Easter 5 B - John 15:1-8

John 15:1-8

I understand the point of the passage, “abide in me as I abide in you” but what choice does a branch really have? It doesn’t choose to grow and it can’t avoid being pruned. Which means the true vine and vine grower are in charge of whatever happens and branches just hang on like… branches. Maybe that is point of the passage. To abide means to let the vine define what the branch will be. The trouble is we do not want to be so defined and prefer to create the vine in our own image. Both right and left are driven by their own desires and definitions– not that the middle is without fault. None of us want to be branches cut off or pruned, even if it means to be fruitful, but there is way to be so connected to the vine as to transcend the analogy entirely. If the fruit borne by those connected to the true vine are hardly aware of the connection they do more grafting than pruning and abiding is not a verb but a noun.