New Commandment

Jesus said to his disciples:
“As the Father loves me, so I also love you.
Remain in my love.
If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love,
just as I have kept my Father’s commandments
and remain in his love.
I have told you this so that my joy may be in you
and your joy might be complete.
This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.
No one has greater love than this,
to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
You are my friends if you do what I command you.

—John 15:9-17

Lord, you gave a new commandment,
laid your life down for your friends.
All our questions had one answer:
Love each other to the end.

Oh, but loving is a labor:
We are willing; we are weak.
In the service of our neighbor,
where, Lord, is the rest we seek?

Shepherd, lead us to still waters
where our hearts may be refreshed.
Shelter all your sons and daughters
as we come to break the bread.

There you lay your yoke upon us.
When we make our sacrifice
for the ones you put before us,
we will find the burden light.

We will find in you our comfort
as we labor in your name,
for you work with us, our brother,
that our loves may be the same.

When we turn to serve each other,
filling hands and washing feet,
when we love as you have loved us,
then our joy will be complete.

Tacuina sanitatis (XIV century) 5-alimenti, acqua calda,Taccuino Sanitatis, Casanatense 418 By unknown master – book scan, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1638829

Sower

On bearing good fruit:

Turn my earth, O sower,
thistle-choked and thorned,
lying fallow, stone-filled:
Sift it more and more.
Harrowed, softened, broken,
deep the furrow's scored.
Ready me for sowing,
plowed with ruined sword.

There the seed will burrow
when you give the Word,
hidden under sorrow,
roots that reach the core.
After winter snowing,
springtime bursting sore,
summer's golden growing,
autumn will run o'er.

Tend me through the slow days;
nurture me, my Lord.
Slow, the work of growing;
great is the reward.
Grown to be scythed lower
(thus are harvests born),
I was yours at sowing:
Spent, I still am yours.

Walled 17th-century kitchen garden at Ham House near London, with orangery in the distance. By mym, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9132385

Vine

One for John 15, on the vine and the branches:

O Christ, enlivening vine,
surround us with your leaves
and take our substance for your wine,
our harvest for your feast.

From springtime's tender green
'til growing time is through,
within your tendrils let us cling.
Let us remain in you

that all we bear and make
in your own good may share;
that all we do will have the taste
of your enfolding care;

and all that flows in you
may run into our veins,
as every day we are renewed
by wind and sun and rain.

So root us in your love
and hold us ever near
that our leaves, too, spread out above
to shelter others here.

Graft us into your life
and there forever keep
to grow still more like you, O Christ,
and make our joy complete.

Vineyard. Picture from popular bible encyclopedia of Archimandrite Nicephorus (1891). By Unknown author – Popular Bible Encyclopedia of Archimandrite Nicephorus (1891) RSL, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=67480264

O Living Vine

Jesus said to his disciples:
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower.
He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit,
and everyone that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit.
You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you.
Remain in me, as I remain in you.
Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own
unless it remains on the vine,
so neither can you unless you remain in me.
I am the vine, you are the branches.
Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit,
because without me you can do nothing.
Anyone who does not remain in me
will be thrown out like a branch and wither;
people will gather them and throw them into a fire
and they will be burned.
If you remain in me and my words remain in you,
ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you.
By this is my Father glorified,
that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”
John 15:1-8

Remain with me, O living vine,
though I be pruned away from you.
Around this withered branch entwine
the tendrils that will bear your fruit.
Upon my beams, then, upward climb,
though I am buried with your root.
Embrace me, though I can but die,
and let me bear your harvest, too.

We are the stakes, stuck row by row
by our vinegrower's careful plan,
that harvest-heavy vines enfold
and turn us green who barren stand.
And so the bloodred wine is poured,
the fruit of earth and work of hands;
the seeds yield up a hundredfold
which drips from this unfruitful branch.

So then let me remain in you—
oh, cast me not into the fire!
Let me remain within your shoots:
myself, yet yours; your life as mine.
Though I bear nothing else but you,
bear down on me, my saving vine:
Let me bear up the heavy fruit
and taste the harvest I desire.

Grower of the Vine

Jesus said to his disciples:
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower.
He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit,
and every one that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit.
You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you.
Remain in me, as I remain in you.
Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own
unless it remains on the vine,
so neither can you unless you remain in me.”
John 15:1-8

One for today’s Gospel reading. It fits BROTHER JAMES’ AIR, in terms of meter, but I’m not convinced that’s the right tune:

O Father, grower of the vine,
you nurture our deep roots.
You prune us by your Word divine
to shape our new-grown shoots,
and you will press the flowing wine
when we have borne our fruits.

Do not, good grower, cast us off
or tear us from the vine,
but give us sun and rain enough
to grow to your design
and bear the greatest fruits of love,
with Christ the Son entwined.

Oh, keep us ever in the vine
as he remains in you,
partaking in your life divine
that fills us through and through,
until we come to drink the wine
where it is ever new.