The Vine

Fifth Sunday of Easter

Jesus said:

‘I am the true vine,

and my Father is the vinedresser.

Every branch in me that bears no fruit

he cuts away,

and every branch that does bear fruit

he prunes to make it bear even more.

You are pruned already,

by means of the word that I have spoken to you.

Make your home in me, as I make mine in you.

As a branch cannot bear fruit all by itself,

but must remain part of the vine,

neither can you unless you remain in me.

I am the vine,

you are the branches.

Whoever remains in me, with me in him,

bears fruit in plenty;

for cut off from me you can do nothing.

                                                                                    John 15: 1-5

 
Pruning branches of the boxwood and red-twig dogwoods this afternoon while multitudes of green continued crowding the land. The removing of the unnecessary or the too much with the labor of my hands as the unseen hands of our Lord always tending and pruning this haphazard growing; this wild outreaching from the dormant and dead branches within. Yet, I am held, grafted onto Christ by the water of baptism; it is He who gives this incessant grace-- this threading mitochondria bringing the food of life to every level.  Apart from Him I can do nothing, am nothing.  I am struck again and again that I am on the vine of divinity, however spindly this branch or unruly.  A rough, weedy thing just showing signs of life as the sunlight, in mosaic design, it angles in through the bright parasols of the taller leaves.