Easter 5
May 14, 2006

Abiding in the Vine
by Anne Le Bas

“I am the vine and my father is the vine-grower”, says Jesus to his
disciples. Vines would have been a familiar sight for his audience - a
staple crop. For us in England they are still a bit unusual, though warmer
summers are making them easier to grow and more successful. I’ve just
bought a couple of vines for the vicarage – more for ornament than in any
real hope of decent grapes – it’s a bit cold and blowy for them really to
thrive in my garden. But you never know – we might be able to produce a
bottle or two of Chateau Le Bas one day!

But for Jesus’ hearers the vine was an ever-present part of their everyday
lives. Most people with a bit of ground probably had one. They knew about
growing vines too. They knew that the vine was not really one plant but
two. It had a rootstock – something that would grow well, that was good at
drawing up water and nourishment from the soil. But grafted onto that
rootstock would be the fruiting part of another vine – one which produced
good, tasty grapes of the variety you wanted. It’s a clever business,
grafting, binding the two plants together, so that you got the best of both
of them.

Because everyone knew about vines it’s no surprise that they were used
often in the Bible symbolically. In particular the nation of Israel was
often likened to a vine – the vine God had planted. “You brought a vine out
of Egypt, “ says Psalm 80, “you drove out the nations and planted it. You
cleared the ground for it; it took deep root and filled the land.”  The
prophets spoke of the vine of Israel too, often lamenting that it was
producing sour grapes, that it was neglected, withered and useless, but
looking forward to a time when it would flourish again and be fruitful.

So as soon as Jesus started talking about vines and vineyards, people knew
what he was on about. It was familiar language. They had heard all this
before. It was all rather old hat – or at least it would have been if he
had stuck to the script they expected. But he didn’t.

As I’ve said, for the people of Jesus’ time, the vine was Israel.  But
Jesus doesn’t say, “Israel is the vine”. He says, “I am the vine”.

That must have been deeply shocking for the disciples. Here he is, putting
himself in the place of the nation.  Why would that have disturbed people
so much? For this reason. For his hearers, being Jewish – part of the
nation of Israel - was fundamental to their understanding of themselves.
They had a distinctive way of life – quite different from the nations
around them - a strong common identity. They were proud of their national
identity, proud of their customs and laws. But for many allegiance to those
customs, allegiance to the idea of Israel, had become stronger than
allegiance to God. Vines, as I said, are really two plants – the top growth
of one vine grafted onto the roots of another. God had intended for this
nation to be grafted onto him, to draw their identity and their strength
from his roots, but they had re-grafted themselves onto the rootstock of
nationalism– being Jewish had become, for many, more important than doing
God’s will. My country, right or wrong.

We see the same thing happening when football hooligans brawl with one
another.  It has nothing to do with football – in fact they often aren’t
interested in the game at all – it has everything to do with tribal
loyalty, marked out by the colours you wear and the area you come from.
Or take the tragic case of Michael McIlveen, the Catholic teenager beaten
to death last week by a gang of Protestant youths. That had nothing to do
with the theology or spirituality of Catholicism or Protestantism – I don’t
suppose any of the youths responsible could have given any sensible account
of them. The denominations were just markers to establish whether Michael
McIlveen was “one of us” or “one of them”.

And repeatedly the British National Party has tried to hijack Christian
faith as a rallying point for it’s very narrow view of what it means to be
British. They seem quite unaware that this is a Middle Eastern faith in its
origins and that the majority of Christians in the world are black and live
in Africa. The centre of Christendom, if you plot the numbers of Christians
and where they live, is apparently now not Rome or Canterbury, but
Timbuktu. That’s not something that I think the BNP is ever going to
acknowledge.

These are extreme examples, but they are all ways in which, like the people
of Jesus’ time, we can find we have become grafted onto the rootstock of a
false vine – a vine which has the sap of nationalism, tribal
protectiveness, suspicion and hatred running through it.

