Day 18: If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers
Jesus shifts his weight from one foot to the other and back again, finally finding a comfortable, strong stance. What he is about to say is a hard teaching. He looks around at the tired disciples, some standing, some sitting. He purses his lips thoughtfully and wraps his cloak a little closer to his body, as the night breeze chills the air. Holding his cloak with his left arm across his chest, he motions with his other hand to a small collection of dry branches lying on the ground behind the disciples that were pruned a few months earlier. There is a rustling as the disciples turn to see where he is pointing. Jesus, emphatically and with a tinge of sadness says,
“If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers.”
The grim outcome of not being attached to the vine, of not living in Jesus, is evident. Dry branches. No fruit. The disciples turn back to Jesus with furrowed brows, nodding thoughtfully. Some stroke their beards and look at Jesus, and others look down, trying hard to understand.
Vineyard Metaphor
A wise gardener knows the importance of careful pruning.
Pruning is not an indiscriminate hacking of the branches. No. Pruning is the painstaking process of cutting the canes back so the vine can rest during the winter and be more fruitful the following year. There is hope in the pruning. Hope for a future harvest. But the cane that is cut off is cast aside and dies.
To have fruit every season, there must be pruning. Fruit only grows on second-year wood. When a grapevine pushes out a new shoot in the spring, that shoot will turn from green to brown over the course of the growing season. At the end of the growing season, that cane is pruned back with only a couple of buds left on the spur at the base of the cane. When those buds break open the following year, some of them will grow flowers and fruit, and others will grow new shoots with leaves. The canes that bore fruit last season are cut back completely. If they are not pruned back, they will draw life out of the vine, but they will never bear fruit again. However, the first-year shoots that turned brown are cut back, leaving a couple of buds on the spur, starting the cycle all over again.
As we consider the metaphor of pruning, it is about death AND fruitfulness. Any branch that is cut off will dry up. There will be no life flowing through it. If, however, the Gardener has left a bud or two, the tiny buds will burst forth with new life, carrying the DNA of the vine to produce fruit.
Reflection and Meditation
Right now, Jesus is focusing our attention on the pile of dead branches that have been cut off the vine.
As your imagination follows Jesus’ hand, motioning to the pile of dried-up canes, what comes to mind? What happens in your gut?
Has there been a time in your life that felt disconnected from God? A time that felt dry, even dead. Maybe there was a time you chose to be separate from God and your soul became hard and thirsty. Maybe you are parched and weary even now.
Sit with the image for a minute and ask God about it.
What is Jesus saying to you at this moment?
Rest in the love of the Gardener that has left two buds of renewal that will become fruitful in the next season as they stay attached to the vine.
“The vinedresser is never nearer the branches then when he is pruning them.”