quell, TDNT I:233). It has to do with things that are permanent and continuing. “Emeth” is directly related to “emen” which means “truly.” This term is transliterated in the gospels as “amen” and is used by Jesus – especially in John – as a way to identify a solemn truth spoken by Jesus.

Photo by Balu00e1zs Burju00e1n on Pexels.com

Truth, in this sense, is marked by faithfulness, steadfastness, dependability. The Hebrew scriptures certainly understand that some things are “real” and other things are not. However, truth is more than mere correspondence in the Hebrew scriptures. Truth is reliable. Therefore, truth is “relational.”

This has immediate consequences for understanding the Christian scriptures as well. Truth is the basis for faith, both in Paul’s letters and in John’s gospel. But faith is not some mere intellectual assent to a set of “facts” or axioms. Faith is primarily trust – reliance on the dependability and steadfastness of another, particularly God. Luther understands this, for example when, in his Large Catechism, he defines a god as whatever we rely upon in life and in death.

When we get to the Greek term that conveys the Hebrew sense, we get a word that basically means “non-concealment” ((Bultmann, TDNT I:238). The word is “a-letheia.” The Greek word “lethe” means “forgetfulness.” The River Lethe, in Greek mythology, is the river the dead pass over and begin to forget their embodied lives, for example. So, in literal terms, “truth” is non-forgetting what is there.

For the Greeks, truth represents the actual state of affairs, which can often be covered by false appearances. But the word has less of the sense of reliability and steadfastness found in the Hebrew term. In John, truth is always connected to God, the One who is “really real.” The Word is the Legitimate Light that is coming into the cosmos (John 1:9). The reliable bread comes down from heaven, and Jesus brings it (John 6). Jesus is the reliable way to life in John 14. And he is the Valid Vine in our text.

Why does this matter? When we impose the limited, correspondence definition of “truth” on this and other texts in the Christian scriptures, we will get unreliable results. John is not asserting some factual veracity about Jesus. John is promising that Jesus is the steadfast, reliable, continuing Love of God for the cosmos, dwelling among us. John invites us to “abide” in Jesus as that relational Truth in order to access and continue to have the abundant life which God offers to all.

The limited, correspondence, definition of “truth” makes our text and others like it into a sorting sieve, and “unbelievers” are then found wanting and rejected. This is not what John’s gospel intends. “This is a passage from John,” Karoline Lewis (2018) reminds us. “These are the consequences of separation, not statements about a lack of righteousness. This describes the reality of disconnection,” she argues, “not the determination of who is in and who is out.” Lewis notes that these are words from the Farewell Discourse – words to comfort the disciples as they contemplate Jesus’ departure.

These are not words of condemnation or punishment for unfaithfulness. But they do describe consequences. Disconnection from Jesus means withering and dying. Remaining connected to Jesus means flourishing in the abundant life. The vine and the branches as a figure of speech conveys this message with brilliance and depth.

“Every branch in me which is not bearing fruit,” Jesus says in verse 2, “[the Vinedresser] takes out that one.” Let me illustrate.

We have a couple of older trees in our yard. Some of the branches are budding and leafing out in the spring. Other branches remain bare and brown. Those branches are dead. They are not receiving life from the tree trunk, their only connection to the ground, and water, and nutrients. It will be best for the trees (and for the safety of us who stand under them) for those branches to be removed. When we remove the branches, we are not “punishing” them for being unproductive. We are simply responding to the fact that they are no longer alive. They can no longer depend on the trunk for life.

“And every one which is bearing fruit,” Jesus continues, “[the Vinedresser] cleans up in order that it might bear more fruit.” As I noted in the previous post, there is a word play involving “takes out” and “cleans up.” These are similar actions, John seems to be saying, with quite different results.

Every three years this text shows up early in the gardening season. It reminds me how much I hate pruning our garden plants. It’s not the task itself that bothers me. It feels wasteful to me.

As I pinch off one of those sucker branches on a tomato plant, I wonder if that’s the branch that would have produced the most tomatoes. When I remove some lower branches on a cucumber vine, I’m sure I’ve just reduced my total crop (even though I know I haven’t). If I take a few lower stems off the zucchini, I know I’ve opened up a spot for a hungry worm to invade, and I’ll have to watch that spot closely.

