Posts Tagged ‘Festivals’

Jesus is a vine, not a vineyard

May 1, 2021
Download

Easter 5 – 2021

John 15:1-8

Marian Free

In the name of Jesus our Saviour, source of our life, our nourishment and our well-being. Amen.

I am the fertile soil. I am the warm sun. I am the source of comfort. 

If I, or anyone else were to make such claims you would think that we were mad. Yet Jesus makes several such assertions: “I am the bread of life, I am living water, I am the true vine, I am the good shepherd, I am the light of the world, I am the resurrection and the life, and I am the way the truth and the life”.  At least seven times Jesus claims “I AM”. At face value these statements hold a great deal of meaning. Jesus is telling his disciples that if they place their trust in him he will protect them from harm, he will be their light in the darkest of times, he will be their source of goodness and strength and he will satisfy their deepest needs. 

As you know, the Gospel of John is rich with symbolism, so we should not be surprised that there is much more to this imagery than first meets the eye. In fact there are at least three different usages of the expression, “I AM”. It occurs without a predicate, simply as “I AM”. “Unless you believe that I AM” (7:28). “When it does happen, you will believe that “I AM” (12:19). Occasionally the phrase is used simply in the sense of “I am he”. For instance, when Jesus comes to the disciples across the water he says: “I AM do not be afraid.” Lastly, “I AM” is used with a predicate as in today’s gospel: “I AM the true vine.” 

“I AM” is the language used by God as God’s self-designation. When God appears to Moses in the burning bush and commissions him to bring the Israelites out of Egypt Moses says: “Whom shall I say sent me?” God replies: “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you’” (Ex 3:14). In using this terminology then, Jesus is identifying himself as God.

It appears from the context of the gospel that not only is John making it clear that Jesus and God are one and the same, he is also helping the community for whom he writes find an identity that does not depend on the synagogue or the Temple. A number of references suggest that the gospel was written at a time – after the destruction of the Temple – when Jews who believed in Jesus had been expelled from the synagogue (John 9:22, 12:42, 16:2). One of the goals of this gospel is to answer the question: ‘What does it mean to belong to a community that believes in Jesus and how could the community’s worship be ordered now that they could not attend the synagogue or participate in the Jewish Festivals?’ 

It is impossible to go into detail here, but one of the ways that the author of John addresses the problem is by indicating that a believer’s relationship with Jesus is sufficient because in one way or another Jesus has replaced important Jewish symbols, Festivals, and perhaps even the Temple. For example, when Jesus says: “I AM living water” and “I AM the light of the world”, he is using symbols that relate to the Festival of the Booths during which water is brought into the Temple and huge candles are lit. Several of the images in Jesus’ ‘I AM’ statements – bread, light, water, shepherding and vine – are commonly used in the Old Testament to describe the relationship between God and Israel. Jesus’ adoption of these images for himself, indicates that the relationship between God and Israel has been extended to those who believe in Jesus. The relationship between God and the people of God is no longer dependent on externals but is focussed on the person of Jesus. 

It is important to note here, that God’s relationship is with Israel as a whole and not with individual members of the people of Israel. When we remember this, the imagery takes on a whole new meaning. This is particularly the case with today’s gospel.

Jesus’ claim to be the true vine, is a reminder of our collective nature and it challenges our modern concepts of individuality. If Jesus is the vine and we are part of the vine then, as people of faith, we do not exist as individuals but as a community. One of the reasons for divisions in the church – whether at a Parish level or at international level – is that we don’t fully understand that we do not belong to the vine as individuals, but as a group. It would be a nonsense to suggest that every branch or every twig on a vine somehow existed separately. The life of the vine flows through to the whole plant in equal measure. My life in the vine is not different or separate from your life in the vine. Individual branches do not draw their sustenance from different sources but from one and the same vine. 

Being attached to the vine challenges our individualism in another way. It is only by being connected to the vine that we can bear fruit. Only if we, the branches, are receiving the life-giving sap from the vine are we able to be productive. Or put the other way around, if we bear fruit, if our life and actions show forth the presence of God in the world, it is only because we are integrally connected to each other and to Jesus the true vine who is the source of our life. Just as our life in the vine is one and the same, so it is with the fruit we produce. In this image, fruit does not mean the fruit that you produce or the fruit that I produce, it refers to the fruit that we produce together.

Jesus is the true vine, not the true vineyard. There is one vine, and we are all connected to that one vine. Let us pray that our connection to the true vine will nourish and sustain us, so that through our lives as part of the community of faith we may collectively bear fruit that reflects the source from which it comes. 

