Hopping Hadrian's Wall

Sorry for the late posting this week. The relevant text is John 15:1-8

I am the vine. You are the branches.

I wonder how those disciples heard these words when Jesus spoke them. Here they were, an unexpected assortment of back-woods Galileans, drawn together into a messy tangle of community by their common attachment to Jesus. Branches of a vine, indeed. It may have felt like a nice, quaint image for their community—a community of interdependence, but most of all, a community of loyalty to and connection with Jesus. A community that derived its energy and vision from Jesus—the central vine feeding the whole plant. Bearing fruit of righteousness—goodness in their lives and in their world. Making the world a better place. That’s how this passage is often heard nowadays. I’ll admit that in high school I cross-stitched a sampler of this verse with a pretty cluster of grapes in…