John 15:1-27 (NRSV)
Read John 15:1-27 on biblegateway.com
Chapter 15"I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. Verse 2He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. Verse 3You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Verse 4Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. Verse 5I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Verse 6Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. Verse 7If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. Verse 8My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.
Verse 9As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. Verse 10If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. Verse 11I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. Verse 12"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Verse 13No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. Verse 14You are my friends if you do what I command you. Verse 15I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. Verse 16You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. Verse 17I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.
Verse 18"If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you. Verse 19If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world-therefore the world hates you. Verse 20Remember the word that I said to you, 'Servants are not greater than their master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also. Verse 21But they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. Verse 22If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. Verse 23Whoever hates me hates my Father also. Verse 24If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not have sin. But now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. Verse 25It was to fulfill the word that is written in their law, 'They hated me without a cause.'
Verse 26"When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. Verse 27You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning.
Devotion
Among an audience of vinedressers and simple farmers who worried about enough water and enough help to bring in the harvest Jesus used this marvelous image of himself and the church as a vine and its branches. I live part of my elder years along with Karen, my wife of 53 years, in Greece, the land of the some of the earliest Christian churches. Our little Greek home is located in Nafplion near Corinth in a rich agricultural plane filled with orange and lemon trees which thrive through the miracle of effective irrigation.
Jesus invited his disciples to regard a grape vine in all its beauty and complexity. Then he said "I am the Vine," planted and nourished in God’s own vineyard. Jesus then catches our attention when he goes deeper into the analogy: "You are the branches." At age 15, I was at a Boy Scout Jamboree when two young missionaries came up to my friend Peter and me and asked us "Are you saved?" No one had asked me this before. I thought for a moment and then I felt God's Spirit within me and I replied as loud and clear as my 15-year-old faith could speak it, "Yes, I'm saved. I am baptized into Christ and I have made my confirmation of faith in Christ at my Lutheran Church." In other words I claimed my good connections with God, a connection that continues to produce fruit.
Prayer
Living God, we who have received God’s spirit in baptism are growing as branches on this tree of life. We have been grafted into a spiritual relationship by which God gives us life abundantly. By your Holy Spirit we are connected as branches to the source of life and we will bear fruits of the spirit: love, joy, peace, humility, forgiveness, justice, generosity and non-violent opposition to evil as you abide in us. Amen.