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Crushed Fruit
Constance Hastings April 22, 2024
The Trouble with Jesus:
The Pastor of Paradox teaches lose your life to keep it.
What we say we want isn’t really what we want. Sure, it makes sense in the moment, your best advisers may say go for it, you’ve trained for it with a goal in mind. But when you actually get it…Maybe not.
They were from out of town, Greeks, trained in logic and philosophy. The Jewish festival Passover was in a few days. Likely, they had come to observe for themselves this religious high point of the year for Jews. Yet, there was this new guy who people were saying had a different take on the Law, some thought he might be the Messiah the ancient prophets had promised would deliver the Jews from Roman control. Why not hear his take on life’s meaning?
“We want to meet Jesus.” Sounds simple enough. Listen to him teach, maybe have a good philosophical dialogue, shake hands, and on with the rest of their itinerary. Maybe what we say we really want isn’t what we’re really asking.
Direct Instruction
Jesus had plenty to say, but it wasn’t a dialogue, a give-and-take time of questioning, proposing alternatives. There was no small talk, welcoming as equals, light discussion of the events of the day. Jesus doesn’t assume a role; he is what he is. And he tells it outright.
“The time has come…”, he begins. All are on notice to be expectant for God is going to move, the Son of Man is going to get his glory. Unexpectedly (and characteristically), he takes this differently from illustrations of adoration, triumph, celestial celebration. Something about how a kernel of wheat had to die before it can grow and produce a bountiful harvest of wheat? You’ve got to listen hard to catch up with him sometimes.
“Those who love their life will lose it,
and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”
Pastor of Paradox
Speaking for those Greek visitors and the rest of us, what in the heavens and on earth can you possibly mean? Love is not meant to be thrown away. It’s precious, so you protect that which you love. But you’re saying to hate our precious lives so we can keep it? Yeah, Pastor of the Paradox, you certainly are!
Love is precious, and it drives much. Where you place that love, that loyalty, that dedication is the point. If you want to meet Jesus, you have to meet him where he is. “Come, and follow me,” he says. To do so is to refute much of what you think you must have to live, to survive, to be happy in this world. Your right to yourself is sacrificed to being his follower, his disciple.
Good golly, this is too much, really. So all I’ve worked for, everything I’ve become, is completely out the window? Dear God, but how can you ever ask this of us?
Granted, it’s a lot. A whole lot. Wimps need not apply. It does make you rethink what’s central, what right that now may seem non-negotiable, the I-can’t-ever-live-without things of life. If not an immediate one-eighty reversal, it would require a lifetime of peeling the onion in finding what is the pristine core which makes life worth living. Maybe, that’s the purpose of the exercise. In all though, Jesus wants to be that central thing. But don’t think it’s too much to ask of someone. He knows.
From Paradox to Passion
He knows because it was no less than what was asked of him. He struggled with it more than we’ll ever know. “Should I pray, ‘Father, save me from what lies ahead?’” he asked of himself as much as those around him. Before the week was out, he’d meet his purpose, to be like that kernel of wheat and die, buried in the ground. The ultimate sacrifice we call it. Surely, God would not ask that of us, we hope.
Yet, that kernel has to die as a seed before it can grow and produce a harvest. From a life sacrificed in following Jesus, there is a reaping of life that will not die, that which will last now into eternity. So loss becomes gain, death reverses into life, letting go leads to finding more.
Really? Show me. Give me your best shot. Who, when, where does this happen? And on the other side, you say there’s benefit?
More than benefit. Jesus asks this because he knows. He lived it and he died. The cross was just around the corner. But only by his dying could the final outcome of life be reversed. He died as a kernel of wheat, seeding then new life for us through resurrection, restoring us to full life.
People say they want it all, the best life possible. It’s like saying what they want but not really wanting what they say. Jesus says he wants the same, but not more of the same. By his life example and purpose, meeting him as Son of God, there is more life, an abundance beyond what you might really want.
The choice then is given: you can love your life or lose it for him.
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The Trouble with Jesus: His words grow like a vine,
thin trails of thought getting thicker with meaning.
