Vine, Branch, Fruit & Resurrection

Last night, a group of UUs exploring Christianity got onto resurrection. One said she liked the idea (common in liberal Christian circles) that the resurrection is all of us. When we live as Jesus lived, when we work for social justice, when we try to respond with love to everyone, even our enemies, then we are the resurrected presence of Jesus on earth.

Which reminded me of the Gospel verse, John 15:5, “I am the vine, you are the branches.”

Think about it.

The branches bear the fruit. So without branches, a vine is barren – nothing but an empty trunk. If a vine is to fulfill any kind of purpose, it must rely on the branches to bring that purpose about. Not only that, the vine gives support and supplies water and nutrients, yes. But the branches produce the leaves where chlorophyll is concentrated and sunlight is turned into food. So the branches feed the vine.

This is an indivisible whole. The vine supports and waters the branches. The branches feed the vine and bear the fruit.

A vine needs branches just as much as branches need a vine.

Note: Despite some lovely sayings, I’m none too fond of John’s Gospel - what with the way it has been foundational to Trinitarian, damnation versions of Christianity, as well promoting rabid anti-Semitism. But it was a favorite of some Gnostic Christians, so obviously there are other ways to read it than “Jesus≡God + Jesus worship and only Jesus worship prevents damnation + Jesus worship is the one and only point.”

Another note: “I AM" does create a loaded statement. It exploits a God name in the Hebrew Bible (God answered "I AM" when Moses asked the burning bush for a name). This could mean “God is the vine...” or “Jesus≡God is the vine...” But it could NOT have been written to mean a simple statement like “Jesus is the vine” in the way that “I (Elena) am nutsy for bible quotes” = “Elena is nutsy for bible quotes.”

I learned Hebrew as a teenager on a kibbutz. We were told there was no present tense of the verb “to be.” So thirty years later when I met the “I AM” name for God as I stumbled into Christianity, I was skeptical. Except not surprisingly, the actual words in Hebrew are convoluted, controversial and explosive – leaving much room for meditative illumination (i.e., interpretation). See analysis of “I AM at wikipedea or THE NAME OF GOD AS REVEALED IN EXODUS 3:14

Hmmmm… God’s own name for God-self - given in the story of the God-meeting of one who was to reinvigorate the God-relationship of a nation - is so strange and obscure that it is entirely open to interpretation. Maybe that does reflect some reality, after all.

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