Vine is more than Internet

John 15:1-8

The True Vine ≠ Internet 

In the book of Genesis we read that we are created in the image of God.  There is a plural in there that is often forgotten.  Regardless, we are in the image of God.

The plural denotes to me the connectivity of the experience.  

We, humans, create the internet.  The internet is an experience of interconnectivity.  That experience is much like that imaged by God.  The triune God is 3 in 1.  A monotheistic expression of community.  One God in three expressions.  One God presented to us in three different accessible manners.  Or ... One God in three forms to us and to God’s self.  To be one is to be in community ... to be in community is to be one.  As detailed as we might get with our trinitarian theory, community appears to be at the basis of God’s being.  

Let us consider God (Abba) and Jesus.  In the Gospels, those two characters seem to be at the closest communion yet individualized.  Jesus sends us the Spirit, so the dyad becomes the triad and we have a more profound community.

Leap a few thousand years, we created the internet.  From its onset in the late 1960s to today, the map of the internet is if anything connectivity.  From its onset, the internet has modeled connection via diverse and growing path ways.  

My question is if the internet images the connectivity that God models in us as an image of God?  Does the internet model the connectivity we crave in God?  As much as humans crave independence, we create a “network” of connection because we are modeled / made in the image of one who is all about relationship?

A difference is that we are also about control, so we create the internet to control connection.  Like the grape vine, God creates without the desire to control.  Rather, God creates with the desire to produce fruit ... clusters of grape from a tangled mess of branches.  

We desire the internet because of our need for control.  God desires the grape vine because of God’s lack of desire for control (thus the messy and tangled branches) rather a desire for fruit (the clusters of grapes from the green).  

May we produce much fruit (love relationships) and enjoy our life in the vine.

BONUS:    A bonus thought after listening to one of the Elders of my church read the scripture ... What a blessing that Jesus’ images us as branches of the vince that produce fruit.  What if Jesus had imaged us as the roots from which God drew nutrients to produce fruit?  What if we were imaged as the roots, hidden under ground with the dirt to give food to the vine?  Instead, God sees us as the ones who produce fruit for God’s glory!