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Today is the Fifth Sunday in Easter. This is the season of new life, of rebirth.
John 15:1-8
Jesus said to his disciples, ”I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. 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. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”
The reading today — “I am the true vine” — comes from Jesus’ farewell discourses. In the Gospel of John, he said this to his friends on the night of the Last Supper shortly before he was executed. But the lectionary moves this story from that context to this, the fifth Sunday of Easter.
It is a strange story that combines two images – “vines,” an agricultural image, and “abode,” a more literary image. I can just imagine my frustrated high school writing teacher scribbling across the page in red ink: a mixed metaphor.
How can you abide in a vine? The entire concept is nonsensical.
And thus, today’s reflection centers on this mixed metaphor about vines and abodes. If, however, we understand this odd combination, we may hear Jesus’ words as an invitation to understand who we are in and with God.
First, VINES:
In recent weeks, I’ve been planting the garden around the Cottage. Every year, I plant tomatoes — with the typical result of me warring with the neighborhood squirrels. But about five years ago, squirrels weren’t the problem. It was a tomato fungus. No matter what I did, no matter how I amended the soil, those poor tomatoes just shriveled and died. The gardening books I consulted said not to plant tomatoes the next year — to give the soil a rest.
The following summer, I skipped the tomatoes.
But the summer after the tomato-less summer, I planted them again. They grew to be beautiful, bountiful, and seemed healthy. Then, one day, I saw tiny yellow spots on a single plant: the early symptom of the fungus.
I went to the farmers market and asked the experts how to handle the problem. Mr. Ochoa said that the plants could not “live” with each other. I had to tear out the infected one to save the others, isolate the fungus and try to mitigate its presence in the soil.
It was painful. I felt like a plant murderer. I was in pain as I cut off the vines, tore out the roots, and cast the branches in the garbage. I am pretty certain I whimpered the whole time. But Mr. Ochoa had been so matter-of-fact. It was just what had to happen in order for all the other plants to bear fruit.
Because I didn’t grow up on a farm, I focused on the wrong thing. The point wasn’t about what was cast away, but what was being saved. The point was about fruitfulness.
And so it is with this story. The disciples wouldn’t have been surprised by the pruning and cutting part. They lived in a world of olive trees and grapevines. They knew there were specific times to prune and cut in order to make the orchard more productive or rid a crop of disease.
Some Christians think this text describes God correcting us and use it to support church discipline. But pruning isn’t really the point here. Everyone understood about pruning. Nothing unusual there. The disciples would have been more surprised by the agricultural image of connection — Jesus was the vine; they were branches. That’s so intimate, so entangled. Aren’t the “branches” of a grapevine part of the vine? Aren’t they vines, too? Vines have branches that, in turn, themselves vine. It isn’t about pruning per se — the emphasis is on abundance.
And that’s when Jesus switched the metaphor from vine to abode.
Second, ABIDES:
When my daughter was little, she wanted to know where God lived. For weeks, she asked everyone “Where is God?” I said “God lives in your heart.” Her Presbyterian grandparents said “God is in heaven.” Her father, who is really a Transcendentalist, said, “God lives everywhere.”
Her child’s question is one of the primary questions of the spiritual life. Where is God? Where does God dwell?
The verb “to abide” is essentially the same as the noun “abode,” meaning to await, to live with, stay with, remain, or dwell. In its early English form, meant “habitual residence.”
“Dwell in me, as I dwell in you.” Make a home in me, as I make a home in you. I will reside in you, as you reside in me.
This is a powerful metaphor of God dwelling with us and us dwelling in God. The vine and branches image has been beloved by mystics throughout church history. Many mystics, like Teresa of Avila, depicted our souls as a house, as God’s dwelling. We are God’s residence, God resides in us.
But there is something else interesting in the passage — it isn’t just about one person. The “you” is plural. More like “y’all.” Abide in me as I abide in y’all. Jesus was sharing with his disciples — a group of his closest followers. He wasn’t pointing to particular individuals as abodes as if some of them were single family dwellings in the suburbs.
