Make room to flourish

Albert Bogle April 15, 2020 0 1

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John 15: 12-17 (NRSVA)

12 ‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. 16 You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. 17 I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

There is something beautiful about the analogy of vine and branches. It is the life of the vine flowing through the branches that influences the abundance of the crop. Jesus goes further to suggest that the branches also need to make room for each other. He talks of us loving one another in the same way as the core of the vine loves and flows through all the branches.

How different our world would be if the various branches of the Christian community started to love each other. How different if the branches only wanted to flourish if others could also flourish.

Growing the branches in harmony

Head Gardener,
Heavenly dresser of the vine,
Disentangle my branch when I’m choking another branch, rather than supporting it.
Keep me well rooted in the core vine that I might be a supporter rather than a distractor
Keep the arteries of my branch clear so that your love can flow into the fruit of the vine
Remove the bitter and dried up twigs on my branch to allow fruitful buds to appear.
Keep me in harmony and balance with the whole vine 
That together we might bring glory to your name.