Do It for the Vine

There is a garden that God places in our care. But instead of plants growing in that garden, it’s people and relationships. Some relationships we search for and choose to plant in our garden. Other relationships have been planted there from the start. But above all, our garden must have one relationship growing at its center—a vine.

The Garden We Choose

We often consider those who we choose to share our lives with our friends. But what is a friend?

Merriam Webster defines a friend as “one attached to another by affection or esteem.”¹But what amount of “affection” or “esteem” separates an acquaintance from a friend? One person may draw that line differently than the next. However you define it, we would never be satisfied with only knowing acquaintances.

Scripture gives us a different definition of friendship. It doesn’t undermine the importance of “affection” or “esteem”; the famous friendship of David and Jonathan was full of affection and esteem. Rather, in addition, it requires that true friendship is intentional, involved, and interceding.

In Proverbs, we see the intentional choice behind friendship. We are told that “the righteous choose their friends carefully” and there is value in being intentional and having “a friend” as opposed to “many companions”² [Proverbs 12:26, 18:24]. Friendship also means being closely involved in one another’s lives. Jesus called his disciples “friends” and was deeply involved in their lives: spending time with them, eating with them, and confiding in them. Finally, friendship also means interceding in one another’s lives. A friend is one who gives “earnest counsel” and is not afraid to “wound” you when necessary.³

There is an intimacy and commitment to biblical friendship that goes beyond just affection or esteem. And yet, there is a joy and delight to friendship that goes beyond just duty and responsibility.

Friends are the flowers of our garden. There is something sweet in our shared interests or experiences, like a fragrance which draws us in. And there is a brightness and color that only someone else's personality can bring to our lives. But if our friendships are not deeply rooted, they become wilted and easily blown away during the storms of our life.

The Garden Chosen For Us

If friends are the flowers in our garden, then family are the trees in our garden, ones that have been there for as long as we can remember. Unlike friends, who we can choose, family is something we are born into. We don’t choose family members based on the sweetness of shared experience or the color of their personality. Rather, the strength of family is in the deep roots which anchor us through the storms of “adversity” in our lives.⁴

So, if there is a distinction between friends and family, how about our “brothers” and “sisters” in Christ? The comparison of church to family is used over and over. We are called “members of the household of God”⁵and part of “the household of faith”⁶ [Galatians 6:10]. When we follow Christ, we are born again into the family of believers, and the same concept applies: we cannot choose our siblings. And yet we are called to worship God together, love and serve one another, and be a light to those outside the church. We are no longer “strangers” to God or to one another, but we are chosen into an eternal family, united under Christ.

So what happens when we make friends within our church family? By “choosing” only some people to be friends, are we showing partiality and making “distinctions among ourselves”?⁷

According to a survey by the American Bible Society, they found that the most common negative experience in church was “exclusion or cliques within the faith community.”⁸ And for most Christians, that may not come as a surprise. It’s natural to want to make friends with likeminded people, and for many Christians, those are other members of the church. By nature, friendships are intentional and friend groups are exclusive. According to Aristotle, “A friend to all is a friend to none”, and there is some truth to that. There is a depth and commitment to real friendship that cannot be realistically maintained with too many people.

So how can we have close, intentional friendships without leaving some members of the church feeling excluded? The answer lies in how we view the church and our relationship with Christ.

The Garden We Are Chosen For

In our garden, Jesus is the vine and we the church are its branches.⁹ And it is through that “true vine” that all believers are connected by an unbreakable bond of unity.

The unity we are called to have as a church is one that mirrors the unity found between the Father, Son, and Spirit.¹⁰ And the bond that we have in Christ is stronger and closer than any other bond. For what binding can be stronger than the blood of Christ and who could be closer to you than your own body?¹¹ Jesus charges us to love one another in the same way that He has loved us: sacrificially and unconditionally. It’s only through “bearing with one another”¹² in that sacrificial and unconditional love that we can find the unity we’re called for.

Unity in the church is not something that comes naturally; it takes deliberate sacrifice, patience, humility, and forgiveness. It means making others feel welcome and honored at the expense of our own comfort in the types of people we normally get along with and the communities we’ve formed. It also means giving one another grace and bearing with one another in patience when we feel excluded or unwelcome. But “bearing with one another” does not mean bottling up our pains and hurts into bitterness. We should be honest with one another: accepting a “complaint” in humility and, in turn, forgiving one another.¹³

But the purpose of church is more than just to find unity with one another. As fellow branches from the vine, we are called to bear fruit. And as a church, we need to begin with that mission.

Our mission is both inward and outward: calling those in the church to become more like Christ and bringing those in the world to see and know Christ. Finding a welcoming community and sense of belonging may set the stage for our inward mission, but it is not the end goal. By putting too much of our hope and purpose on community, we lose sight of our greater calling: to worship God and serve others. We are called “fellow workers” and if we truly believe that “the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few,”¹⁴ then we cannot afford to exclude even a single worker! But we are also made to rest from our work, and we often find that rest in our friends that pour into us. Which again leads us back to the central problem: we can’t be friends with everyone. Sometimes, we can’t even be good friends to the ones we have; we fail to love one another time and time again. Which is why we are told to not put our trust “in human beings, who cannot save”¹⁵ [Psalm 146:3].

But there is one who can save, who calls us both friends¹⁶ [John 15:13-15] and family¹⁷ [Matthew 12:50]. The extent of His love doesn’t dilute its depth or intensity. His friendship extends to us all individually and personally; dying for us while we were still sinners and walking with us as we are sanctified. Jesus himself called us friends when he said “greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends”¹⁶ [John 15:13-15] and that is exactly what He did for us on that cross. As impossible as it may seem, His command for us is to love one another with that same self-sacrificial love. And that is what it means to “abide in the vine.” It is only through our relationship with Christ that we can truly know His love for us and be able to love each other the same way. He is a friend who has chosen us, walks with us daily, and intercedes on our behalf. In our friendship with Him, the true vine, we find our rest.