“I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you.” John 15:1-5
“And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert grafted in among them, and with them partakes of the root and fatness of the olive tree…” Romans 11:17
Let’s say you have a very bright child and by the age of 5 she is curious about the reality of things and she comes to you and says, “Daddy I have made the most amazing discovery. I have found that if I take one of mom’s glass bowls and fill it with water and then if I take one of mom’s wooden spoons and put it into the water – guess what happens. The water bends the wooden spoon. Daddy, in all my life I would have never guessed that wood could bend but now I know that water bends wood. But that’s not all, as soon as I remove it from the water pot, I mean instantly, the air straightens the spoon out and it returns to what I call its ‘pre-aquatic condition.’” You take a little time, Dad or Mom, to explain refraction and how light bends differently in water and it is the light that is bending not the spoon. Your daughter has pure love on her face as she wrinkles her brow and places her little hand on your shoulder and says, “Dad, I know what I saw with my own eyes.”
Why am I telling you this story? One point that I wish to make is that experience has to be interpreted which is to say that experience has to be understood. When the little girl said, “Dad, I know what I saw with my own eyes,” she was telling the truth because what she saw with her own eyes was in fact already out there right before her eyea. But she left reality when she thought that taking a look (even taking a very long, hard look) at what was before her meant that “water bends wood.” But children grow up. At some point our little scholar will grasp what her Dad meant about refraction — that light bends — and her world will never be the same again. At that moment she will experience her own personal Copernican Revolution -– in fact that will be only one of many personal Copernican Revolutions and she will never be able to return to her original naiveté.
In Biblical studies the equivalent to “knowing as taking a look” is the belief that the Bible speaks for itself and it does not need to be interpreted. From this point-of-view interpretation is an intrusion of the reader into the texts — interpretation prejudices the texts, it permits you to read whatever you want into the texts and therefore it is best to leave all that out and just let the Bible say what it says. This is sometimes called “the principle of the empty head” which means that the less you know the purer your interpretation will be, the more objective your reading will be. But you know that isn’t true. Our little girl is evidence enough that the less you know the more likely you are to err in your interpretation of events. If you understand that light bends as it passes through our atmosphere and it bends in a significantly different manner it passes through water you will understand that the light, not the spoon, is bending. The myth of the empty head is a sure way to misinterpret all experience including the Bible.
Through out our study of John I have said a lot about Jesus, faith, Abraham and his children, and especially Participation and Salvation. Sometimes we might wonder if what we have thought to be absolutely beyond dispute about Jesus and salvation may turn out to be somewhat analogous to the little girl’s misunderstanding of the curve of light. Such an experience would prod us to examine what we actually believe about Jesus and faith, and salvation. That may also prod us to wonder just what Jesus taught his Apostles and the Church. In order to do that we have to read John from within its Jewish context as well as from within the Church’s context. When we read the Bible that way the narrative sounds strange, even dangerous, and you are likely to feel some anxiety if you take it seriously, but that is exactly how a Copernican Revolution is experienced. I have to say by the way that I have not just made this stuff up – I’m not that smart. But I have spent decades in the texts, saying my prayers, celebrating the Holy Communion everyday, and I have spent many hours collaborating with other clergy and I have had to adjust what I thought was beyond dispute with the teaching of the Church. That being said John chapter 15 brings us back to something we began tracing in our study of Romans a few year back when we looked at what it means to be “in” someone, what it means to “participate” as in our participation in Christ:
“Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death… For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection…” Romans 6
“And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert grafted in among them, and with them partakes of the root and fatness of the olive tree…” Romans 11:17
The upshot of both Romans chapters 6 and 11 is our participation in our participation in Christ is our participation in Abraham and that means we are the Israel of God: we are baptized into Jesus Christ and to make the point even more exacting St. Paul says, “we have been planted together,” that is we are planted with Jesus in his death and we are planted together, planted individually, yes, but also planted together as the Church with Jesus in his death. Since we have been grafted into Abraham through Jesus we now feed upon the realized promises God made to Abraham.
But remember we were first in Adam — as his seed, his future children — when he disobeyed God and sin and death came upon this earth it came to us as well. Since all humanity was in Adam we too are “in” sin and death. Our world and we were lost in Adam. We have also talked about how God called Abraham to begin the process of bringing an end to sin and death not by giving him a set of commandments but by making a promise. God promised Abraham that He, God, would use his family to redeem all of creation and that would begin with a son from his own seed. Even though Abraham was well beyond fathering a child he believed God and it was “counted unto him for righteousness,” but it was not just reckoned to him as an individual person, it was reckoned to everyone who was “participating in” Abraham – that is all his unborn children. This is called the Abrahamic Covenant, what Paul refers to as the Promise.
