A Severe Mercy

John 15:1-8
Easter 5
April 28, 2024
William G. Carter

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just 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. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”


I love this passage. It comes up with regularity at the communion table. As Jesus prepares to depart his disciples, he speaks in a figure of speech: “I am the Vine, you all are the branches.”

This is how he speaks of our relationship with him. It is Christ who sustains us and gives us life, and I take that to mean “the Risen Christ.” This is a text that only makes sense after Easter, as Jesus is raised and available to all. He is our Life, the Life of God given for us. When we eat the bread and drink the cup, we receive Christ through our own imperfect faith. The life that goes out through the Vine is extended to all the branches.

And this is how he speaks of our relationship with one another. The branches are connected through the Vine. The same mercy Christ showed in the flesh when he was among us is the mercy we show to one another. We refuse to take advantage of those to whom we are connected. We will not insult, abuse, or refuse to forgive, for we are connected through Christ, who holds us in the love of God. This love is patient and kind, never insisting on its own way. Such love bears all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. It never ends.

Mmm… it would be enough to simply pause and take all this in. Feels good, doesn’t it? Just breathe in the warm glow of God’s Spirit and know that we are loved.

The only problem is that’s only the first half of the passage. The second half is troubling. God loves the Vineyard,[1] but some branches wither and die. Some branches are gathered as kindling for the fireplace. Some branches have borne no fruit. They are no good to anybody.

Jesus is the Real Vine, but his Father is the Vine Dresser. And do you know what the Vine Dresser does? He goes after the Vine with a big, hooked knife.

Picture a gardener trimming a rose bush at this time of year. She snips the bush and trims all the dead stalks. She cut it down to almost nothing. Lean forward and you might hear the rose bush cry out, “Ouch! That hurts!” Of course it does. It always hurts when something alive is trimmed back. Jesus invites us to think of God as the One doing the trimming. Can you picture that?

Picture the little church by the crossroads. The country cemetery out back has many more occupants than the pews. Once the building was filled with the sound of activity. They never had a lot of people, but there was a season when they flourished: Bible study, hymn singing, community meals for the neighborhood. Then the community changed. People moved off the dairy farms that circled the little church. The new highway directed newcomers in another direction. The day came when the few remaining leaders said, “We can’t do this anymore.”

They decided to have one last reunion, deciding to invite everybody back one last time, plan for a final worship service, and then they would call a realtor. A small crowd sang, “O God, Our Help in Ages Past, Our Hope for Years to Come.”

The guest preacher gave the final benediction and said, “Let’s have one last potluck meal.” They shuffled out, but one woman wouldn’t budge. She didn’t want to leave. Closing that church felt just like dying. Ouch! The knife hurts. My question: was that the knife of God?

I know there are some people who believe that faith is supposed to make you successful, that every year will bring an increase, that we will continue endlessly to reach further and stretch taller. In rational moments, we know that isn’t true. A text like this offers a corrective. “My Father is the Vine Dresser,” says Jesus. You know what that means? He cuts away every branch that bears no fruit. And he cuts every branch that does bear fruit, to prune it, to make it bear more fruit. The branches that bear fruit, the branches that bear no fruit – both experience the knife of God.

When Jesus says this, he is playing with the verbs. In Greek, the word for "cutting" has the same root as the word for "pruning." They sound the same. "Every branch that bears no fruit, airei (he cuts away). Every branch that does bear fruit, athairei (he prunes)." Airei, he cuts. Athairei, he prunes. They sound the same. They look the same. And, the truth is, cutting or pruning, the experience feels the same.

It is hard to enjoy this text. It speaks of a hard truth, which is why we avoid it. We really don’t want anybody to cut us or trim us. We certainly don’t want to be hemmed in, much less criticized. There is the illusion that maybe we ought to let things slide, leave things alone, let everything work it out over time, when it really needs a necessary pruning.

I served on a community task force one time, not here, somewhere else. None of our groups are like this. We had a man who couldn’t keep quiet. Always the expert on everything. Always the critic to point out what everybody else was doing beneath his standard. The chair of the group never did anything about it and figured it would work itself out. Well, it did. People got tired of the loudmouth blathering on and stopped trying to speak. Others refused to volunteer, saying, “Why bother?” One by one, everybody drifted away. Finally, only the loudmouth was left, so he went home.

Talk about fruitless – have you ever been involved in something that just doesn’t bear any fruit?