Jesus kept talking. He’d just said it was time to go. But he kept talking. The tension in the room was a weighty blend of grief, some denial, maybe even suppressed anger at what he was saying held in place by the exhaustion of the week. Tonight was not how it had started, an exhilarating parade with the crowd calling him the new king, a king who would save. (Mark 11:1-11)
Deviating Thoughts
But he kept saying things like being lifted on a cross even as he almost desperately called to the people to believe he was sent from God. Those gathered in the city for the Passover festival had heard about his miracle of bringing a friend back to life after four days dead. (John 11:1-44) But most were not buying much more of his message than that. Still, he just kept talking.
Earlier in the evening, he had done something weird, uncharacteristic for one who would be king. He’d dressed like a servant and washed their dirty feet, calling upon them to serve others likewise. (John 13:1-17)
Then he’d said the unthinkable, that one of them, these who had followed and learned of him for three years, would betray him. Maybe that’s why he’d said to Judas, “Hurry. Do it now.” Judas was the treasurer who paid for their meals and gave money to the poor. (John 13:27-30) Do you think he left to pay off any threat to their Rabbi and themselves? Jesus kept talking.
In all the confusion, Peter had declared he’d die for his Lord. Jesus silenced the room when he stated Peter would do go so far as to three times deny he even knew Jesus before that very night was over. (John 13:38) Next came some kind of talk about going away somewhere and how he would send a Counselor to teach and remind them of what he had said. (John 14:26)
Restless, Weaving Thoughts
It was too much, how he kept talking even when he said they should be going. It was as if Jesus knew when they left that room he never would have again the chance to tell them all he wanted. So he weaved in his thoughts, let them creep out and hold on where they would, seemingly just talk but growing into so much more.
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.” Jesus kept talking but hold on to that thought. A vine. The image is one similar to what he is doing now. It grows, spreads out, weaves up into and among places to which it can grasp, wrap itself, become stable-tight, and then move out again. His words have been like that all night, thin trails of thought getting thicker with meaning.
Jesus fleshes it out. His Father, the one from whom he comes, is the gardener. The work of this Gardener-God is made clear from the beginning: to produce fruit. The gardener trains the branches on the vine, how to grow so light is available to all parts of it. The parts that impede ability to produce fruit are removed, pruned.
Such it has been with these friends of Jesus. The message he has given them has cut away at their ambitions, desires, misconceptions of God’s purpose in them. It’s pruning that can be severe but necessary for the fruit of the vine. Not all will accept being part of the vine. The separation leaves a wound on the vine like something nailed deep into flesh.
Severe, sometimes necessary pruning can also be a cleansing, yielding process, as if having feet or hands washed. The health of the vine and the expected fruit must be protected from disease. Yielding to the Gardener-God’s work maintains the well-being of the branches.
Roving, Winding Thoughts
From the True Vine come branches, and from the yielding of the branches is fruit. There is an interconnectedness in the image that belies the translations. Eight times Jesus states the importance of remaining, abiding, being joined to him. “Apart from me, you can do nothing.”
You won’t know growth. You can’t be effective. You won’t have life in the abundance the Gardener-God would have for you. You won’t last because you won’t produce fruit. Abide, remain in, and be joined to the message Jesus brings.
To abide is to be not just a branch, an extra appendage, but an integral part of the vine. By an intimate conjoining of Love the True Vine connects with its branches. In this Christ-likeness, the branch is identified with The True Vine. Yet, this metaphor is not limited to individualism.
“You may ask any request you like, and it will be granted.” Not a blanket give-a-way is this. Throughout Jesus’ words the plural form of “you” is stated. You entails the interconnected, gathered believers who remain in, are joined to, and abide in the True Vine. In the altogether growing, cleansing, pruning of the branches is God’s desire in producing fruit.
Meandering, Heavy Thoughts
Jesus kept talking. His message is understood as the tenuous wisps of leaves sprouted from the tips of the branch connected to the True Vine. His discourse is cloudy in its first vision, requiring multiple re-examinations as the vine sends out more branches.
Jesus kept talking. Fruit is the desire of his Gardener-God. Fruit will be taken from the vine of Love and crushed into a cup from which Jesus soon will pour out his life. The True Vine stared into his fate.
He kept talking.
