“Here are their names: Simon (whom he named Peter), Andrew (Peter's brother), James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James (son of Alphaeus), Simon (who was called the zealot), Judas (son of James), Judas Iscariot (who later betrayed him).
"A good tree can't produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can't produce good fruit. A tree is identified by its fruit. Figs are never gathered from thornbushes, and grapes are not picked from bramble bushes.
A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart.” (Luke 6:14-16 and 43-45)
Prop: a thistle or bramble or crown of thorns (or both) and a healthy vine
“By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?” (Matthew 7:16)
This is a culture in which more than ever, we understand about “following” others. We follow on twitter, on facebook, on Instagram, on youtube. We follow people on linkedIn, and on google plus, and on snapchat, and on instant messenging. We follow celebrities. We follow those in the news. We follow what our friends are doing. And my do we follow what our enemies are doing! We love to “follow” people, and to know what’s going on in our global and local cultures.
Some might say, we spend more time today “following” our various threads and people and wants and desires than ever before in history, due to the speed and convenience of social media.
And we tend to follow most closely those who think like we do, say the things we want to hear, and walk the talk we wish we could. Those people are our heros. They capture our hearts.
And our hearts determine our actions, how we choose to live in the world, and how we behave toward others.
Who is “king” in your life? What or who has your heart?
There are two really prominent metaphors in scripture that display two very opposite choices of the heart. And Jesus introduces them both during his ministry to his disciples. There’s the True Vine, living and green, nurtured, fruit-bearing, and hardy. And then there are the brambles and the thistles, those that are dry, barren, treacherous, and covered in thorns. He talks about them in his teaching, in his parables, and in his advice to his disciples, and much of what he says comes straight from uses of those same images in the Hebrew scriptures.
Nearing the end of his ministry, Jesus sits his disciples down, and he gives them once more these two lasting and powerful metaphors: the green vine that bears fruit, and the dry branch or bramble that cannot. And one has to imagine him thinking of Judas as he speaks.
“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.”
“If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.” (John 15)
"For a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit.”
"For every tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush.” (Luke 6)
Which one defines your life? It’s a question we all need to ask of ourselves in this season of Lent, as we take a look at whom we follow, and where our heart lies. Because we can lie to ourselves. But Jesus already knows, where our heart lies.
When the disciples gather together for that last night with Jesus, Jesus already knows that Judas, one of his closest disciples, is going to betray him, or that he already has. He knows Judas’s heart. Judas is the keeper of the community purse for Jesus’ ministry, and has been known to dip into it behind the other’s backs. He has recently been surly and argumentative about Jesus’ methods and teaching, even so far as to criticize Mary for anointing Jesus’ feet. He’s the only one of Jesus’ disciples who hails from Judah from a town called Kerioth. And Jesus knows too, he’s got some connections in Jerusalem, perhaps through his father. Judas knows the family of priests, and the magistrates enough to approach them and to strategize with them about the betrayal and arrest of his master.
And there’s something more. Judas (whose Hellenized name means Judah in Hebrew) represents not just Judas’ own heart, but Judah itself, the hearts of all those reigning in Jerusalem, who want to see Jesus off the streets –and dead. He IS the heart of Judah. He IS the Temple of Mammon and all that Jerusalem has become under the current priestly rule.
Judah may win the round. But God will win the war. Although not the way anyone might have imagined it.
“Kiss the Son,” says the psalmist (2). Judah’s “kiss” is the kiss of death --his own.
If Jesus is the lamb, Judas is the wolf. Jesus the Vine, Judas the bramble. Jesus the Life, Judas represents death. Because the moment he disconnected himself from the One True Vine, he doomed himself to dust.
For in Judas’ betrayal, contracted for 30 pieces of silver, he has sealed his fate, and that of Jerusalem and all those who worship “Judah” more than God the Father and Jesus the Son.
Whom do you want for your king? Jesus asked his disciples long before: “You can’t worship both God and money.” One will always take the lead. You can’t worship rules, or the Temple, or the authorities, or the system, or the rituals, ….or the church, or the pastor! If you do, you’re worshipping the wrong king. You’re going down the wrong path. You’re choosing thorns instead of roses, death instead of life.
You are choosing instead of the True Vine, the trappings of the Bramble King.
The Bramble King. It sounds like something from Aasop or Wilhelm Grimm. But in fact, it’s a parable, told by Jotham, brother of Abimelech, as told by Joshua in the Hebrew scriptures. In fact, it’s known to be the oldest and first parable ever told in scripture. And it goes like this:
Then Abimelech the son of Jerubbaal went to Shechem, to his mother’s brothers,[that is…his uncles] and spoke with them and with all the family of the house of his mother’s father, saying, “Please speak in the hearing of all the men of Shechem: ‘Which is better for you, that all seventy of the sons of Jerubbaal reign over you, or that one reign over you?’ Remember that I am your own flesh and bone.”
