Finding Jesus in a Napa Valley Vineyard

Discovering depth in the soil

Often when I read about Jesus talking about sheep or telling a parable whose setting is a vineyard, I think, What a great metaphor. What a thought-provoking story! And they are great metaphors and stories, but they’re also so much more!

Israel survived on a subsistence economy. For the most part, the farmers grew enough to live on year by year. The ground, the harvest determined their lives. Archaeologists have discovered small plots of land where they grew vines and olives and figs not just to eat but to use as a commodity to trade. Interestingly, vineyards complemented rather than competed with the other crops they were growing.

When Jesus drew on these earthy illustrations it wasn’t just a nice word picture, he was diving into their economic forms of survival. To put it into modern terms, he was talking about their pay checks, their bank accounts, their 401Ks, and their children’s college funds in order to illustrate eternal truths and reveal who God was in the midst of it all. His choice of subject matter not only connected with the people, it gripped their hearts because it was the foundation for their survival.

What a wonderful promise that Jesus gives us

"These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you and that your joy may be full.
This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends.
You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.
No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing;
but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father
I have made known to you.
You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit,
and that your fruit should remain,
that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.
These things I command you, that you love one another.