In the garden

As a church we are going through a 21 day challenge where we are reading through the gospel of John one chapter a day (http://21daysinjohn.blogspot.com/). This has led me to look deeper at John 15. Jesus' heart for his disciples and his concern for them in his impending departure is clearly evident. He gets them centered on who he is as the vine and who they are as branches. "If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing."

But Jesus must speak to the painful experience of being pruned. The disciples will experience pruning from the hand of the father. That is the cutting back of growth that is not aligned with the father. This can take an unlimited number of forms of sufferings, hardship or set back--at least in our eyes. Yet, the rose gardener knoww that unless the rose bush is pruned, it will choke itself on its own branches and thorns and will never reach its full potential of beauty. It is easy to be the pruner on a rose bush, but hard to be the one under the pruner's scissor. I believe that out of the pain of pruning comes the temptation to disconnect from the vine. That drives Jesus repeated calls for his followers to remain.

He says remain in me and then breaks it down into two categories: remain in my words and remain in my love--remain in my grace and remain in my truth. We remain in his words by listening to his words through our experience of pruning. We remain in his love by obeying (trusting his love through faith), and in particular, obeying his command for us to love one another.

When we are being pruned, it is so tempting for us to disengage and to isolate. Yet, the only way through the experience is faith and faith in action. So, in the pruning season, we must lean into his word even more and lean into our fellowship with others even more. That is NOT easy--yet it is the call to discipleship. We trust the love of the father to allow him to remove parts of our lives without our permission knowing the pruning will make us more fruitful.

Yet, none of us have enough faith for this. When we are in the vine, we are grafted into a community. We must always be on the look out to be sure that no one among us begins to disconnect under the weight of the pruning (Heb 3:13). Depression, addiction, despair, distraction are all awaiting the attention of those who want to avoid the pruning hand of the father. So when we follow Christ in community we are not just remaining in his word for the sake of our own obedience, but we remain in his love for one another, loving each other and reminding one another of the gently, kind hand of the Father.