Fifth Sunday of Easter, May 2, 2021

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What it means to be rooted in Jesus

John 15:1–8

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and every one that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit. You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you.

“Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.

“Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown out like a branch and wither; people will gather them and throw them into a fire and they will be burned.

“If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you. By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”

Music Meditations

Opening Prayer

Adapted from “Sacred Space,” July 2012:

O God, you are with me, but more,
You are within me, giving me existence.
Let me dwell for a moment in your life-giving presence
In my body, my mind, my heart
And in my whole life.
Lord, grant that I may always desire
To spend time in your presence.
May I not forget your goodness to me.
Guide me to share your blessings with others.

Companions for the Journey

From “America” Magazine 2009, the national Jesuit weekly:

“Already Pruned”

“Remain in me as I remain in you” (Jn 15:4)

I am not much of a gardener. As a city-dweller, I am lucky if I can keep a few houseplants alive. What is especially difficult for me is to prune parts of a plant that still have life in them, even if they are scraggly and have stopped flowering. I have no problem clipping off parts that are clearly dead, but it is hard to bring myself to trim off something still living.

In today’s Gospel Jesus speaks of the Father as a vintner who prunes branches that are bearing fruit so that they will produce even more. There is a strong emphasis on “bearing fruit”; the expression occurs five times in the passage. It speaks not only of the fecundity in our relationship with God, but also of missionary outreach and of interdependence with the other branches on the vine.

The image of God as a vine grower and Israel as the vineyard is a familiar one in the Scriptures (for example, Is 5:1-7; 27:2-5; Jer 2:21; Ps 80:8-18). Most often the metaphor is used to express God’s disappointment in the lack of yield from a vine so tenderly planted and nurtured. In the Gospel of John, this is not the case. The disciples Jesus is addressing in this Last Supper scene are “already pruned” so that they will bear more fruit. Branches that do not bear fruit are taken away.

There is a word play between the verb airei, “takes away” and its compound kathairei, “prunes.” Moreover, there are verbal echoes of other parts of Jesus’ farewell discourse at the supper and the passion narrative. The imperative form of the verb airei is found in the cry of the people who call for Jesus’ crucifixion, “aron,” “Away with him!” (19:15). The adjectival form of the verb kathairei, which literally means “to make clean,” occurs in the footwashing scene (13:10-11), where Jesus assures the disciples they are clean (katharoi)

Pruning then is another Johannine metaphor for the passion. It is akin to the image in Jn 12:24, where Jesus speaks of the seed that must fall to the ground and die in order to bear much fruit. The emphasis is on the life that sprouts forth from the dying and the pruning. Expert gardeners know that the place to prune is, paradoxically, where the nodes are bursting with life.

From pruning, the stress in the Gospel shifts to the importance of the branch remaining united to the vine in order to bear fruit. A branch cannot bear fruit on its own; cut off from the vine, it withers and dies and then is good only for kindling. That remaining or abiding in Jesus is crucial for disciples is evident in that the verb menein, “to abide,” occurs eight times in these eight verses. This mutual indwelling has been spoken of since the opening chapter of the Gospel, where the first question asked by the initial two disciples is, “Where are you staying?” (meneis) (1:38). Another important moment is when the Samaritans ask Jesus to stay (menein) with them (4:40). In the Bread of Life Discourse, Jesus tells his followers, “those who eat my flesh and drink my blood, abide [menei] in me and I in them” (6:56). True disciples abide in Jesus’ word (8:31) and Jesus’ words remain in the disciples (15:7). When Jesus tells his disciples he is going to prepare a dwelling place for them (14:2), it becomes clear that the “abiding place” is not a geographical locale, but is Jesus himself (14:6), where also the Father makes his home (14:23) along with the Spirit (14:17).

How can we insure that we are abiding in Christ and he in us? In the second reading, 1 Jn 3:24 gives a simple formula: “Those who keep his commandments remain in him, and he in them, and the way we know that he remains in us is from the Spirit he gave us.” The writer also spells out what it means to keep the commandments: “We should believe in the name of...Jesus Christ and love one another just as he commanded us” (1 Jn 3:23).

Weekly Memorization

Taken from the gospel for today’s session…

Remain in me, as I remain in you

Living the Good News

What action can you take in the next week as a response to today’s reading and discussion?

Keep a private journal of your prayer/actions responses this week. Feel free to use the personal reflection questions or the meditations which follow:

Reflection Questions

  • Are we connected to the life of God? Can we prove it?
  • Do I believe that I am a friend of Jesus?
    What does that mean to me?

  • From Paul Gallagher, OFM, in “First Impressions” 2006:

    Do you garden?
    What have you learned about yourself by trying to grow plants?
    What have you learned about relationships by trying to grow plants?