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in Identity of Jesus, John's Gospel | Comments Off on Jesus is a vine, not a vineyard

Finding in Jesus all that we desire

July 25, 2015

Pentecost 9

John 6:1-21 (Matt 14:13f, Mark 6:32f, Lk 9:10f)

Marian Free

In the name of God who provides for us more abundantly than we can imagine and more generously than we deserve. Amen.

I always approach the sixth chapter of John with a sense of trepidation bordering on dread. This is not because I find it particularly difficult to unpack or that there are themes within the chapter that jar or disturb. The reason John 6 fills me with a sense of disquiet is that we will spend the next five weeks working our way through it – all 75 verses of it! For the next five weeks (allowing for some literary license) I will be lying awake at night wondering whether there is yet another way that I can speak about bread or help to make sense of eating flesh.

Fortunately, John’s gospel has timeless appeal and is sufficiently complex that it warrants regular rereading and rewards a more detailed examination. So let us take a close look at today’s gospel – a well-known story that we hear today from a Johannine perspective.

The first thing of note is that the account of the feeding of the five thousand is the only miracle story that is found in all four gospels. We know it so well that we have probably only paid attention to the elements that are familiar – the crowds who have followed Jesus, the concern shown for the hungry crowd, the worry that five loaves will not provide enough to go around, Jesus’ giving thanks, the sharing of what little is available and that not only is everyone satisfied but also that no less than twelve baskets of fragments are gathered afterwards.

So far so good, but I wonder if you noticed there are a number of significant differences in the telling of the story that alert us to the fact that John has a particular reason for recording this miracle. To begin at the beginning, John does not tell us that the hour is getting late as do Matthew, Mark and John. Instead John sets the scene by saying that the Passover is near. This detail is significant, as the remainder of the chapter will make clear. The author of John’s gospel wants the reader to understand that Jesus has supplanted not only the Passover Feast, but all the Jewish Festivals. They have been made redundant because in his own person Jesus is the light of the world, the living water, the bread of life and so on[1].

Another difference is that it is Jesus who takes the initiative in John’s gospel. It is he (not the disciples) who is concerned about the hunger of the crowds and he who asks how they might be fed. Further, Jesus doesn’t engage with the disciples as a group, but specifically with two of them – Philip and Andrew. It is Philip to whom Jesus addresses the question about the bread and Andrew who identifies the boy who has brought the barley loaves and dried fish.

These and other differences tell us that John has a specific reason for recording this particular miracle. Unlike the Synoptics writers who emphasise Jesus’ compassion and welcome in their accounts, John’s purpose in recording the feeding is to emphasise Jesus’ foreknowledge and power and to set the scene for the discussion and discourse that is to follow. The discussion will allow Jesus to reveal something of himself, his relationship with God and his purpose on earth. In this instance the story provides the author of the gospel with the opportunity to introduce a number of topics – Jesus as the bread of life, the bread that has come down from heaven. Unlike the manna in the wilderness, this bread will not perish and those who eat of it will live forever. Those who come to Jesus the true bread, the living bread – will never hunger or thirst because the bread that Jesus will give is his flesh – his life, his very self. Those who eat Jesus’ flesh and drink his blood will be raised on the last day.

This is a lot to absorb, which is why it takes 75 verses and why we take five weeks to explore it. It is important to note at the start that at the heart of the argument (and at the heart of the gospel) is the Johannine idea that Jesus and the Father are one and that discipleship consists of nothing more and nothing less than having a relationship with Jesus that is the same as Jesus’ relationship with God. According to this view, discipleship results in a complete dependence on God that stems from an understanding that in and through Jesus all our needs can and will be met. The miracle of the feeding is the vehicle that enables John to explore this theme and to make it clear that intimacy/union with Jesus puts an end to all our desires and all our striving because in and through our relationship with Jesus we will discover that we have all that we require and more besides.

Yes, it is extraordinary that five thousand are fed with just two small fish and five small loaves, but it is just as extraordinary to recognise that the discipleship that results in eternal life does not depend so much on what we do, but what we don’t do. By allowing Jesus to be our primary source of sustenance and our sole reason for being, we will discover that union with God that provides a sense of fulfillment and well-being such that the world can never supply.

I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:15-19)

[1] The Festival of Booths celebrated water and light and a central element of the Passover was bread.

Tags:, , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in John's Gospel | Comments Off on Finding in Jesus all that we desire