More often than not, we read this passage like we do the Parable of the Sower. We ask, "What kind of soil are we?" We want to be the good soil that brings forth grain. We lose sight of the Sower. Yes, we lose sight of the Farmer.
In Sunday's lection from the Gospel of John, we ask what kind of branch we are. We want to be the branch that bears fruit. We lose sight of the vine. Moreover, we lose sight of the Vine Grower. Yes, we lose sight of the Farmer.
God is the Vine Grower in today's passage. God plants the vine. God does the pruning. God does the cutting off. God is actually a farmer.
During Jesus' time, farmers and fisherfolk comprised the bulk of the population: 7 out of 10. (Nothing has actually changed.) Then and now, farmers and fisherfolk are among the poorest of the poor. Dispossessed farmers and dislocated fisherfolk were worse off.
In First Century Palestine, the poor could afford only barley bread and fish, dried, smoked, or salted. These were what the urban poor, slaves, and peasants had when they were able to eat. The masses were slowly starving to death. Have you ever wondered why the majority of Jesus's stories and sayings in the gospels are about bread and fish, farming and fishing, and farmers and fisherfolk? Have you ever wondered why Jesus's Gospel is the Gospel to the Poor?
Unfortunately, we lose sight of farmers and fisherfolk. And we forget that the lestes-- badly translated as robbers and bandits in English Bibles; better translated as rebels and freedom fighters--were composed mostly of dispossessed farmers, fisherfolk, and runaway slaves!
But God does not forget! God always takes sides. And farmers and fisherfolk are closest to God's heart.
God is a farmer. God plants. God prunes. God cuts off branches that bear no fruit, and throws these to the fire to be burned.
#ReadingTheParablesOfJesusInsideAJeepney
#IAmWithJesus
#EndTheCultureOfImpunity
#StopTheKillingsPH
*art, "True Vine," from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives
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