    Why do gardeners prune plants?
    What do they hope will happen?
    What, in human development, would be the equivalent of pruning plants?
    How does it happen in your own life?
    What happens because of it?
    What happens to you if you go through long periods without entering a process of being pruned?
    What does that say to you?

    How do you retain your relationship with Jesus and/or God?
    How do you know if that relationship is healthy?

    Do you have relationships where you have no responsibilities?
    How do you feel about the notion that you have responsibility in your relationship with God?

  • Using the metaphor from agriculture, how are we changed by being grafted on to the life of the Spirit that is Jesus? Do we lose our personality?
  • What does it mean to be rooted in Jesus? How do we do this?
  • What is the role of the gardener in pruning and training the vine? How did Jesus’ passion prune and refine who Jesus was? Is it comforting or disturbing to think that Jesus’ own father in heaven cut off and trimmed whatever in Jesus that was not going to bear fruit?
  • What in my own personality, goals, or behavior needs pruning to better dwell in Jesus and to bear better fruit? What would that better fruit look like?

Meditations

A Meditation in the Augustinian Style/Relationship:

Adapted from Professor Barbara Reid, O.P., PhD, President of the Catholic Theological Union, Chicago:

  • In your own words, ask Christ to prune in you whatever impedes your “bearing much fruit.”
  • Spend some quiet time today enjoying simply dwelling with the Triune One who makes a home in you.
  • In your own words, give thanks for the Word and the Eucharist, through which we abide in Christ and Christ in us.
A Meditation in the Dominican Style/Asking Questions:

How diverse is our faith community writ large? How diverse is it in my local community? How does the vine and branches image respect the diversity within our church—in this community and beyond? How comfortable are we in that diversity? What are the personal and institutional challenges of diversity in our faith community? How do they affect you? How have we worked to minimize the diversity until we are comfortable?

Sit for a moment and let the image of the vine in this gospel speak to you about your rootedness in Jesus, and about our interconnectedness because we are ALL rooted in God. Where can you do better in this regard?

A Meditation in the Ignatian Style/Imagination:

Adaptation from “First Impressions”:

Imagine Jesus on that night in Gethsemane: Imagine the noises around you, the snuffling (read: snoring) of your friends behind you. What do you think is about to happen? How do you know this? Imagine talking to your Abba, your Father in heaven, telling him of your fears. What are you afraid of? Name it. What goes through your mind and heart as you ask for His help, his comfort, ask, even, to have this whole thing go away? How do you feel when there is silence from the other end? Is there silence from the other end? What makes you decide to let all of the events play out? Do you hope to be rescued? When you are at your lowest point, without even your friends to bear you company, and you hear the noises of an armed crowd coming through the darkness in your direction, what is being pruned in your spirit?

Upon deeper reflection of Jesus’ last days, we realize that out connectedness to God does not insure that life will be a cake walk. No one was more connected to the “vine grower” than Jesus, yet he had to “walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” Look at how much fruit the “vine dresser” brought out of Jesus’ life through his suffering. Feeling abandoned may be a natural feeling when we are suffering; but faith in Jesus reminds us that we are not cast off and that, through Christ, we are in a powerful and meaningful relationship with God. It becomes easy to drift away from Jesus through busyness, anxiety, or personal and relationship preoccupations. What can I do to “remain” in Christ, letting his words nourish and direct me when I am in danger of losing touch with Him?

Poetic Reflection:

Read the following poem by the late Stanford professor and poet Denise Levertov. What does it say about the difficulty of “remaining” with and in God?

“Flickering Mind”

Lord, not you
it is I who am absent.
At first
belief was a joy I kept in secret,
stealing alone
into sacred places:
a quick glance, and away—and back,
circling.
I have long since uttered your name
but now
I elude your presence.
I stop
to think about you, and my mind
at once
like a minnow darts away,
darts
into the shadows, into gleams that fret
unceasing over
the river’s purling and passing.
Not for one second
will my self hold still, but wanders
anywhere,
everywhere it can turn. Not you,
it is I am absent.
You are the stream, the fish, the light,
the pulsing shadow.
You the unchanging presence, in whom all
moves and changes.
How can I focus my flickering, perceive
at the fountain’s heart
the sapphire I know is there?

Closing Prayer

Adapted from “Sacred Space”:

Dear Jesus, you seem to love that little word abide. Teach me what it is to live in you, and for you to live in me. It means being in love with you, being at ease with you, finding my strength in you and being ready, when questioned, to explain to others what you are in my life. Please help those who feel sad, alone, anxious, and abandoned to realize that you are always with them, always abiding in them, always loving them. Help me to reflect that love to others as well.