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I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. \\xa0He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. \\xa0\\u2026 I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:1,2,5)

It is incredibly easy for any of us to begin to believe that we, and not Christ, are at the centre of the church\\u2019s story. \\xa0It is a script we follow pretty faithfully throughout the week. \\xa0We do our work. \\xa0We seek to entertain ourselves. \\xa0We seek to earn enough to pay our bills. \\xa0We look out for our family. \\xa0We do our homework. \\xa0We keep up our friendships. \\xa0We wonder about who we are and what we should be doing with our lives. \\xa0It all gets pretty self-centered after a while.

Unless. \\xa0Unless we take this vine-and-branches picture of the church seriously and intentionally take time to focus in and wait on God\\u2019s work, rather than on our own. \\xa0Thankfully, God has given a day and a practice to help us: Sabbath. \\xa0 \\xa0

The heart of this reality is displayed in Jesus\\u2019 words about the vine and the branches. \\xa0He says rather bluntly that apart from him, we can do nothing. \\xa0It is only through connection with Christ that the lifegiving sap of his love flows into and through us out to the world around. \\xa0So: Christ must remain at the centre: he\\u2019s the vine that supports us, not the other way around.

It\\u2019s only from that place, of being nurtured and fed by the life-giving sap of Jesus\\u2019 love, that we are asked or able to do anything. \\xa0And what we are asked to do, is simply to be conduits of what we have received. \\xa0Love has been given to us and we pass it on. \\xa0Joy has been infused into our souls, and we radiate it. \\xa0Life is ours in Christ, and from his life in us: we bear fruit. \\xa0This is true for us as individuals, but also true for us collectively as the church. \\xa0We are all, together, branches on the vine that is Jesus Christ.

But the curious thing that we find in the first verse is that fruitfulness also requires pruning. \\xa0I believe God\\u2019s gift, invitation, indeed command to take a Sabbath is part of his work of pruning the fruitful branches. \\xa0Sabbath forces us to say no: no to our work, no to appointments on our calendars, no to our technology, and no to the needs and desires that pull us into a flurry of us-at-the-centre activity. \\xa0

Sabbath puts God at the centre instead, forcing us to trust that he\\u2019ll keep the world, our work, and our lives spinning even if we take a break for a day. \\xa0In that space, we can also listen to him, worship him, and take time to love and be loved by others in our lives too: because for a day, we don\\u2019t need them to be useful or need to be useful for them. \\xa0Our relationships are put back in the right order, including our relationship to Christ where we remember and believe that he is the vine and we the branches, rather than the other way round. \\xa0

What is God seeking to prune out of your life? \\xa0What do you need to say \\u201cno\\u201d to in order to take a true Sabbath this week?\\xa0

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