Posts Tagged ‘“I am”’

Jesus is a vine, not a vineyard

May 1, 2021
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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. 

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Breaking down the barriers

March 7, 2015

Lent 3 -2015
John 2:13-21
Marian Free

In the name of God, whom we access through Jesus – not through buildings or rituals. Amen.

John 2:13 The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body.

I wonder what, if anything, surprised you in today’s gospel? For myself, three things are immediately obvious. The first is that Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple occurs at the beginning of his ministry; the second is that Jesus compares the Temple precincts to a marketplace and not to a “den of thieves” and the third is the reference to Jesus’ body as a temple. These stand out because they are not found in the other accounts of the same event. If you were to put John’s account of the cleansing of the Temple side by side with the accounts found in the other three gospels you would notice other significant differences in the retelling. These include Jesus making a whip of cords, pouring out the coins of the money-changers, the disciples’ remembering the Psalm (“zeal for your house”) and suggesting that if the Temple were destroyed, he Jesus, could raise it up in three days.

These distinctions are significant and important if we are to understand John’s gospel and the differences between John’s gospel and Matthew, Mark and Luke. Among other things, the Synoptic Gospels place the majority of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee. Jesus makes only one visit to Jerusalem and that is for less than a week – the week in which he dies. The author of John’s gospel suggests that there were three occasions on which Jesus visited Jerusalem and that his first visit – this one, occurred immediately after the wedding at Cana (which is in Galilee). Jesus performs the first of his signs – changing water into wine – and immediately makes the long trip to Jerusalem for the Passover.

According to John, Jesus goes to Jerusalem on several occasions during his ministry and he appears to spend a great deal of time there – more time there than in Galilee. The Synoptic gospels tell the story quite differently, Jesus visits only once and that just before his death. The differences in the accounts means that it is difficult to tell just how long Jesus’ public ministry was. Was it only one year as implied by the Synoptics, or was it three as implied in John’s account?

Of course each author retells the story in a different way according to the point they want to make. In the case of John’s gospel, one of the author’s intentions is to demonstrate that in his person, Jesus replaces the Temple, its festivals and its rituals. Through Jesus, in other words, John claims that believers have a direct access to God. There is no longer any need for an intermediary – whether that be the priests or the rituals associated with the Temple. In Jesus is all that a believer needs for healing, rest, and life-giving sustenance. This is most evident in what we know as the “I am” statements some of which occur specifically in the context of the Jewish festivals. When Jesus says: “I am the light of the world”, “I am the living water”, “I am the bread of life”, he is implying that in his person he represents the symbols of the cult. As the light of the world, Jesus makes Hanukkah redundant, as the bread of life he implies that he replaces the Passover festival and as the water of life, he becomes the primary symbol associated with the Feast of the Tabernacles.

All of this goes to explain why the author of John’s gospel places Jesus’ clearing of the Temple at the very beginning of Jesus ministry. It sets the scene for what is to come. In other words, John is using this event in Jesus’ life to introduce the idea that Jesus replaces the Temple and all that it represents. This theme is not unique to John, but is found, albeit in a very different way in the Book of Hebrews, which is much more explicit about Jesus’ replacement of the Temple, the priesthood and the sanctuary as the primary means by which believers access or enter into relationship with God.

To us this all seems self-evident – it is a theme with which we have lived our whole lives. It is important to remember that John is writing in a completely different context – one in which the Temple had played a role for centuries and in which there were temples were central to the worship of the vast array of Greek and Roman gods. Worshipping a god without a Temple was almost inconceivable if for no other resaon than that there needed to be somewhere to offer sacrifices.

John is writing at the end of the first century. At the time Jerusalem (and therefore the Temple) had been destroyed – the focus of the Jewish cult no longer existed. Even had it survived, those who believed in Jesus would not have been welcome because they had not supported the Jews in the uprising against Rome If the Temple no longer existed, it would have raised the questions: Where and how might the cult be practiced if there is no longer a Temple, no longer a Holy of Holies? If there was no longer a Temple how and where would believers express their relationship with God? Without the Temple how could the people communicate with God.

John’s gospel provides the answer – all these things are possible in and through Jesus. The Temple is no longer necessary. Through Jesus believers have direct access to God. They do not need cult or ritual to express their relationship with or to communicate with God. Everything that the Temple cult had provided – reconciliation with God, purity rituals, opportunities to give thanks to God and so on – is now to be found in and expressed through the person of Jesus. This is the point that John is making in his retelling of the “cleansing of the Temple”. Jesus claims that should the Temple itself be destroyed, he could raise it up – not in the 46 years it had taken Herod to bring it to its current state, but in just three days. This is an extraordinary claim. It would be impossible to rebuild the bricks and mortar of the building, but as John explains for the benefits of his readers, Jesus is not referring to the physical Temple, but to himself. Through his death and resurrection, Jesus will become the means of communication with God. All that the Temple has been, all the functions that the Temple has served, will be available through faith in Jesus. If there is a need for a Temple, Jesus is that Temple.

It is important to understand that the Church is not a substitute for the Temple, that the clergy are not intermediaries between the faithful and God, that our rites and rituals might express our faith but they do not stand between God and us. Thanks to Jesus, the relationship between each individual and God is direct and immediate. Those who believe in Jesus don’t need someone else to pray for on their behalf, to ask forgiveness on their behalf or to offer sacrifices on their behalf. No one needs another person to act as God’s interpreter because God is accessible to each and every one of us.

God has broken all the barriers, between himself and humankind. Such barriers as there are of our own making and our own design.

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