We may not have any sympathy with these viewpoints, but these aren’t the
only false vines which people can abide in. It’s worth asking ourselves now
and then what rootstock are we are grafted onto. Where do we draw our sense
of identity and our strength from? If I were to ask you what you are, I
wonder what you would answer. Jesus’ disciples would have said “Jewish!”.
Those football hooligans would say – “Millwall!” or whatever their team is.
McIlveen’s killers would say “Protestant!” The BNP would answer “British!”
But what about you. How would you describe yourself if I were to ask you
what you are?

Perhaps you’d say, I’m a wife or husband, a mother or father, a member of
such and such a family, a teacher, an accountant, an Old Etonian, a
musician, a vegetarian, an Elvis Presley fan, an Anglican, Seal born and
bred, an incomer, the list is probably endless.

There’s nothing wrong in any of those answers, of course, but if we let any
of the labels we use to describe and understand ourselves have too much
importance we will probably find ourselves in difficulty. If we look to
these things to be the rootstock of our lives, something we become
dependent on to supply our sustenance, we may find that the fruit we
produce is not as it should be. Being a mother or father for example, is
fine, but if you look to parenthood to supply you with all your sense of
identity, what will you do when your children leave home? It would probably
be better for them, too, if all your sense of self-worth wasn’t dependent
on their success. Or if you look to your professional role to make you feel
worthwhile, what will happen if you are made redundant or retire? Being
proud of where you live is fine, but it can easily tip over into suspicion
of those who live elsewhere. And as for those Elvis Presley fans – what
trauma some of them faced when he died! In fact, some of them still refuse
to believe it! Definitely not a vine it is healthy to abide in!

Our interests, our passions, our culture and history – all these things are
part of us – but it’s dangerous to  root our whole lives in them – none of
these things is strong enough or deep enough to sustain us, and they can so
easily become nothing more than tribal markers, ways of deciding who’s out
and who’s in, who is one of “us” and who isn’t.

“I am the vine,” says Jesus – not Israel, not any of those other things we
are tempted to root our lives in. Christ calls us to abide in him, and
through him, in God, the creator of all, the healer of all, the Lord of
time and space. Root yourself in him and you will be drawing on the deep
and inexhaustible waters of life, the sustaining food of love which is
stronger even than death. You’ll be anchored by roots that transcend
national boundaries, which hold together the past, the present and the
future. Christ calls us out beyond our narrow definitions of ourselves. You
may be a parent, you may be an accountant, you may even be an Elvis Presley
fan… but underneath all of that you are a child of God. These other things
may be part of your life, but this is the vine you need to abide in, the
truth you need to know, the rootstock you need to be grafted into.

Of course, being grafted into that vine of God is not always easy. It
doesn’t happen quickly. Grafting is a delicate and complicated business. It
involves a good deal of cutting and binding, watering and waiting. You
can’t graft a branch on by simply hanging it in the vine, or leaving it on
the ground nearby. It takes close contact for some time. It doesn’t happen
by magic; it doesn’t happen by accident. It happens by creating the right
conditions for growth. And the branch that is grafted in has to be severed
from its old roots for the graft to happen. Sometimes there are things we
have to give up and say goodbye to as we grow into God. I always wonder
what happened next in the story we heard from the Acts of the Apostles –
that official from the Ethopian court, the man in charge of the treasury.
His whole life was rooted in the life of the court – that was the vine he
abided in, the place that had supplied his identity. He had nothing else,
not even a family. His allegiances must certainly have been challenged by
what happened. As he went down into the waters of baptism, he was cut from
those roots and grafted into God. He wasn’t the Queen’s man now, as he had
been, he was God’s. Did the graft take? Did his new life last?  Legend
tells that he converted the Queen, and together they founded the Ethiopian
church – a church that had very ancient roots, so lets hope it did

I am the vine, says Jesus. The one whose roots go down into the water of
life. The one who can feed you with all you need to survive, to flourish,
to bear good fruit. Be grafted into me, bound to the rootstock through
prayer, through the way you live, through the encouragement of others. Be
grafted into me, and abide.
Amen

(Comments to Anne at annelebas@DSL.PIPEX.COM.)