It’s not sloth I’m battling. It’s greed – and the fear of scarcity. This is one of my habits of hoarding (though certainly not the only one). I’m sure that because I’m clipping off some branches, there won’t be enough vegetables at the end of the process. I’m sure I’m contributing to the problem. I don’t trust the vine to produce enough unless I leave every last blessed branch.

Of course, if I do so, I’m actually reducing the final yield. Pruning and cleaning are not “punishments” for the plants. Pruning and cleaning leave some small injuries on the stems that will heal just fine if I pay adequate attention. In fact, pruning and cleaning are acts of care. The goal is to improve the harvest – to equip the remaining branches to bear much fruit.

John’s gospel is concerned about Jesus followers who are considering leaving the Jesus movement and staying with their previous faith communities. That’s why John is concerned about “abiding” in the truth of the Messiah, the Son of God, who is Jesus. This is the difference between me and the branches on my tomato plants. Those branches stay put unless I take them off. I can leave the Valid Vine if I so choose and try to find abundant life elsewhere.

Jesus “leaves his disciples with a picture of their relationship that communicates the unquestionable connectedness between them and Jesus, even in the face of Jesus’ absence,” Lewis writes. “It is an image of absolute dependence, certain reliance, and a binding relationship that is severed only when we choose to walk away. The only judgment here is on us,” she concludes, “when we decide to abscond from abiding in Jesus.”

We humans are twice as sensitive to threat as we are to opportunity. We are primed to hear news as bad even when it’s good. That is certainly the case in John 15. Lewis (2018) pleads with us as preachers to hear this text as Gospel rather than Law: “hear these words that are comfort, not condemnation. That are reassurance and not rejection. That are invitation and not abnegation. Without Jesus, being connected to Jesus, to the vine, a life filled with resurrection all around is not possible.”

That being said, I don’t think this text can or should be used to assure ourselves that we Jesus followers have a corner on the Truth market. It’s fruit-bearing that indicates a current connection to the Valid Vine. When I hear the Hebrew word for truth, “Emeth,” I go immediately to the final volume of the Narnia Saga, The Last Battle. C. S. Lewis creates a character in that book named “Emeth.”

Emeth is a soldier for the Other Side. Yet, he finds himself in the New Narnia, Lewis’ imagery for Heaven or the New Creation. Emeth is as surprised as anyone to discover his new location, since he was on the side of the Enemy. Aslan, the Christ figure in the Chronicles, explains the situation to Emeth. “I take to me the services which thou hast done to [the Enemy]. For I and he are of such different kinds,” Aslan continues, “that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him” (page 189).

Seeking the Truth is demonstrated by bearing fruit. And that fruit may appear in the most surprising of places, Lewis seems to say. “Beloved,” Aslan says to Emeth, “unless thy desire had been for me thou would not have sought so long and so truly. For all find,” the Great Lion concludes, “what they truly seek” (page 189).

Jesus is the Valid Vine. Branches connected to that Vine bear much fruit and in that way prove to be his disciples. We should be careful as we read and interpret this text to remember that Jesus chooses the branches, not us. And we should encourage all who seek the Truth.

References and Resources

Brooks, Gennifer Benjamin. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fifth-sunday-of-easter-2/commentary-on-john-151-8-5.

Bruce, F.F. The Gospel of John: A Verse-by-Verse Exposition. Kingsley Books. Kindle Edition.

Lewis, C. S. The Last Battle. New York: HarperCollins, 1984.

Lewis, Karoline. “On Withering” (April 23, 2018) https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/on-withering.

Malina, Bruce, and Rohrbaugh, Richard. Social-Science Commentary on the Gospel of John. Minneapolis, MN.: Fortress Press, 1998.

Vena, Osvaldo. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fifth-sunday-of-easter-2/commentary-on-john-151-8-4.

Text Study for John 15:1-8 (9-17), Pt 1; 5 Easter B 2021

“The theme being underscored,” write Malina and Rohrbaugh, “is that of enduring relationship with Jesus on the part of each disciple and the joyous outcome of this relationship” (page 233). Jesus uses another “figure of speech” to illustrate the intimate encounter with and connection to Jesus that has been at the center of John’s gospel account from the beginning.

