No fruit and you get chopped off and thrown into the fire (or the green bin – since we are not allowed to have fires any more). I wonder if people disappear from church because they have been chopped off?

But what about the branches that bear fruit?  Why prune them back? Only one reason: so they can produce more fruit.  Being a Christian can get a bit more complicated than being a branch of a grape vine (or mandarin tree). Lots of other things grow on our lives as well as fruit. Often pleasant green pretty stuff. But not stuff that helps grow fruit.

The opposite actually. The pretty green things take up the life that could be flowing to the fruit.   Ah, what a choice, pretty green things or fruit. But the pruner is the Father according to Jesus. That is good news – we know he will get it right.  How does he do it?  By means of the words of Jesus.

Staying stuck in the vine who is Jesus, and paying attention to what he says seems the way both to produce fruit and to get pruned. And getting pruned seems the only way to be a branch. Because fruiting is the only job a branch has. How wonderful to be a branch.

A church full of mandarins.  I wonder...  Where is the queue for pruning?

Dale