And his mother’s brothers spoke all these words concerning him in the hearing of all the men of Shechem; and their heart was inclined to follow Abimelech, for they said, “He is our brother.”
So they gave him seventy shekels of silver from the temple of Baal-Berith, with which Abimelech hired worthless and reckless men; and they followed him.
Then he went to his father’s house at Ophrah and killed his brothers, the seventy sons of Jerubbaal, on one stone.
But Jotham the youngest son of Jerubbaal [Abimelech’s youngest brother] was left, because he hid himself.
And all the men of Shechem gathered together, all of Beth Millo, and they went and made Abimelech king beside the terebinth tree at the pillar that was in Shechem.
Now when they told Jotham, he went and stood on top of Mount Gerizim, and lifted his voice and cried out. And he said to them [a prophecy. He told this parable]:
“Listen to me, you men of Shechem, That God may listen to you!
“The trees once went forth to anoint a king over them. And they said to the olive tree, ‘Reign over us!’ But the olive tree said to them, ‘Should I cease giving my oil, With which they honor God and men, And go to sway over trees?’
“Then the trees said to the fig tree, ‘You come and reign over us!’ But the fig tree said to them, ‘Should I cease my sweetness and my good fruit, And go to sway over trees?’
“Then the trees said to the vine, ‘You come and reign over us!’ But the vine said to them, ‘Should I cease my new wine, Which cheers both God and men, And go to sway over trees?’
“Then all the trees said to the bramble, ‘You come and reign over us!’ And the bramble said to the trees, ‘If in truth you anoint me as king over you, Then come and take shelter in my shade; But if not, let fire come out of the bramble And devour the cedars of Lebanon!’
“Now therefore, if you have acted in truth and sincerity in making Abimelech king, and if you have dealt well with Jerubbaal and his house, and have done to him as he deserves— for my father fought for you, risked his life, and delivered you out of the hand of Midian; but you have risen up against my father’s house this day, and killed his seventy sons on one stone, and made Abimelech, the son of his female servant, king over the men of Shechem, because he is your brother— if then you have acted in truth and sincerity with Jerubbaal and with his house this day, then rejoice in Abimelech, and let him also rejoice in you.
“But if not, let fire come from Abimelech and devour the men of Shechem and Beth Millo; and let fire come from the men of Shechem and from Beth Millo and devour Abimelech!” And Jotham ran away and fled; and he went to Beer and dwelt there, for fear of Abimelech his brother.
As it is….it soon came to pass that the men of Shechem did indeed rise up against Abimelech. They saw through his ways, and in avenging the murders of the 70 sons, Abimelech himself was also done in, along with his followers. And Jotham’s parable came true.
You are who you follow. Your heart gleams from what you value the most. What you do matters. Where your heart lies, matters.
Today, in our “folk” language, we have a saying, “What goes around, comes around.” The Jewish people of Jesus’ day too had a saying, “Forgive your neighbor the hurt that he has done to you, so [to an equal degree] will your sins also be forgiven when you pray.” (Ben Sira) “And forgive us our sins, as we also forgive those that have sinned against us.” (Jesus)
Repentance is a prerequisite of redemption.
But here is the beauty of Jesus. Once Jesus makes his way to Calvary, he prays a final prayer, not that those who followed the way of the Bramble King might burn in eternal fire –but he instead says, “Forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing.”
Jesus is the True Vine –the King of Redemption.
Even as Judas’ “crown of thorns” is placed upon Jesus’ head, declaring him King of the Jews, the irony is that Jesus will trample those thorns even as he tramples sin and death itself in His holy resurrection.
For Jesus IS the True Vine. Those who abide in him, will gain eternal entrance to God’s vineyard. Those who have gone the way of the thorn and thistle will be relegated to the lost and lonely. But with always the opportunity for redemption.
[Here you may want to hold up your healthy vine…. Or motion during your sermon to your dry brambles. Or hold up the crown of thorns.]
For in relationship with Jesus, life is obtained, nurtured, and guaranteed. By donning the “thorns and thistles” of humanity’s greatest sins, Jesus will forever pay a debt greater than any silver can guarantee.
“And you, son of man, do not be afraid of them or their words. Do not be afraid, though briers and thorns are all around you and you live among scorpions. Do not be afraid of what they say or be terrified by them, though they are a rebellious people.” (Ezekiel 2:6)
I hear much when things get testy among friends, the advice from one to another –you kill rancor with love. You erase tension with calm. You redeem sin with grace.
Jesus redeemed us all with unconditional grace. All we need to do is choose Jesus. And forgiveness for anything you’ve ever done, ever thought, ever committed is already guaranteed.