“The note in v. 6 about persons (branches) not fully engrafted into the vine is a warning about what will happen if the close interpersonal bond is weakened. Such language implies substantial concern among group members that strong boundaries be maintained between fully committed insiders and all others. Only by maintaining the close ties with Jesus and one another (vv. 12-17) will they be safe.” (Malina and Rohrbaugh, page 234).

The text contains at least a couple of word-plays that are a challenge to replicate in an English translation. For example, in verse one the words for “real” and “vine” begin with the same letter. The closest I’ve come so far is to translate that as the “valid vine.” The words in verse two for “remove” and “prune” are the same except for a prefix on the latter word. I haven’t been able to capture that one in English yet.

In addition, the word for “prune” in verse two is related to the word for “clean” in verse three. Bruce notes the echo in this verse of John 13:10, where Jesus notes that the community is “clean, but not all.” He suggests that “Judas was the exception then, and in terms of the present parable, he is an unfruitful branch that has to be removed” (page 416).

There are also words that can escape notice in the English. In verse three, it is “The Word” that Jesus has been speaking to them that cleans the disciples. I suspect that we are to make an immediate connection with the Prologue of the Gospel and the note that the Word remains among us, full of grace and truth. In verse 7, we get a different and more everyday term for “words.” In this verse, Jesus talks about the actual speaking he has carried out with the disciples. They will remember those words most clearly after the Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension.

Bruce asserts that there is no difference between “the word” and “the words” in this passage, except for the number. I’m not sure he is correct in that regard. That being said, he does offer a useful distinction. The Word, he proposes, is Jesus’ teaching in its entirety. The words “are the individual utterances which make up” the Word (page 417).

That being said, we have a clear connection to John 8:31-38. In particular, we hear Jesus tell the disciples, “If you remain in my Word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

And then there is the word “remain” or “abide.” It is the Greek word, meno. It is such a simple word. It is also one of the most important words in John’s Gospel. The Word becomes flesh and “dwells” among us. John’s gospel uses the term for “remain” or “abide.” It is, in the most literal translation, the verb for to “tabernacle among” a community. Some would translate it as to pitch a tent. Bruce translates it as “to find a lodging place.” I think the most accurate and evocative translation is something like “to make a home with” or “to be at home with” someone.

Bruce describes this imagery as a “parable,” but that seems to be stretching the idea of “parable.” I would suggest that it is much more of a metaphor, another “paroimia” like that of the Good Shepherd in John 10. It is quite nearly an allegory, since the correspondences in the imagery are one-to-one. The Father is the vinedresser. Jesus in the vine. The disciples are the branches. Their life together in apostolic ministry is the fruit of the vine. Osvaldo Vena suggests, in his workingpreacher.org commentary that this image “is not a parable nor an allegory but a mashal, a Semitic form that includes an image and its application to real life.”

The vine and the branches lead us into a treasury of imagery in the Hebrew Scriptures. We can begin with Psalm 80:8-19. The Psalmist describes Israel as a “vine” the Lord brought out of Egypt. It’s a typical practice in vine dressing to maintain and treasure the root stock of a favorite variety of grapes. Even after great destruction, the root can survive to be re-planted in new soil. That’s the image the Psalmist employs here. The Lord clears the ground, plants the stock, and it flourishes, filling the land.

The Psalm is written in light of the Babylonian Exile. The Psalmist wonders why, after all that careful tending and cultivation, the Lord allowed the walls of the vineyard (an allusion to the destruction of Jerusalem) to be broken down and for outsiders to ravage the vineyard. This is, by the way, the Psalm that Pope Leo quotes in his bull of excommunication against Luther at the start of the Reformation (but I digress).

The Psalmist prays that the Lord will look once again and “have regard for this vine, the stock that your right hand planted” (verse 14). Even though the enemies have burned off the branches and cut down the trunk, there is still the chance for repentance and new life. “Restore us, O Lord God of hosts,” the Psalmist prays, “let your face shine, that we may be saved.”

The final word of the Psalm is the same root as “Jesus” in Hebrew and Aramaic. It’s not surprising that this psalm might result in extended meditation by the early church on the restoration of the Lord’s vine. We might think of the shoot that is to come out of the stump of Jesse in the prophet Micah. This is best understood in terms of the root stock of the vine. When it is replanted, it will produce a new shoot from the primordial root. Jesus is…the Vine.

