My son is home for Spring Break. I just went to get him yesterday. So we are still in that readjustment phase, remembering we have a son, and he wants food and clothes washed and space. It’s not a bad thing, but it is a thing. Don’t you deny it, you empty nesters!
At the same time, I watch and listen and try to figure out just who this person is. I mean, yes, there is enough of my son who shared my life for all these years and grew under my care to become someone of whom I was justifiably proud. But then a few years ago I sent him off (ok, yes, his mother and I sent him off) to college, out of our lives probably forever, except for these parachute drops from time to time. And the young man who drops in is not the boy I sent off not so many years ago. Some how he continued to grow apart from me.
No not grow apart, though that is happening too. But he grew apart from me. Without my help, without my presence and guidance, without my tending and shaping. Apart from me he grew, is growing. Like his sister who was home a week or so ago, I’m not sure about the connection anymore. Not sure what my role is anymore. Not sure how this abiding thing works in the end.
John 15:1-5 "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. 2 He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. 3 You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. 4 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. 5 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.
Jesus is on his way out. On his way to suffering and death and life and ascension. Out. Away. Apart from them. And he knew it and told them. Over and over he told them. I wonder did they not get it? Did they just glaze over whenever he talked about that departure? Did they live each day of their new and exciting lives thinking that it was always going to be like this? Probably. Do any of us imagine life without us in it? Only on our sad days. And if we try to talk to those we love about this departure, they won’t want to hear. I can see a field full of disciples with fingers in their ears loudly singing “la la la la, I can’t hear you!!” when Jesus started his the Son of Man will be lifted up to die routine.
But he knew it. He knew it as sure as he knew he was breathing now. And he faced it with the same confidence with which he faced drawing that first ragged breath in a barn in Bethlehem. With the same sense of presence that he faced when he rose from the muddy waters of the Jordan with a beaming John the Baptism trembling beside him. With the same sense of possibility and responsibility that brought a sigh out of him when he healed in the face of doubt, or the groan that came when he tossed out a demon that thought it was secure with claws deep in the human psyche. He knew what was next, and he wanted to prepare them. Abide in me, he told them, as an antidote to his absence. Abide in me.
Wait. What? He was leaving so he wanted them to abide in him? What? Did he mean that the time is short, get your abiding in while abiding is possible? Or worse, was it a “look what you missed! You should have gotten closer! You should have taken up residence, you should have gotten on board, you should have been on the team!” But now the game is over. The clock is ticking. The last second shot will probably fall short, as they do more often than not. And you will have missed it. Too bad for you. I’m on my way out. You could have had more. You could have been a contender. But no.
No. That can’t be it. Jesus didn’t taunt in that way. Jesus wept for missed opportunities, yes. But he didn’t wag his finger at those who just didn’t get it. No, this had to be a real opportunity, a real commandment. Like the other commandment that is about to come in a few more verses, the love one another one. That wasn’t a taunt. Neither is this. Abide in me. Not you should have, you could have, but you didn’t abide in me. No, there is still time, the clock hasn’t yet run out. Abide. Get in there and abide, there is still hope, we are still alive.
But how? Jesus is annoyingly short on detail, even as he is rich in imagery. Vines and branches, fruit and gardeners: there is a secret here. Not a hidden code, but a obvious puzzle that if we could but glimpse it, then it would explode in our consciousness like a lightning bolt. It doesn’t need a degree in ancient languages, but an ah ha moment that unfolds the truth that was always there.
Look again, abide in me as I abide in you. As I abide in you. He’s leaving, but he’s not leaving. He is with us, even to the end of the age. Which means we are with him come hell or high water, when the chips are down or our ship has come in. We are with him and he is with us. We are on the brink of Holy Week, that divine drama which is acted out as a historical remembrance year after year to our great appreciation. Except that it isn’t an historical remembrance. It is the rhythm of our faith. Christ comes to us and we should for joy, and ask him to save us, because Christ comes to us. To us. And with tears streaming down our faces we embrace him and hope for a new start and new opportunity and new outlook on life. And when the glow dies down and the new outlook looks a lot like the old look and takes just as much effort to hold onto, if not more. Then our disillusionment grows and we look for someone to blame, a scapegoat who must be at fault for the rotten life we’ve been given, and we lash out and cast aside that which only recently seemed so full of possibility and hope, and now tastes like ashes instead of bread and wine. And we turn our backs on the one we wept over, and we flee in fear and shame and doubt. And in the darkness we feel so alone. Again, so alone. Like no one understands. Like no one is on our side. Like no one ... there’s just no one. For us. No one.
We are apart from him, and can do nothing. Or nothing that we can do seems worth doing. Or nothing that we have done seems to amount to anything anymore. Apart from him. Life is emptier. The colors are muted, the air is heavy and gravity seems stronger. Apart from him. Nonsense? Maybe. Maybe it is my imagination, my overactive spiritual sensibilities. A little bit more time in the real world might do me some good, give me some perspective on how things really work. Sure, a little bit of Jesus is a good idea, but you can go too far. Am I right?
I listen to my son talk to his mother and discover depths of awareness and sensibility that I had nothing to do with. I find a young man who will make a mark in this world somehow, and would like to take credit for it, but I know it wasn’t me. I know my failings and shortcomings all too well. I know of opportunities missed and do overs I wish I could have. And yet, there he is, grown somehow, in spite of me. Matured in ways I wonder if I have even reached. How did that happen?
John says I got the order wrong. I got the responsibilities wrong. I’m a branch, like my son is a branch and my daughter and wife and members of my church and my community and you. You are a branch. We can work together, we have the great and glorious responsibility of producing the fruit, of making things happen, of being the sustenance for the Kingdom of God. And I can give shade when needed to the tender young branches in my vicinity, I can help collect the nutrients, I can do all that and more, but I’m not the vine. The sustenance doesn’t come through me. How did he grow and mature apart from me? He wasn’t apart from the vine. Even off on his own, in a new environment, he is still connected to the vine which will sustain him, grow him and help him mature.
I can help - metaphor notwithstanding. I can participate in his growth and continually call him back to the vine. But there will come a time when he is apart from me more than he is connected to me. But I pray he won’t be apart from the one who gives him strength. I pray, will continue to pray that he is with the one who will be with him to the end of the age. Abide in him as he abides in you.
Shalom,
Derek
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