Variety: John 15v5

I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in them will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing. —John 15:5  

Richard Rohr understands Jesus’ vine and branches metaphor as an illustration of mutual indwelling: Christ in us and us in Christ.  

The motivation, meaning, and inherent energy of any action comes from its ultimate source, which is the person’s foundational and core vantage point. What is their real and honest motivation? What does the seeing? Is it the cut-off branch, the egoic self, trying to work on its own (John 15:5–6)? Is it a person needing to be right or is it a person who wants to love?  

A branch that has remained lovingly and consciously connected to its Source (God, Jesus, our Higher Power) offers a very different perspective. When Jesus spoke of a cut-off branch, he meant a person who can only see from the small position of me and what meets my needs. It seems to me our society is largely populated by such disconnected branches, where a commitment to the common good has become a rarity. 

Seeing through a lens beyond our own self is what I call participative seeing. This is the new self that can say excitedly with Paul, “I live no longer, not I, but it is Christ now living in me” (Galatians 2:20). This primal communion immediately communicates a spaciousness, a joy, and a quiet contentment. It is not anxious, because the illusion of a gap between me and the world has already been overcome.  

A mature believer knows that it is impossible not to be connected to the Source, or to be “on the vine,” as Jesus says. But most people are not consciously there yet. They are not “saved” from themselves, which is the only thing we really need to be saved from. They do not yet live out of their objective, totally given, and unearned identity, “hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3).  

For most of us, our own deepest identity is still well hidden from us. Religion’s primary and irreplaceable job is to bring this foundational truth of our shared identity in God to full and grateful consciousness. This is the only true meaning of holiness.  

The irony is that this holiness is actually our first nature, yet we made it so impossible that it didn’t even become our second nature that we could easily wear with dignity. This core Christ identity was made into a worthiness contest, or a moral contest, at which almost no one wins. This is something we can only fall into and receive—and nothing that we can achieve, which utterly humiliates the ego, the willful, and all overachievers.