1. Jesus said to his disciples:
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower.
He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit,
and every one that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit.
You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you.
Remain in me, as I remain in you.
Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own
unless it remains on the vine,
so neither can you unless you remain in me.
I am the vine, you are the branches.
Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit,
because without me you can do nothing”(Jn15:1-5). Taken from today’s Sunday gospel.
2. In his normal super didactic manner Jesus employs natural image to drive home his lesson. To explain the relationship between him and his Father he spoke of the vine and the vine dresser. The vine dresser lives for the vine and draws his joy and livelihood from working on the vine. Remove the vine and the vine dresser becomes unemployed. Remove the vine dresser the vine becomes neglected and unproductive. He is dependent on the vine as the vine is dependent on him.
3. Having expressed the intimate relationship between the Son and the Father using the image of the vine and the vine dresser Jesus went further to speak of his relationship with the disciples. He identified the disciples with the branches of the vine thereby connecting the disciples with the Father. In this way he implied that the Father relates with the disciples in exactly the way that he relates with the Son. But the interest of the vine dresser is the fruitfulness of each branch, meaning that a disciples becomes useless the moment he or she stops bearing fruit. The vine dresser goes as far as removing such branch from the main vine.
4. Naturally any branch that is removed fizzles out and dies. It is in this context that Jesus says that a branch cannot bear fruit unless it remains with the vine. He made it clear that apart from him none of the disciples could do anything:”apart from me you can do nothing.” This means two things:1. A creature without a creator will not really exist. A creature is always traced to a creator; 2. One can actually do a lot of things without counting on God. One can even declare a stand against God and still succeeds in his or her projects. However, all that is realized without God can rightly be classified as nothing. So ‘apart from me all that you do is nothing.’ This can only be understood by analyzing the end product of any project.
5. Today humanity is engaged in a number of ant-God projects fuelled by ideologies animated by human pride. Most of these immoral pursuits like denial of gender, segmentation of the world according to economic classes meant to humiliate some races and enthrone others as super races are succeeding and are being imposed on humanity by powerful governments in the name of human right. These projects will make their way but like the tower of babel they will end up in confusing rather than in uniting humanity.
6. You are to the Father what Christ is to him. You are a creature and your continual progress and wellbeing depend on your consistent attachment to the source. If you want to achieve enduring success, hing all your projects on God. Judge and evaluate your projects with his word and teachings. If you abide in him even if you make little progress you can be sure that your success will remain something and not nothing. @Vita, 02/05/21
anaehobiv@yahoo.com, 07033692005.