Despite the mixed metaphor, the two images — vines and abodes — point to the same three spiritual insights.
Vines and abodes are images of mutuality and relationship. We can’t imagine a branch-less vine! And Jesus promises his friends he will remain in and with them, a community of friends gathered around a meal.
Vines and abodes are images of fruitfulness and abundance. Obviously, vines produce fruit. But a home, place, or abode is the central promise of the Bible — and it suggests abundance as well. God gives God’s people a dwelling, a land of milk and honey where everyone sits under their own vine and fig tree.
Vines and abodes are actually images of messiness; in real life, both demand our attention and care. Vines are tangled affairs. Vinegrowers prune, train, and care for them. They maintain the soil, manage the canopy, and attend to their health. The same is true for abodes. Dwelling together, making a home, is a messy affair — be it roommates or siblings or marriage or neighbors. Abiding with others isn’t easy. You have to work at it. We must care for the places where we abide, as God directed our first ancestors in Genesis to do: to till and tend the Earth.
As it turns out, vines and abodes some surprising things in common. The French actually have a word that combines vines and abodes into a single idea: terroir. Terroir means that the characteristics of a habitation — geography, climate, geology — make their way into the wine, fruit, milk, cheese, vegetables, and herbs that grow in that particular location. Quite literally, terroir is dirt. The soil of a place produces a unique fruit which bears the “taste” of the very ground itself.
Vines and abodes. Not a mixed metaphor at all. Rather, this is the organic mutuality upon which we depend. Vines and abodes are the story of Genesis, the story of our beginning.
The Gospel of John often spiritually echoes Genesis. John draws from the story of the first creation to unfold a vision of the new creation that was birthed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. This is the Easter story that began when Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene, the first witness, in a garden and as a gardener.
Today’s gospel reminds us that our spiritual terroir is God’s own being. The psalmist said: The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein. Jesus said: Abide in me as I abide in you. And Mary Magdalene assumed he was the gardener — The Divine Gardener.
No wonder. At Easter, even the dirt itself is rebirthed. And from this fertile ground, vines and branches grow — flavored with the spirit. There we make a habitation.
God abides here. With us. And we abide in a holy habitation. We are the terroir of the sacred. Vines and abodes invite us to taste and see that the Lord is good.
INSPIRATION
Know where your food has come from
through knowing those who produced it for you,
from farmer to forager, rancher or fisher
to earthworms building a deeper, richer soil,
to the heirloom vegetable, the nitrogen-fixing legume,
the pollinator, the heritage breed of livestock,
and the sourdough culture rising in your flour.
Know where your food has come from
by the very way it tastes:
its freshness telling you
how far it may have traveled,
the hint of mint in the cheese
suggesting what the goat has eaten,
the terroir of the wine
reminding you of the lime
in the stone you stand upon,
so that you can stand up for the land
that has offered it to you.
Know where your food has come from
by ascertaining the health and wealth
of those who picked and processed it,
by the fertility of the soil that is left
in the patch where it once grew,
by the traces of pesticides
found in the birds and the bees there.
Know whether the bays and shoals
where your shrimp and fish once swam
were left richer or poorer than before
you and your kin ate from them.
— Gary Nabhan, from “A Terroir-ist’s Manifesto for Eating in Place” (you can read the entire piece HERE)
Inside the glass bottle,
the wine from Sangiovese grapes —
aged in oak barrels for three years —
continues to age,
losing its youthful fruitiness,
becoming more heady,
more sour cherry, more rose.
A glass of such wine is like
a drinkable love letter to change.
So when the sommelier’s wife
gifts me a vintage from the year
my son was born,
I taste more than raspberry,
dried flowers, coconut and tobacco.
I taste deep red.
I taste rolling down grassy hills
and painting our faces with mud.
I taste sleepless nights and midnight fears.
Homework at the table.
Camping in the desert.
