The Father is the Vine Grower. Jesus is the Vine. And we are the Branches. 

I like formulas, so here is a simple formula distilled from John’s Gospel. 

In order to bear fruit, the branch must: (1) be attached to the Vine, and (2) be pruned. Said differently: in order to be successful, we must be connected to Jesus and have our dead and overgrown bits cut away. 

The Father is the Vine Grower. Jesus is the Vine. And we are the Branches. 

The Vine Grower is not his Branches. Though he planted, tended, and cultivated the Branches, he is not one of them. Wanting so deeply for his vineyard to flourish, the Vine Grower became a Vine in order to connect with this Branches more deeply.

As a bridge between Vine Grower and Branch, the Vine is both Grower and Grown; Pruner and Pruned; Reaper and Reaped. And so too is Jesus both the Creator and the Created; the Teacher and the Taught; the Savior and the Slave. 

Just as the Vine Grower, the Vine, and the Branch are joined, so too is the Father, Jesus, and us also joined, bound together in an endless frolic through eternity and existence for the sole purpose of bearing fruit. For God is Love and Love Never Fails, and so of course our fruit must also be the blissful blossom of selfless love. 

The Father is the Vine Grower. Jesus is the Vine. And we are the Branches striving to produce boundless love. 

That formula presents two distinct themes. Remaining and Pruning. 

How do we remain with the Vine, as Jesus instructed?

Ask a room full of strangers and you will garner different answers: “Go to Mass every Sunday”; “receive the Sacraments”; “repent from your sins” and so on. But I am of the opinion that a Branch stays connected to the Vine by just Being, not by doing. For a Branch was made for the Vine, and the Vine was made for the Branch; it is our doing that separates us from Jesus, not our non-doing. 

Remain in me, as I remain in you. To remain is to stay. Jesus didn’t say: earn your way onto the Vine, or work hard to connect with me. No. Jesus simply said remain. 

This is a nuanced point, so bear with me: stop, pause, freeze, hold it, shhhhh, be quiet. In the stillness of your tepid and mournful heart, see the marvelous wonder of his ever-present accompaniment. The Branch develops out of the Vine; we develop out of Jesus. The Branch withers from the Vine by its choice to fall away, but in its natural state, it is one with the Vine. In our natural state, we are already one with Jesus. All we have to do is remain. 

Now some might say: “But Joey, non-doing is passive, lazy, and not how we are called to practice our faith. We have to get out there, do stuff, make things better, fast, quick, go go go.” To this, I would emphasize the illustrative significance of Jesus’s ministry, for Jesus so perfectly mastered the balance between non-doing and doing, between solitary prayer on a mountain top and communal preaching on a mountainside, between turning over the merchants’ tables in the temple and remaining silent when questioned during his trial. 

The Passion of our Messiah beautifully demonstrates the tremendous power of non-doing. 

Non-doing is not passive. Non-doing is not weak. Non-doing is the very real and very intentional decision to dwell in the present moment, free from reactions, free from judgments, completely open and totally receptive to the will of the Father. 

Remain in me, as I remain in you. Find the balance between non-doing and doing in your pursuit of remaining on the Vine. 

Imagine we are all gathered together under a spectacular tent on the beach at sunset. The weather is perfect, the food is delicious, and the company even better. We are all having a fantastic evening together when suddenly I stand up to say a few words. “Remain in this tent and let the good times continue.” 

Would you stand up and get your jacket? Would you find your car keys and make your way to the parking lot? Would you say your goodbyes and exchange pleasantries? No, for that would not be remaining. Just sit, eat, laugh, be here in this moment under the tent with all of us gathered together. 

Remain, remain, remain. Take that idea to prayer. You don’t have to do anything to earn Jesus’s love, he gave his life for you and me freely. All we have to do is remain connected to him and we will bear much fruit. 

“Remain in me, as I remain in you” said Jesus. Make more time for nothing, for stillness, for quiet, for listening, and allow yourself to become aware of the fact that you are already in Jesus and Jesus is already in you. Don’t send him away, don’t sever yourself from the Vine. 

