Songs from verses stick in my head. I was listening to the Shovel audio of The Vine and the Branches, and there is a Steven Curtis Chapman song I love to listen to/sing that was based on the scripture from John 15.
What do I see differently about it now than I once did? To me, there is an obvious conclusion that I did not make before; the branch is part of the plant. Whether you talk about a tree or a vine, the branch is part of the plant. Before, I would constantly evaluate my performance in anticipation that I might be cut off and cast out. As if I didn't already belong, or was a foreign transplant (another odd story about a separate parable regarding trees and branches from LDS teaching), and as if I could hang on like a parasitic growth through my own efforts to stay attached.
SCC sings, "The fruit cannot help but grow if the branch is joined into the tree..." So, I strived and strained to make sure the fruit would grow. Silly me. The fruit grows. Not because the branch tries to make it grow, but because the branch is the vine's/tree's mechanism for making the fruit grow. Have branch, will grow fruit! One really just follows the other. And then, I would judge my fruit, as if it was his fruit, totally unaware that his fruit grows regardless of what I am doing. I thought my specific actions that I would judge were "his" fruit.
I wonder if branches wake up one morning and ask, "How did we get attached to this tree?" Silly branches, you didn't "get" there, like it was journey you chose to undertake, you grew as part of the tree. And since they grew, what was the likelihood that they would not produce fruit in the first place. Again, as if it was up to the branches at all.
Another picture is that of the vinedresser. The vinedresser is focused on productivity; the welfare of the vine and the branches in order that the fruit will grow. If he went hacking branches off all of the time, it would be a very sparse vine. One description of a vinedresser points out that branches that don't produce fruit are cleaned and lifted up off of the ground and supported. There is the whole thing about "dead branches", but the point is actually more about the vine as the source of life rather than the fate of branches. At least, that is how it is supposed to be taken as I read it. "I in you and you in me," he says. Funny how we get from vinedresser caring for the plant, to vinedresser critically hacking the branches off for lack of fruit and gathering them up and burning them. As if it was really, "I in you and you in me...or else!" Where is the love in that?
Bill, this is so, so insightful! Isn't it amazing how we could buy into the rubbish of the religious mind when it has us imagining that the branch is somehow separate from the rest of the branch?
Jim
I have determined to know nothing among you except Christ, and him crucified!
Jim,
But it seemed to make so much sense (at the time)!
Love,
Bill
theHarryTick™
Good one, Bill!
I love how you explained and expressed all that. 
I sooo remember being caught up in the delusional and mistaken identity of performing the role of 'vine dresser'!
In other words, I was mistakenly and futilely straining and striving to be something/someone I simply was NOT! 
My mistaken focus was on me being a vine dresser ... of myself and others, as if I ever could be! 
I was caught up in that thinking as opposed to realizing that I and others are branches from the Divine Vine Himself, Christ ... that GOD Himself is the Divine Vine-dresser taking care of all aspects of the life and function of the Vine and branches.
I so know what you mean by being convinced 'at the time' that it 'made sense'! That sick and diseased thinking I once suffered from certainly makes no sense to me now!
One Vine, many branches ... all loved and cared for ... each given as each needs - when, where, how and why. The Vine dresser knows for sure.
Wow! I never thought about it before, really, but what a HUGE Vine HE IS with sooo many a branch!
When it was revealed to me what I was so delusional and mistaken about concerning the role of vine dresser, it was another sweet revelation of Himself, and with it came such immense RELIEF! I did not realize all that time the 'error' of my mentality or the ignorance of what I was so desperately attempting to do and/or to be! Completely clueless! BIG DUHHHHHH!
It is always so precious when HE HIMself IS revealed right in the midst of not seeing HIM!
Great!!! Hardly wait to read!
Adam
Yes there has been a ton of stimulated effort in this Vine/Branch teaching as it's taught and understood according to natural thinking. For some reason it is somethng that seems to be so misunderstood by Christians at large. I say 'for some reason' but, I guess it makes all the sense in the world that the very hope that we have that hangs on Him totally, would be the thing that would be so ignored and passed right over.