The vinosity of devotion.
Late summer swims in the pond.
The glass empty long before
I wish it were done.
— Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, “Il Poggione Brunello di Montalcino, 2004”
Terroir
an expression of place
enhanced by organic practices
soil enlivened from extensive cover crops
breathe flavor and intensity into fruit.
Terroir
vineyards surrounded by gardens
the complexity of arugula,
Padrón peppers,
ripening tomatoes,
sunchokes
to the bane of the farmer,
the chicken,
lending to exactness of flavors.
Terroir
the expression of the views
the owl sees
in the morning light as it perches
in an olive tree.
Terroir
explosion of flavor with each sip of wine
that defines its origin.
Terroir
chickens the bane of the farmer
let loose in the vineyard hopping up
to steal a sugar-laden berry.
Terroir
exudes life
life in the soils
life in the flavors
of Stone Edge Farm.
Terroir
the expression of the roots
embracing the alluvial stones
bringing minerality to the wine.
Terroir
the cool bay breeze in the evening
after ninety-degree days
that brews the development of ripe flavors.
Terroir
the flavor of soils defined by respect
not by abuse.
Terroir
flowers blooming year round
inviting bees and beneficial insects.
Terroir is controlled or enhanced by humans,
we don’t control it
we guide it
to an expression of flavor.
Terroir
the decisions we make
daily in the vineyard
how we prune
how we train
how we thin the crop so each cluster hangs with integrity
ripening in dappled sunlight.
Terroir
the decision to harvest
the grapes
send them to the winery.
Terroir
let the alchemy begin.
— Phil Coturri, “Terroir is an Expression of Place”
The woods and farms were a sanctuary of the sacred, a place where the Bible actually spoke. There were sheep and goats in pastures, fields ripe to harvest, and vines and trees bearing fruit.
Freed from memorizing Bible verses in the church basement, I sank into the world charged with the Word of God.
— Diana Butler Bass, Grounded: Finding God in the World
I don't think it is enough appreciated how much an outdoor book the Bible is. It is a "hypaethral book," such as Thoreau talked about - a book open to the sky. It is best read and understood outdoors, and the farther outdoors the better. Or that has been my experience of it. Passages that within walls seem improbable or incredible, outdoors seem merely natural. This is because outdoors we are confronted everywhere with wonders; we see that the miraculous is not extraordinary but the common mode of existence. It is our daily bread. Whoever really has considered the lilies of the field or the birds of the air and pondered the improbability of their existence in this warm world within the cold and empty stellar distances will hardly balk at the turning of water into wine — which was, after all, a very small miracle. We forget the greater and still continuing miracle by which water (with soil and sunlight) is turned into grapes.
― Wendell Berry
Diana, I've expanded the meaning of the word "terroir." To my EFM group, I wrote about the Chesapeake Bay oysters with different tastes. Some are more salty than others. Did you know? Do you think that the saltiness of Christians varies from community to community? Ah! Great metaphor!
I’m catching up on reading and this post fills me with such joy. It is so clear to me that this is what operating within one’s gifts looks and feels like—the very terroir you speak of—God’s love translated through the lens of your love to us, your beloved readers. How thankful I am for these wise, beautiful, inspiring words, Diana.
I attended your Southern Lights Conference this year with my co-pastor (awesome!). We are two women leading a small but mighty house church community in San Francisco. I regularly reference you and use your Substack as a research tool to help me dig deeper and stay close to the roots of things (history, justice, story, the Word).
I’m not kidding when I say that you are a godsend. Your writing sings, the historical depth and biblical scholarship are first rate, and the poetry (and, this week, music!) and writing you’ve introduced me too are always surprising and soul encouraging. (I’m a lover of poetry and read many of the authors you do—so it’s saying a lot that I am regularly exposed to things I’ve never read before!) I just want you to know we need you, your impact is significant, and I’m thankful. If you’re ever in SF, please let me know. We’d love to be your guides to one of the most beautiful places on earth!!!