Judging another person for expressing themself in a way that makes you uncomfortable may cause you to wither and fall from the Vine. Gossiping about a friend behind their back can make you feel far away from the Vine. Failing to forgive the seemingly never-ending torrent of hurtful jabs and needless criticisms might leave you thrown off the Vine and gathered up for the fire. 

It is our misguided doing that causes us to fall from the Vine. Embrace the natural order of things and simple be one with the Vine. Remain in him just as he remains in you. Easy, simple, effortless. We don’t need to overcomplicate this.

The Father is the Vine Grower. Jesus is the Vine. And we are the Branches, and we must remain on the Vine, but we also must be pruned.

It is asked: “Why does God allow good people to suffer?” This question reveals the confounding lack of understanding we have for the vital role suffering plays in our ultimate flourishing. 

Prisons and jails won’t let you in to see an inmate with your devices and knick knacks. So I left my phone, iPad, computer, watch, novel, bracelet, ring, necklace, and just about everything except for a pen and a legal pad in my car. I even had to remove the staples and paperclips from the arraignment documents I was bringing for my clients. 

Through the metal detector, drop off my car keys, pass my identification and bar card through a tinted glass window to a faceless security guard, the metal door slides open, through another hallway, hand my remaining credentials through another glass window, another solid metal door slides open. Down another hallway and out into a courtyard with 30 foot-tall fences wrapped in barbed wire. Across the courtyard, into a new building, wait for a metal door to slide open, down another long hallway, wait for another metal door to slide open, then check in with a new security guard, then go to the attorney-client rooms and wait for the inmate to be brought down. 

Metal, iron, barbed wire, cages, locked doors, guards, guns, tasers, no light, no art, no beauty, no smiles, no hugs, no kisses, no crosses, no comfort at all. 

Deep inside of a prison you can confront some of the deepest forms of suffering. 

Waiting in the attorney-client room, without my phone to text a friend, without my iPad to watch a motivating video, without my novel to distract me from my fear, I was left in a small plastic chair with nothing to do and no where to go. 

And I was nervous. I was anxious. I was afraid. 

And so I prayed. I asked for Jesus to be with me, to tel me what to do and what to say. I asked for Jesus to share his light through me into this dark place. 

My prayer in jail is my best prayer, my strongest and most fervent, for—at least for me—in the face of suffering, my ego drains away and I confront my littleness and desperate need for Christ. 

“Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.” 

Without suffering, we may dance through life mistakenly believing that we don’t need God, that all of our fruit is of our own making, that we are the captains of this successful voyage and God had nothing to do with our triumphs. But when the storms come, the lightning shatters the main mast, and the crew abandons ship, leaving us moments away from death and defeat, that is when we can best see that dusty and weary Carpenter walking out across the troubled waters to save us. 

Take my hand, he says, keep your eyes on me, he says, be not afraid, he says. But we cannot hear him or see him or even notice him when the odyssey of our lives is comfortable and clean. 

We must be pruned. A branch that is pruned will bear more fruit. 

Our egos need pruning. Our biases need pruning. Our judgments need pruning. 

The Branch does not enjoy the pruning, the cutting, and hacking that the Vine Grower does to the Branch is painful and causes us loss. But without it, the Branch grows in the wrong direction and sprouts unhelpful stems that lead it astray. 

The pruning of suffering invites us to form compassion for others. 

Seeing the inmates chained in place, desperate for news from the outside, stinky and hurting, it is difficult. I’d rather pretend that their suffering didn’t exist, that prisons weren’t real, and that everyone one of them was at home, comfortable and happy, quietly knitting and drinking lemon ginger tea while chatting with their lovely old grandmothers. But that is not life. They are suffering, and I cannot ignore their suffering. That is not what our vineyard is like. 

Be proximate to suffering, be pruned, and develop compassion. 

We all need pruning, we all need to suffer, and from that suffering comes the grace and the opportunity to grow and bear much fruit, the boundless love that Jesus modeled for us during his life and ministry.  

The Father is the Vine Grower. Jesus is the Vine. And we are the Branches. 

Remain. Be Pruned. And bear much fruit.