Just choose Jesus.
In the Hebrew scriptures, Abimelech’s betrayal of his brothers is repaid in time. In the Hebrew scriptures, Ahithophel’s betrayal of King David is repaid in time. In the story of Esther, Haman’s betrayal of Xerxes and the Jewish people is repaid in time.
But in the story of Joseph, sold by his brothers for 20 shekels of silver, forgiveness reigns.
And in the sacrifice of Jesus, redemption, full redemption is possible. Just abide in him, and he in you. Allow the Holy Spirit to guide you, and keep you. And the Life is yours, as you abide with him in the Tree of Life.
This week, we all need to take a look at our lives, what draws us in, what attracts us, where our priorities lie. Whom we choose to follow.
And we need to ask ourselves honestly, “Who is our king? Where lies our hearts?” “Who is MY king?” “Where does my heart truly lie?” Am I choosing to abide with Jesus in everything I do? Or am I getting distracted by all that glitters and gleams in the world out there?
You can’t lie to yourself forever. And you can’t lie to God. Where is your heart?
Jesus already knows.
This morning, I invite all of you along with me to come forward to the altar. Just leave your pews, and make a commitment today right now to let Jesus abide in you. It doesn’t matter about your past. It doesn’t matter how exhausted you feel, or how much you feel you’ve failed in life. Jesus makes it all new. Have you ever seen a plant in need of water, with leaves drooping and crumbling on the floor? And all you have to do is give it some water, and up it springs, good as new. That’s what Jesus can do for your life! He is the one who makes all things new. And if you are someone who has truly put Jesus first in your life, and you can feel his presence with you here today, you come forward too, and reconfirm your faith in him. Just come forward now, and kneel at the altar to reaffirm your faith in the One and Only Son, with the words,
“I choose you, Jesus. I choose you.”
Based on the Story Lectionary
Major Text
Jesus the True Vine (John 15 and 16)
Minor Text
Thorns Out of Paradise (Genesis 3)
Joseph is Betrayed By His Brothers for 20 Shekels of Silver (Genesis 37)
The Three-Score and 10 Pieces of Silver for Abimelech’s Murders and Jotham’s Parable of the Trees and Bramble (Judges 9:1-14 and 7-15)
Samuel Kisses Saul and Anoints Him King and the Holy Spirit Effects God’s Plan (1 Samuel 10)
David Prays on the Mt. of Olives Weeping as He Realizes His Trusted Advisor, Ahithophel’s, Betrayal (2 Samuel 15-17)
Josiah’s Passover Celebration and Following Death (2 Chronicles 35 and 1 Esdras 1)
Psalm 2: Kiss the Son
Psalm 55: David’s Song About Betrayal By a Trusted Friend
The Book of Esther: Haman’s Offer of Silver to Xerxes to Exterminate the Jewish People
Song of God’s Vineyard: God’s Lament (Isaiah 5:1-30)
The Prophecy to the Line of Judah (Isaiah 48)
The Prophecy of the Wineskins (Jeremiah 13:12-14)
The Unworthy Shepherd, a Potter’s Field, and Thirty Pieces of Silver (Zechariah 11)
Though the Fig Tree Does Not Bud, I Will Rejoice in the Lord My Strength (Habakkuk 3:17-19)
A Prophecy of Betrayal (Micah 7:1-7)
Judas Betrays Jesus (Matthew 25:31-6:25; Mark 14:1-25; Luke 22:1-23)
Peter Comments on Judas’ Betrayal (Acts 1:15-20)
Jesus the True Vine
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He 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. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. “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.
If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.
If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other.
“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father as well. If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’
“When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.
“All this I have told you so that you will not fall away. They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God. They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. I have told you this, so that when their time comes you will remember that I warned you about them. I did not tell you this from the beginning because I was with you, but now I am going to him who sent me.
None of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ Rather, you are filled with grief because I have said these things. But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because people do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.
“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”
Image Exegesis: Judas
“Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” (1 Timothy 6:9-10)
“In that day, in every place where there were a thousand vines worth a thousand silver shekels, there will be only briers and thorns. Hunters will go there with bow and arrow, for the land will be covered with briers and thorns. As for all the hills once cultivated by the hoe, you will no longer go there for fear of the briers and thorns; they will become places where cattle are turned loose and where sheep run.” (Isaiah 7:23-25)
“What will you do on the day of the appointed festival. And on the day of the feast of the LORD? For behold, they will go because of destruction; Egypt will gather them up, Memphis will bury them. Weeds will take over their treasures of silver; Thorns will be in their tents.” (Hosea 9:5-6)
Thorns appear for the first time in Genesis after the fall. Thorns (sin) is what we will need now to deal with in the world outside of God’s inner garden. In a sense, the metaphor of thorns/thistles represents the “heart” which has rejected God and which attempts to go independently in another direction, which hides from God. Because the Hebrew metaphor of the garden represents the heart into which the “seed” of the Torah (God’s covenant relationship) is firmly planted, nurtured, and encouraged to grow and put down roots and bear fruit, because the job to “till and keep” the covenant within the heart is all important, and because our command to “bear fruit and multiply” implies this covenant relationship as well, the “soil” and the nature of the “soil” of one’s heart…that is the fertility, the reception to the watering of the spirit, the lack of stones, weeds, and so forth (ie Jesus parable) is all important to the nature of the soul.