I see much beneift in sorting this out in our lives for there isn't much peace in the assumptions we have made about this relationship we have through the Vine according to natural wisdom. Yeah and the sorting out is all part of this relationship too. We have many things still not sitting well with us.
He who began a good work in you will PERFECT it UNTIL the day of Christ Jesus Philippians 1:6
Yeah, so lay off!
Something Bill said jumped out at me. He said "I strived and strained to make the fruit grow."
Oh my, haven't we all been there!
I must have listened to a hundred messages on John chapter 15 in my 51 years. Over and over, one teacher after another gets all wound up in the fruit. They make a guilt salad and feed it to their listeners, crying out about looking for fruit. Where is the fruit? Are they bearing fruit? I just want to shake them sometimes and scream This Is Not About Fruit!!
(Not that this would be a good idea.)
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full." (John 15:1-11)
Friends, this is not about fruit. It is about abiding. It's about life and the source of life. Fruit is the result of the life from the vine flowing out through the branches.
And here's the miracle. It's not your life OR your fruit.
A branch is not removed because it fails to bear fruit. A branch is removed if it does not abide. The lack of fruit isn't the problem. The problem is that the branch isn't connected to the vine and does not have the life of the vine, and thus does not bear the fruit of the vine.
Good topic! Great picture, I think. One final thought. A branch doesn't "abide" by clinging to the vine. It either is or it isn't. We who are the broken are so determined to understand what our part is in these things. "God, what can I do to help you?" There is such bondage in that. The freedom comes when we understand that we ARE a branch and we HAVE the life of the vine in us, and that life will bear HIS fruit through us.
From a fellow branch, with life abundant and beyond anything we could imagine!
~ Abiding. :)
Once again, Mark, you're putting out some wonderful words of life. Such confidence and encouragement in the truth of how his life flows through us, making it not about the fruit but about our being found in him. I love your continuing emphasis on how the mind of the flesh keeps looking for what it can DO. This is indeed freedom to realize what is really going on inside of us.
Jim
I have determined to know nothing among you except Christ, and him crucified!
i LOVE hearing about freedom from bondage! i LOVE it! :) thank you so much for expressing such freedom, mark. :)
i have a question that may or may not be another topic starter. i just was wondering what you meant by: 'we who are broken'?
my reason for asking is more of a personal one ... a stirring-up of past misunderstandings and misperceptions. it concerns how i was once very much enslaved by viewing myself as something broken ... something that needed to be fixed ... something lacking ... etc. without my dwelling on any of that, i just wanted to ask you what you meant. i think that is the best place to start because my imagination will RUN WILD. (that can sometimes prove to be quite unpleasant and dangerous!) yyyyyIKEs!
Sorry, I didn't mean to confuse anyone with that reference. We're big on catch phrases at Rio, it helps people remember an entire series of teaching. After our series on following Christ and dying to self, for example, we made up wrist bands and t-shirts that read "die to live." That's all they said. But it reminds people of an entire series of messages on dying to self, being crucified with Christ, so that we could be alive WITH HIM. I couldn't get any t-shirts in my size, but I DO wear one of the wrist bands. Heh. It's an occasional conversation opener.
Calling myself one of the broken is another one of those "turned around" phrases we adopted. What it refers to for us is those who have been made whole by God. We've been restored to fellowship with Him. If you are now whole and your fellowship restored, then you were once...broken. I might have actually started that one, because one of my favorite bands is "Red" and one of my favorite songs of theirs is "Pieces."
They're a great band, and that happens to be a really beautiful song (many of their songs are quite...er, loud, so if you happen to hear Pieces, don't think it's representative of their usual style). I had the chorus stuck in my head for weeks, the first time I heard it.
So, to answer your question, when I say "we who are the broken," I am saying "we who are made whole in Christ." We are no longer broken, because we have been made whole, but old habits linger. To call myself broken, at least for me, is to acknowledge where I came from so I can realize what I am.
Now as for you, my dear friend, you cannot possibly be broken, or lacking.
looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:2, ESV)
Your faith cannot be lacking, because Jesus has perfected it.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. (2 Corinthians 5:17, ESV)
You cannot be broken, because you are His creation--perfect.
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