One person’s thinking about John 15:4:
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. (NRSVA)
The passage in John’s Gospel includes this verse. Having told His audience that He is metaphorically a vine upon which fruit will grow because God will tend the vine to ensure that it does, Jesus adds the reminder that the branches only work at all as part of the vine.
Put another way, this is the question that we might set ourselves when we ask ‘So, what WOULD Jesus do in this situation?’. If we were to honestly rely upon The Spirit to help us to answer, then we would of course still be a branch of the vine. Usually, we don’t, so we aren’t. What we do therefore doesn’t produce fruit simply because we have not remained in Him.
Probably, you want to see lots of obvious fruit of the type that you expect. Probably, that means having more people in your church with views and activities much like your own. That’s not right. Have a look at Luke 17:20&21 where Jesus tells you what ‘growing churches’ actually is. It’s well worth while thinking hard about this. Here Jesus tells us where to look. The answer is ‘within you’!
Unsurprisingly, everything that Jesus says is entirely coherent. Given that you want the Kingdom of God to be visible and to grow, then you must constantly challenge yourself to be part of the Vine. You won’t be able to do as much Jesus did, but you will be able to try to.
What would that look like? Being Congregational, we have the advantage of not having to devise universal rules, we can work out with our co-workers what is right for us for now. What we can’t justifiably do is; nothing, or else, just what we used to.
Being kind to people is a good place to look for Jesus. Smartly dressed folk studiously ignoring the lost and the lonely in the street is definitely not a church, but it is a commonplace. What WOULD Jesus do about the parent trying to calm a screaming child? How about the lonely widower who can’t remember how to socialise? Or perhaps amongst your church group, the person who has something really pressing to say, but is patronised into silence?
It's quite plain what He would do, so maybe it’s time for us to look for ‘growth’ by starting with ourselves and small acts of kindness.
God already sees the mess that the human race has made. No doubt, He will deal with that in due course. For sure we are not going solve it by cowering behind dead dogma in holier-than-thou huddles. To produce fruit that means something to God, we first need to look within for His Kingdom. Next, we need each other for support. With that, we can look around at the world and its issues and ask, ‘What WOULD Jesus do in this situation?’. Certainly, He would be kind.
John Cartwright
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