Of Vines and Pruning

On my grandfather’s North Carolina farm were two grapevines that seemed twenty feet tall in my child sized memory, but only six or seven in reality. The thick scuppernong vines draped heavily over a trellis of six creosote posts. Tough hulls protected the fruit, and you had squeeze the sweet innards in your mouth. They were pure sugar shots, especially good when the cool morning lingered in them. My cousin and I hid beneath to eat grapes in the shade, or fill our ball caps with grape bombs, climb high in the magnolia tree, and see who could spit the hulls the furthest.

Sadly, only one of the vines remains, the other fell victim to bad pruning by a renter after my grandfather died. Perhaps they thought the vine an eyesore and cut it all the way down to its main trunk. Or maybe they pruned unknowingly into the current year’s new growth. Whatever the reason, they didn’t know how to carefully prune a scuppernong vine.

I’ve been thinking about that vine this week as I’ve prepared a sermon from John 15. It’s about Jesus the vine and us the branches. Jesus talked about grapevines to say that God is the vintner who prunes and shapes the vines to bear good fruit. Unlike that renter who pruned my grandfather's vines incorrectly, God prunes perfectly, shaping us to bear the good fruit of faithful and fearless living into a world that desperately needs the sweetness of the gospel.

I wonder, where do I need pruning to bear better fruit? What can I do to be more deeply connected to the vine? How can I “abide in Jesus” to produce sweetness in the lives of others?