Farmer God
This is Sunday's gospel text from
The Message:
John 15:1-8 The Message (MSG)
15 1-3 “I am the Real Vine and
my Father is the Farmer. He cuts off every branch of me that doesn’t bear grapes. And
every branch that is grape-bearing he prunes back so it will bear even more.
You are already pruned back by the message I have spoken.
4 “Live in me. Make your
home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can’t bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to
the vine, you can’t bear fruit
unless you are joined with me.
5-8 “I am the Vine, you are
the branches. When you’re joined
with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure
to be abundant. Separated, you can’t produce a
thing. Anyone who separates from me is deadwood, gathered up and thrown on the
bonfire. But if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in
you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon.
This is how my Father shows who he is—when you produce grapes, when you mature as my disciples.
I like the way The Message translates
the first verse of John 15, "I am the Real Vine." My mind goes to the
opposite of real, which is fake or artificial. I can't help but think of someone seeing a gorgeous bowl of fruit, just
to find out the fruit is plastic, just as this little girl discovered: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zYnYXde8NeY. It's so frustrating to be fooled like that. The
grapes at the top of this page are phony, even though they look delicious. The
grapes at the bottom of the page are real.
We may have trouble
differentiating real from phony fruit, but it is a non issue if we continue to
live in Christ. What Farmer God has for us is the real deal by living in the
Real Vine. Being in an "intimate and organic" relationship with Jesus
will not disappoint us. And when we live in Christ, the Real Vine, we produce
spiritual, not fake fruit and God is not disappointed.
Let us settle for nothing less than
God's best, the real thing.
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