Here’s another example of Participation from the book of Hebrews:
“One might even say that Levi himself, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham, for he was still in the loins of his ancestor when Melchizedek met him.” Hebrews 7: 9-10
The writer of Hebrews was having a discussion about the Levitical priesthood that is descended from Levi and the fact that they received tithes from the people of God, but did not pay tithes themselves because of their office. He wants to explain why Jesus’ is our High Priest though he is not a Levite and in fact his priesthood is superior to the Levites. He does this by showing that the priesthood of Melchizedek is superior to the Levitical priesthood and that is demonstrated by the fact that Levi paid tithes to Melchizedek because he was in Abraham as his unborn seed when he, Abraham, paid tithes to Melchizedek. You see how significant a thing Participation is?
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman… Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you.” John 15:1-5
The promise God made to Abraham was a promise made to his seed and by this promise God enlisted Abraham and his family to begin reversing the disaster that Adam’s sin had brought upon creation. That is the Abrahamic covenant, what Paul refers to as the Promise. Jesus is the Seed of the Promise and thus Jesus is focus of hope in Hebrews 11 and the faith of the saints of the Old Testament is the evidence of their hope, albeit their hope was not realized till the Incarnation which is why the author of Hebrews says:
“And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised…” Hebrews 11:39
Their hope was the coming of the Seed of Promise, namely, Jesus Christ who, through his own faith in God the Father, brought the Promise to maturity, to finality. The faith of Abraham is answered by the faith of Jesus the Messiah, the Promised Seed and the circle is drawn, the Promise is completed: Jesus is Israel and through his unwavering faith in his Father, he went to the Cross — not through mere obedience or any need to provide a legal satisfaction for sin — but through his faith in God at the hour of his betray, torture and crucifixion — his faith, the faith of the Seed of the Promise, Jesus the Messiah sealed up, perfected the faith of Abraham, brought the Promise to complete fulfillment.
All of this is now coming together in the Upper Room in his last fews hours before his passion and death. And his resurrection from the dead is God’s ratification of Jesus’ last word on the Cross. “It is finished,” is God’s last word on sin and death: “It is finished.” It is not the end of the Promise it is the end of sin and death and now God’s Promise to Abraham will be filled up with the children he was swore both Jew and Gentile who will all bear the family mark of Jesus’ faith. The Church is the finality of the Abrahamic Covenant; the instantiation of the Abrahamic Promise comes to fruition and so by God’s amazing grace we Gentiles are grafted into the True Vine and we are true children of Abraham, True Israelites.
I have spoken about this before. We are all born as branches upon the same Vine, Adam, the father of us all and when he disobeyed God, he died spiritually: he was deprived of the supernatural grace of God, and he suffered the four wounds of the fall. Our first parents were created to love God with their whole heart, soul and mind, but now not only can we not love God, we cannot love anything rightly. Self-concern, self-centeredness, rebellion against God, and bias are never far off. We desire the good, but for the wrong reason and in the wrong manner. We are born as branches upon this dying Vine called Adam and though we receive from him true humanity, the true image of God, we also receive all the deadly consequences of the fall.
But the good news is that there is another Vine, the Vine of the Church, the Body of Christ, and the New Israel, the instantiation of the Abrahamic Covenant. The Church is the Vine because Christ planted this Vine. To be in Christ is to be in the new Adam, which is to be in the Church, which is to be a member of the New Israel, which is to be a child of Abraham. We branches grafted into the Vine of Christ participate, partake, of its life-giving fatness, the life-giving sap of the Vine. St. Paul writes that we have been grafted into God’s olive tree — which is the true Israel, Jesus Christ — and we now feed upon the “fatness” of that olive tree. Whether we speak of Jesus as the True Vine or God’s olive tree, both are saturated with the life of God himself according to the logic of Jesus’ imagery and it is upon his life that we feed. We are born as branches upon the Vine of Adam but if we continue to feed upon him we are ultimately feeding upon death. On the other hand, we have the New Adam, the New Israel, Jesus Christ, who is full of life and the richness of all the privileges God has given his Son. Therefore the only question remaining is “How do we get ourselves attached to this new Vine of Christ?” The answer is that we have to be broken off the old Vine of Adam and grafted into the New Vine of Christ, which is his living Body the Church. And that is exactly what happens every time a child is baptized into Christ.