The thorns are clearly those which can hurt others. Non-bearing thorned plants are even worse. Much of the “brush” or brambles in the Holy Land is more “dead” and dry, but there are also numerous thistles, which can choke out the good within the heart, due to the lure of money/silver.
While there are several Hebrew testament stories about betrayal (David, Esther, Abimelech, Joseph, and others), the story of Abimelech is accompanied by the oldest parable in scripture: the parable of the trees, as told by Jotham, his younger brother, who escaped his murderous plan to claim the throne.
In the Parable of the Trees…Jotham warns against allowing a “bramble” king to rule over you, and to whom you will pledge your loyalty and covenant. The question then comes up, “whom (or what) do you choose to rule your life?” “To be your king?” For you will become as the one you revere.
Is it money? Is it power? Is it fame? Is it food? Is it church?
The nature of sin is that which turns us away / keeps us away from living in a covenant relationship with God, that binds us, and nurtures us in the Holy Spirit.
The metaphors tell the story of this gospel as well:
Jesus is the True Vine and Judas the Withered Fig or the Bramble/Thistle.
The metaphors in John’s scripture and in the other gospelers are multi-fold:
Metaphor of the Bramble (that which pulls you into sin, and turns you into one who hurts)
Metaphor of Thistles (which choke the seed of God from within…..due to greed/a preoccupation with wealth or other temptations)
Metaphor of Dry Branches (those which are not nurtured from being in relationship with God)
Metaphor of the King (whatever rules you…to what/whom you pledge your loyalty, attention, cravings, urges, soul
Crown of Thistles (the sin upon the head of the Son)
Metaphor of Silver and the Treasury of the Heart
Metaphor of Wineskins and Drunkenness (which distracts from God)
Metaphor of the Kiss (the honor due to the Son and the Father, which in Judas’ case is ironic, as Jesus is named “King of the Jews”)
Thistles cut/hurt. Judas (whose Greek name means Judah) is also a metaphorical disciple representing Judah, who has become a thorn or thistle, a non-bearing withered fig (as in the one Jesus cursed for not bearing fruit). He is also the only disciple who appears to stem from Judah (the town of Kerioth).
The throne of Judah is the issue with Jesus. Jesus however is a spiritual King. And Jesus will be the one “pierced.” (see Zechariah 12)
Matthew (13:22) notes Jesus saying that when “the seed falls among thorns…the deceitfulness of wealth chokes the word making it unfruitful.”
Additional references to thorns and thistles are many, such as Hebrews 6:8, Isaiah 34:13, Isaiah 33:12, Isaiah 10:17, Isaiah 55:13, Jeremiah 4:3, Jeremiah 12:13.
Judas carried the purse. Judas asks, “What will you give me if I deliver him to you?” (Matthew 26:14-15, Mark14:10-11, Luke 22:3-6). Judas is lured not only by silver, but by wanting to be part of the Temple crowd. His attention is on a physical and not a spiritual Temple (that is Jesus). Judas’s fate: Matthew 26:15 and 27:5-10. Like the chaff burned, or the dry branches discarded, he himself voluntarily in a sense perhaps of repentance, gave back the silver and retreated to the Potter’s Field, where thistles abound, and where he kept himself unworthy of Jesus’ forgiving grace.
The question, will Jesus’ taking upon himself the crown of thorns, redeem even Judas? Or does Judas, in ending his own life before receiving Jesus’ gift, reject the gift?
In the story of Abimelech, successor of Gideon, Abimelech went and dined with his mother’s brethren (his uncles), and then betrayed his brothers by using silver from a pagan treasury to pay “weak” followers with silver to murder 70 of his brothers. He wanted the right of kinship. But didn’t understand the true nature of kinship.
In the story of David’s betrayal by his closest counselor, he went up the Mt. of Olives to weep over his friend’s defection. So many stories foreshadow many of the events of Jesus’ experience.
The thorn of betrayal is the most enduring pain.
“Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me,” says Paul. (2 Corinthians 12:7) Perhaps Paul’s “thorn” was not a “what” but a “who.”