Jn 13:1-8
5th SUNDAY OF EASTER – Year B
The gospel today invites a reflection on the vine and the branches. Like the shepherd’s image we meditated on last Sunday, another metaphor that Israel identifies themselves with is that of the vine. They have in their memories Psalm 80 that says, “You brought a vine out of Egypt,” or the lamentation of Yahweh in Isaiah 5 as unforgettable to the listeners of Jesus. This metaphor has been ingrained in their consciousness that it is sometimes difficult for the Israelites to distinguish the metaphor from the real.
Israel was the prized vine of Yahweh. The metaphor indicates a unique and intimate relationship between Yahweh and Israel. In this image Jesus is establishing that he is the stem of that vine and his disciples are branches indicating that he desires to establish an even more intimate relationship with his disciples, the new Israel. Sharing the same trunk and sap of the vine is similar to what Jesus speaks about eating and drinking his flesh and blood. When we read this metaphor with the metaphors that he used about his body and blood in parallel, we understand the full import of what Jesus is explaining in a mystical way—the desire of God to live with us, or even more, to live in us.
Vine-and-branches is an elaborate metaphor, or more accurately, an allegory. If we do not decipher all the parts of this allegory, we might lose important messages. The components of these allegory are: vine, branches, fruits, abiding, pruning, burning, vine dresser, branches that do not give fruits, and branches that do bear fruit. Most of the components of the allegory, Jesus himself clarifies. The vine is Jesus. The disciples are the branches. The Father is the vine dresser. He prunes the branches in order to bear much fruit. The ones that he prunes and removes will be burned. One verb he uses throughout the allegory is “abide in.” So there are two components of this allegory that we need in order to understand deeper the rest of this allegory. What does it mean to abide in him and bear fruit?
We are used to living in houses or boarding houses. But how do we live in a person? In the passage that follows after today’s reading, Jesus explains that living in him is equal to living in his love. How do we exactly live in love? He continues to say, obeying his commandment is the way to live in his love. What is his commandment? Later he would say, “This commandment I give to you, love one another.” Loving others is the golden rule for me to live in Christ and Christ in me. This logical sequence of the elements makes the philosophical foundation of his kingdom.
The metaphor of “bearing much fruit” has then something do with loving, with acts of charity. Acts of love and mercy are the fruits of love. All the pruning the Father invites us to go through in us are for us to become fruitful with acts of love! It is in this context that we can clearly understand the pruning. The Father is not using clippers and cutters to prune us. It is the voice of the Father in the gospel that challenges our tendencies that go against the virtue of love, that prunes our plans that do not produce acts of charity and compassion. So pruning is a process of discernment and judgment of values and practices that we maintain against the gospel value of selfless love, and the painful process of cutting them away from our life. Whatever is there in us that is against love should be annihilated.
Sunday Homilies 