Ezekiel 15 – Here we have Ezekiel’s vision of the “useless vine.” The Lord reminds the prophet that the “wood” of the vine is good for nothing unless it produces fruit. “Is wood taken from it to make anything”? the Lord asks the prophet. “Does one take a peg from it on which to hang any object?” The answer is a clear “no.” Wood from the grape vine produces fruit or finds the fire. And it’s not all that good even for burning.

The vision is a prelude to an oracle of judgment against Judah. “Like the wood of the vine among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel,” the Lord declares, “so I will give up the inhabitants of Jerusalem” (verse 6). The outcome of the Lord’s judgment will be a land that is desolate like a burned over vineyard “because they acted faithlessly” (verse 8). The Hebrew is emphatic here as the prophet notes they were “faithlessly unfaithful.”

That vision is expanded in chapter 17 and applied specifically the King of Judah. That is not, however, the final word even in Ezekiel. In chapter 19, the fate of the vine is rehearsed yet again. The vine is mishandled by the king, stripped of its fruit, burned in fury, and transplanted “into a dry and thirsty land” (Babylon). The oracle is a lamentation but note that the root stock has been preserved. We remember the words of the Psalmist, that new growth may come out of this destruction.

It is impossible to talk about grapes and vineyards in the New Testament without singing the Song of the Unproductive Vineyard in Isaiah 5:1-7. Again, the Lord is a vine dresser who prepares for and plants a vineyard. After all that labor, the vine dresser expects a productive harvest. Instead, the vineyard produces wild grapes, unfit for harvest. The prophet draws a comparison between the unfruitful vineyard and “the inhabitants of Jerusalem” (verse 3).

In response to the unfaithfulness, the Lord will expose the vineyard to the ravages of the enemy. In particular, the vine shall be left to its own devices. It shall not be “pruned or hoed.” In fact, pruning is an exercise of care for the vine dresser, not a sort of punishment. That’s important to keep in mind as we read and interpret the imagery in John 15.

In addition, we get a prophetic description of the “fruit” expected from a faithful vineyard. The Lord expects justice and righteousness from a faithful vineyard. What the Lord receives from an unfaithful vineyard is bloodshed and cries of anguish from the vulnerable.

The injustice the prophet sees is then described in the next oracle in Isaiah 5, where the Lord condemns those “who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is room for no one but you…” A symptom of that injustice is that vineyards are not productive, and fields return minimal harvests. Bearing fruit is a major concern in John 15 and connects to the Isaiah 5 oracles in this regard.

John’s community was under significant stress when this gospel account was written. On the one hand, as Osvaldo Vena notes, “there seems to have been a problem in the community with people’s loyalty and faithfulness which the evangelist is trying to address.” On the other hand, there is a pruning necessary if the healthy branches are to bear more fruit. This could easily be read as exclusive, judgmental, and even sectarian, Vena notes. Is there anything for us now in this text?

Vena notes that it is our intimate connection to Jesus’ words – his gospel message – that nourishes the church to bear fruit. In our time, we may need to put much more energy and effort into that intimate connection. That connection, however, is not merely an individual one. Instead, branches grow together and are entwined with one another. The intimacy with Jesus and his words produces an intimacy with other branches of the vine.

Bearing fruit “is not about judgment,” writes Gennifer Benjamin Brooks in her workingpreacher.org commentary, “it is about growth. Because as the dead branches are removed, those that remain adhered to the vine become stronger and contribute to the health of the vine. That is a message that in this time carries much urgency,” she concludes, “for the contemporary church in all its divisions for the sake of the diversity that is the true Body of Christ.”

References and Resources

Brooks, Gennifer Benjamin. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fifth-sunday-of-easter-2/commentary-on-john-151-8-5.

Bruce, F.F. The Gospel of John: A Verse-by-Verse Exposition. Kingsley Books. Kindle Edition.

Malina, Bruce, and Rohrbaugh, Richard. Social-Science Commentary on the Gospel of John. Minneapolis, MN.: Fortress Press, 1998.

Vena, Osvaldo. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fifth-sunday-of-easter-2/commentary-on-john-151-8-4.