When John Calvin comments on this verse, he says the crop needs “incessant culture.” That is, it needs continuing care from the Vine Dresser. God expresses love by staying involved with the crop, trimming here, cutting there, all to make the Vine abound in fruit. The picture of God here is not an absentee landowner, but an attentive farmer, constantly involved, regularly paying attention, knowing right where to cut and when. Calvin says we need this; otherwise “our flesh abounds in superfluities and destructive vices.” So, we need to be pruned, which is what the living God will do, provided we are still alive and connected to Christ.

There are people who understand this. Some of them gather here every morning of the week. They unlock the door and let themselves in, and they talk about how alcohol has been ruining their lives. Under the influence, they had smashed cars, demolished relationships, lost their jobs, even got arrested. Every one of them comes here because they got in trouble with alcohol.

Here is what one of them said to me: “God had to slap me awake. I had lost everything – my wife, my kids, my house – and then I came here and realized God still had a hold of me. I had everything taken away, but God still had me.” He said, “Man, it hurt to realize the truth, but that’s when life began to turn around. It was God’s doing.”

Jesus is telling us we cannot grow if we don’t allow God to trim away. We cannot live abundantly unless we are regularly pruned. As the gardener did surgery on the rose bush, she pointed to all the new shoots of life down below. “If I don’t cut the winter burn away, the new blooms won’t have a chance.” There is a lot of human wisdom in horticulture.

“I am the Vine, you are the branches, and my Father is the Vine dresser.” It is a promise to all who are connected to Jesus Christ. Life comes with a good bit of trimming. Growth comes when we let God trim away the old stuff, the futile stuff, the extraneous stuff.

So, what needs to go? Sometimes, it is a closely held belief, or a proposition we have trusted, or a practice we have clung to. I think of the other text that our women’s group was studying last week. It’s the account of the apostle Philip out on the Christian frontier. He meets a eunuch from Ethiopia, reading out of the prophet Isaiah, and wondering how it applies to him. He is an Ethiopian, so he doesn’t look like Philip. He is a eunuch, a sexual minority, so the book of Deuteronomy (23:1) doesn’t want him around. And he is a Gentile – three strikes!

… except that God is working in his life, and he wishes to be baptized. If God has said “yes,” who is Philip to say no? So, Philip baptizes him as a Christ follower, and then he must go back and explain to the Jerusalem church why he has done a pastoral act for a person that, up until now, the Old Testament excluded. Do you think that was easy? Philip must let go of a long-held belief because the Spirit of God said, “Go talk to that man.”

Sometimes what needs to be trimmed away are the dreams we carry around in our imagination. If I take the promotion, I can make more money, I can move up the ladder, I can better myself. Perhaps, but if you take the promotion, it might destroy your family life. What will you do? Could it be that our vain dreams must be pruned for something else to grow?

Or what else? Is it the persistent grudge that we hold against the person we once loved? Or is it a form of pride that has overgrown the garden and chokes out the good crop? Or it is something even more sinister, like the long-established patterns of hatred or indifference?

What is it that needs to be pruned? For those who abide in Christ, it will anything that keeps us from growing in Christ. That’s the promise of the Gospel in this text. God will come to those who are committed, to those who are connected to Christ, and God will keep working to make them more like Jesus.

What might God want to do in you? Consider this to be Christ’s invitation for you to grow and flourish. Maybe it’s time to undergo that change that you haven’t had the courage to make. Maybe it is time to commit to whatever you have been postponing. Maybe it is time to ask God to trim away the persistent sin or the self-destructive impulse. Maybe it is time to stop hating and start giving. Maybe it’s time to ask the Lord to crucify your pride and to welcome God’s cleansing, renewing love. I certainly have my issues. Maybe you have yours.

The one thing I know is that if we stay connected Jesus, we will be changed, and it will be for a greater good than mere self-improvement. It will be for the glory of God that we flourish and bear fruit. And we will have to let go of all the vain things that charm us most, if only because they simply aren’t very fruitful in God’s vineyard.

It reminds me of how someone once commented on another of the teachings of Jesus. I love this line. Someone said, “It is possible for the camel to go through the eye of the needle. All things are possible with God. The camel can go through the eye of the needle. But it’s extremely hard on the camel.”[2]

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] Undoubtedly Jesus remembers the “Song of the Vineyard” in Isaiah 5. And he speaks frequently of “vineyards,” especially in the Gospel of Matthew.

[2] Attributed to C.S. Lewis, but he probably didn’t say it.