This passage gives us some of Jesus’s final words to his disciples, his final commands, right before his death. These words are addressed to the people upon whom Jesus will rely to carry his teaching and example forward after he has departed from earth.

            So it’s not stretching a point too far at all to say that these words are addressed to us. We sitting here today are the direct spiritual descendants of those disciples who first received these words, straight from the mind and heart of Jesus, that we are hearing now.

            There are a number of symbols and metaphors that Jesus uses in this final discourse to convey to those first disciples — and to us — what he has to say. Lest we should miss his meaning, he defines the metaphors for us. Vine, he says? I am the vine. And “My father is the vinegrower” — the keeper of the vines. “I am the vine; you are the branches.”

            It would appear that we are being warned: God will remove any branch that does not bear fruit. So ... shape up! Bear fruit — or else!

            But there is also a promise: “Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.”

            A threat and a promise, right? If you don’t bear fruit — you’

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