The Gardener-Father cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, so that it will be even more fruitful … This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples” (John 15:1-2, 8).

You’ve seen it before: a once-beautiful tree that has been “cut back” so that it looks like the owner intended to kill it!  All those fruit-laden branches now cut and clipped back to the trunk.  A blossoming “butterfly bush” that had been the happy home of bees and butterflies galore, now reduced to half its former size.  What’s going on?

Whether we came from homes happy, conflicted, sad, or peaceful, we all still long for home: to come home, to be at home.  Home is where we find identity, nurture, love, belonging, security, provision, friendship, and the learning-of-life.  And since none of us grew up in a perfect home, we all feel a bit homeless, we all find ourselves on some kind of a journey towards a place we’ve never been, but which we recognize whenever we catch a glimpse of it.

“Christmas” is a home-story, but one unlike any other.  That humans would seek to find or forge our way to “the home of the gods” is commonplace.  That God would come and make his home with us – as one of us – that we could then make ourselves at home in God – that is a story the world has never heard, before!

In this week’s passage, “home” is pictured as branches connected to the Vine.  As the grace of God grafts us into Christ, the life of Christ flows into and throughout our lives. As we daily and deeply live in God’s love, as we find ourselves increasingly at home in Christ Jesus, we find ourselves bearing fruit.

And every so often, we hear the sound of clippers … nippers … pruning shears.

Every unhealthy branch needs pruning: there may be disease, or damage, or too many “suckers,” tiny branches that use up life without producing fruit.

Every healthy branch needs pruning.  Because it’s been fruitful, it may be overgrown, blocking the sunshine, sending out too many shoots in too many directions, producing a lot of small, hard fruits rather than a somewhat smaller number of truly glorious ones.

Pruning: there are things in my life that cannot “make themselves at home” in God. And things that, if I can put it like this, make it “hard” for God to make himself at home in me.  Attitudes and habits of mind and heart such as “I do it my way!” or “Me first!” Martyr complexes, bitterness, unforgiveness, self-pity.  Secrets, doubts, fears.  Plain old selfish pride, irruptive anger.

And: busy-ness.  Workaholism.  Resistance to solitude, silence and Sabbath.

Clip, clip, clip; snip, snip, snip.

Pruning is not punishment.  It is not “giving us what we deserve,” not a disqualification.  Pruning is an act of love, an act of hope, an act of God’s great confidence in God’s ability to see his kingdom come and his will being done … in the life of ordinary branch you, branch me, branch us.  Because the Gardener loves the Vine, because the Father loves the Son, he prunes.  He prunes what is broken or sick that health might be recovered and new life take over.  He prunes what has been fruitful, that it might be more fruitful still.  He prunes that there might be life, life abundantly fruitful and full of joy.

Have you been hearing some clip-clip sounds in your life this year?  Are there some broken or sick places that need the healing that comes through pruning?  Some once fruitful places that have become exhausted or depleted?  Places you have long since concluded could never be fruitful that are in fact just a few snips away from exploding into life?

To read or re-read the overview/summary of this week’s passage, you can click here.