Tending The Vineyard

Tending The Vineyard

I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.

John 15:1

This passage presents a very comforting picture. Christ understood all the suffering that he and his followers would experience as nothing else but the work of a diligent gardener. Grapevines can grow and produce much fruit only with careful tending by the gardener. Christ wants to teach us that we should look at trials and suffering very differently from the way they appear and feel to us in this world. Suffering doesn’t occur apart from God’s will. It’s not a sign of his anger; rather, it’s a sign of his mercy and his fatherly love. It will serve for the best.

It’s an art to believe that what hurts and distresses us doesn’t occur to harm us but to make us improve. What if the vine were aware of this, could talk, and could see the gardener cutting around its roots with a hoe? What if it could see the gardener pruning its branches with a pruning knife? After seeing and feeling all of this, it might say, “Oh! What are you doing? Now I will wither and spoil because you are working on me, taking the soil away from me, and scraping me with those iron teeth. You are tearing and pinching me everywhere, leaving me to stand here half-naked. You are crueler to me than you are to other trees and plants.”

But the gardener would reply, “You just don’t understand. If I cut off a branch, it’s because it’s a useless branch, which takes strength and sap away from you. The other branches won’t be able to produce fruit and will also begin to fail. So off it goes. It’s for your own good. I am doing it so you will yield more fruit and be able to produce good wine.”