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He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit,
and everyone that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit.
The removal of dead branches isn't our job as rank and file Christian disciples. Nor is pruning. Those works are performed by the Father, the vine grower, through the Son. And although they sound as though they would be painful to experience the instrument that actually accomplishes them, according to Jesus, is "the word that I spoke to you". Imagine the relief of the disciples when they heard Jesus say they had already been pruned. Yet such, we know, is the power of the word of God. It isn't a dull blade, but rather is "sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart" (see Hebrews 4:12). The disciples chose to allow the words of Jesus to change them even when they cut against their natural dispositions and predilections. They chose to stay with Jesus even when the words he spoke didn't immediately make sense, knowing that his were the words of eternal life (see John 6:68). Others, of course, chose to leave. Those were among the branches that were taken away. And it wasn't as though they were snapped off and left for kindling. They self-selected out of the life of the vine because they refused to remain in proximity to the one from whom the life of the vine flowed.
Remain in me, as I remain in you.
Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own
unless it remains on the vine,
so neither can you unless you remain in me.
Our part is not the gardening. That is the work of the Father and the Son. And we know that the Son will do all he can to rehabilitate even an ailing fig tree (see Luke 13:6-9). Our part is to remain and to grow. We are called to stay close to Jesus, to allow his words to change our minds, our attitudes, and eventually our actions. It is the power of his words that eventually transforms us from within and manifests as the fruit we bear. This power is most perfectly vouchsafed to us through the Sacraments where his own words purify us and make us more like him. Then the sanctifying grace we receive from the Sacraments takes a myriad of shapes in our lives according to the blueprints given to us in his word. He fills us with the power to love with his own love but does not leave us on our own to figure out how to do it. In all things, if we remain in him, we have both power and guidance.
Anyone who does not remain in me
will be thrown out like a branch and wither;
people will gather them and throw them into a fire
and they will be burned.
It is not so much a matter of punishment for these branches that refuse to remain in Jesus that they wither and become fit for nothing but to be used for kindling. Rather, it is because there is no life to be found anywhere else. We can see this same contrast between those rooted in God's ways with those who refuse them in the Old Testament as well:
but his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.
The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away (see Psalm 1:2-4)
Let us learn not to resist the work of the gardener in our lives. There are times when we will not immediately appreciate what he is about with his snipping back of some branches, his digging, and his use of fertilizer. It is a certainty he will be more in our business than will come naturally or comfortably to us. But we can be sure that he has our good and in turn the good of the entire vine in mind.
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