Moutain Behind the Flowers

I am the vine and you are the branches.

Several weeks ago I had the opportunity to go to the wine country.

I have not done it in ages and

it was a wonderful excursion.

We were visiting this winery that had their vines on hills

and most of their winery was actually inside the mountain in tunnels.

It was a beautiful place.

They were showing us all the vines and all the work that they do.

We know it intellectually, but I had forgotten

how brutal the pruning process is.

They have nothing on these vines except one or two branches.

I asked, “How do you know which ones to cut?”

That is the skill of the pruner.

He gets to know these vines,

and it is the same person who will prune them every single time.

And he said, “We just know.”

He picked up a dead vine and says,

“For example, see these nodules,

that means that they are not going to produce much fruit.

Now these nodules mean this vine will produce a lot of fruit.”

I asked, “So you throw all those away?”

“Yep! They got two or three, and that is going to be great.

They are the ones who are going to produce all the fruit.

It is a balance between quality and quantity.”

And I thought to myself, “Wow.”

I thought of this passage that I knew was coming up.  

“I am the vine and you are the branch.

The Father is the one who prunes what does not produce much fruit.”

And I am like, “Wow, there is a lot of pruning that happens.”

The Lord knows every part of it

and prunes the part away from me that will not produce fruit,

but what does remain, has to remain part of the branch, the vine.

Of course, that last part is obvious, right?

Because those dead brancehes on the ground

are not going to produce anything.

That is sort of obvious.

But I am thinking to myself

that vine now is producing all this energy into

just those two or three branches.

So there is all that focussed concentration.

You can see why it works so well.

Because now there is all this concentrated growth

and just on these handful of branches.

And I thought to myself,

“How does that work in our lives with the Lord?”

We are a little bit distanced from the vineyard metaphor,

as we do not really know much about farming!

At least these hands have not seen much labor.

But the point being that the Lord assures us

that he will prune that part that will not produce much fruit!

But that does not feel very good.

He gets rid of those things that does not produce fruit.

It never feels good to be pruned in our life.

But the reality is, that is what needs to happen;

for us to produce much fruit and good quality fruit.

So you can have a lot of fruit, but not good quality.

That is what the vinter was explaining to us.

What we want is quantity and quality,

and the only way you get that is by pruning.

When we are in the middle of being pruned,

it does not feel like we are producing much fruit

and that does not feel good.

And we have to ask, “Why is that the way it is?”

It is the way all of life is.

It is just the way.

And so whether it is something that happens to us

or something that we do,

the Lord is always working to make us produce fruit.

Let me mix metaphors for one second.

I thought this is a beautiful quote and let it sit with you for a second.

I read this recently and it just sat with me.

“I looked out upon my window and

I saw the leaves and the flowers falling

from my beautiful tree outside my window.

And I lamented as I saw the barren branches appear,

and I lamented the beautiful flowers and leaves I had.

And then I noticed, as I looked through the tree with its barren branches,

the stunning mountains behind the tree that I had not seen.”

Oftentimes what is before us is the only thing we can not see.

The Lord is getting us to grow

towards something that has yet to come.

That is the pruning process.

Let me give you a personal example.

About a year and a quarter ago, I hurt my knee

and I do not quite know what exactly happened,

but whatever it was, I fell and I ended up being seriously hurt.

I was not able to walk for three weeks.

I lost a whole ton of muscle because of that.

I was so mad and asked,

“Lord, what is wrong with you?

I am trying to do your work and now you are crippling me.

What is wrong with you?

If this is how you treat your friends

it is no wonder you have so few.”

I know, I got upset.

But I know the Lord can take it.

So as a result, I had to do all this physical therapy.

And now fast forward a year and a half later.

I have a whole new routine.

I would never have done any of this

if it had not been for this accident.

I now have a new routine that includes weights, bike and hike.

That is what I am meant to be doing.

I have probably been trying to do it for 10 years and never did it.

Now I am doing it.

I was meant to be cycling a bike.

I hate the bike but now I am doing it.

And I am mixing that up with what I used to do, which is my hiking.

It is all varied now, which is what you are meant to do.

I would never have done any of it.

Now I am stronger and better than I have ever been.

I have lost 25 pounds of weight and put on 10 pounds of muscle.

None of that would have possibly happened if I had not hurt my knee.

The mountain behind the trees that we often do not see!

I did not want that knee injury but with God’s grace and lots of PT,

I was able to recover and be stronger than ever before.

It is important to realize that it just does not happen on its own.

We have to cooperate with God.

We have to cooperate and remain in him

just like the branch remaining in Christ.

The critical part of this scripture is that we need to trust in God

because there are some things that are difficult

and do not maybe always get better, but trust in him.

We become better inside because of it.

Maybe physically, we do not full return to full health,

but something inside of us has changed

and we become more focused on that which is better.

And that is the Lord himself.

What does that mean for us in concrete terms?

You have heard me say a thousand times that

we have to remain in Christ first and foremost in our prayer.

We cannot have nourishment from a God

whom we do not talk to or listen to.

It is just an obvious thing,

but we have to remain part of the branch.

We have to remain in the branch to remain part of divine.

First and foremost, we need to be faithful to our prayer,

both personal prayer in our home and

communal prayer coming to church. Why?

Because we need each other.

The vine does not grow alone.

We need each other.

We are all on the same vine together.

And we need each other to grow together.

And that becomes the next part.

There are times in our lives that are crushing for us.

It is so important that we play a role in other people’s lives too.

It is together, that we do this.

We are not just a single vine on our own.

We are a vine all together.

And we grow together and remain together.

So what does that mean?

Sometimes it may not be that we are getting pruned,

but somebody else is getting pruned.

And we have to remind them and

be a witness to them of God’s love and God’s trust

in their life by our presence.

Often that does not necessarily mean we have to do anything,

but we have to be present.

We have to be willing to be with them as they suffer.

Because oftentimes we cannot do anything with their suffering.

There is nothing we can do.

But we can be present to them and know that by our presence,

we are giving them the assurance that their trust is well placed.

“Remain in me and I will remain in you.”

That is a promise we can take the whole way

to the grave and beyond into eternal life.

I am the vine and you are the branches.