Why did Jesus have to love the plants so much!?
John 15:1-8; 1 John 4:7-21; Psalm 22:25-31; Acts 8:26-40
Plants and I don’t get along very well. In fact, to be honest, I don’t really do well taking care of any kind of living thing, but I have a bad habit of having plants die on me. In fact, one could say I have a black thumb as opposed to a green one. So when Jesus starts using plant metaphors, they make even less sense to me than sheep metaphors we had last week.
Thankfully this plant metaphor is a lot more sensible than some of the other ones Jesus uses. I’m still not entirely sure what a mustard bush actually looks like, nor of its scale, so that one always loses me. But I can understand that if you cut a branch from a plant, the branch tends not to produce fruit anymore, unless some very particular steps are taken. I also understand that if you’re a fruit farmer, and some plants and branches aren’t making fruit, you’re going to remove the unfruitful ones in favor of fruitful ones — this is the farmer’s livelihood after all.
So Jesus relates this to the Christian life, one that has since been immortalized in song: “He is the vine, and we are the branches, and the banner over us is love.” Now, the song neglects the pruning aspect, but it at least helps us remember the vine/branches bit. Now remembering that God prunes us is kind of important, especially seeing as in Romans 11 Paul uses the same metaphor to show that Gentiles are part of the body of Christ as well as ethnic Israelites.
Paul writes, “If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not boast over those branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, ‘Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.’ Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.” Now, there’s a lot more going on there, especially since the Roman church was having some issues over the role of Christians in the world and the state of Jew vs. Gentile Christians, but he does bring up this pruning issue that Jesus mentions.
As I mentioned though, plant metaphors just don’t work for me, I tend to do a lot better with sports metaphors, so here goes nothing. When I was in college, I played volleyball on Tulsa’s club team. I started out as a middle blocker, and I was fairly good at it, but I couldn’t play defense to save my life. No matter how much I practiced at it, I never really got any better at my passing. So our coach had an idea. You see, in volleyball there exists a libero, a player who is typically a defensive specialist but who can be substituted in at any time. So when I was in a back-row position, the libero would sub in for me, and then I’d come back when I was on the front row. It worked out pretty well for us for a while, because I was no longer a liability to the team on defense, and in sports, if you don’t play well, you ride pine.
At first, when I was the one chosen to swap with the libero, it kind of stung. I knew I was being told to sit because I couldn’t hack it. But it also paid off; I took the opportunity to not have to worry about playing defense to develop my skills as a setter, and we eventually adjusted our strategy to include me more in that role. If I hadn’t been benched, I never would have found out I could set, something I enjoyed quite a bit more than playing defensively.
So God does the same things to us. When there’s something in our lives that keeps us from following God the way we should, He’ll get out the clippers and start pruning. Or, in the sports metaphor, He’ll sit us on the bench for a while. But just like sitting on the bench helped me grow, and just like pruning actually helps a plant to be healthier and more productive, the kind of pruning God does is meant for our good.
Now that’s not to say it won’t hurt. Oftentimes the things that keep us from God are rather ingraining in us, and sorting it out hurts. I’ve often joked that praying for patience is one of the worst things we can do, because God will give us opportunities to practice it — but this is exactly what God does for us. He wants us to bear good fruit and be known as followers of Jesus, it just sometimes takes some work on the part of the Holy Spirit to get us there.