The Father as Vinedresser

The Father as Vinedresser

What a beautiful analogy the Holy Spirit has given us in the gospel of John: God the Father as Vinedresser and Jesus as the true Vine. Many extant commentaries discuss the theology hidden in Jesus’ description of Himself and the Father, but I wanted to start with just plain old agriculture!

And what a discovery of hidden gems I unearthed. First, I simply ‘googled’ vinedresser.  Of the top seven hits, five were Biblical commentaries (great!) but the one I chose came from work.chron.com which solely gave the ‘job description’ for vinedresser. Put simply, a vinedresser is an agriculturalist ‘involved in the daily pruning, tending and cultivation of grapes.’  Vinedressers need to work year-round to create the best grapes to produce the finest wine.

A vinedresser’s main tasks include pruning, ‘pest’ management, irrigating (or giving them Living Water) and of course, harvesting!

But of these, their pre-eminent task is pruning. I will just lay out all that I learned about pruning and you can apply it to your own life circumstances. This information certainly illuminated some of my own. Pruning removes dead, diseased or stunted fruit to make room for new growth, ultimately leading to a healthy and productive vine. This process begins merely weeks after planting! Once we have come to Christ, the Father gets started working on us right away taking away not only those dead parts (2 Corinthians 5:17) but also those parts that are diseased or stunted and we may not even be aware of their underlying condition. Excellent pruning demands a keen eye, the best possible eyes.

Pruning involves both cutting off dead wood but also cutting back on the amount of living wood so that the plant’s energy can go into producing fruit and not merely growing vegetation. In my life, I was thinking of how much I produce that is merely for appearances and not really producing anything of substance.  According to God’s plan, those parts are using up too much of my vitality and need to go.

There are two main types of pruning: cane pruning and spur pruning. Canes are shoots that grow directly off the Main Vine. Spurs are little arms that grow from a cordon (a semi-permanent branch that grows horizontally from the trunk).  Cane pruning involves cutting back 90%!! of last year’s growth by first removing dead two year old canes. Spur pruning includes look at the newest growth and keeping only 1-3 buds and removing the rest (sometimes with a handsaw!)

The styles of pruning show me just how much God wants me to grow and produce fruit each year, much more than I am currently imagining for myself. In cane pruning, you select two well-formed canes coming directly out of the Head of the vine (that are 1-year old with tightly spaced, healthy buds) and these two are tied to the trellis. The Lord is keeping only the healthiest buds and then we are to be tied to Him and hang on to Him for dear life! J

God’s work doesn’t involve just pruning; he is also feeding and watering us as well as controlling the pests. An agriculturalist closely monitors the vines to ensure that they are receiving the correct amount of water, particularly during growing season. Have you ever noticed that you seem closer to the Lord when you are going through a ‘tough season’ or a growing season when you need more of Him? That’s part of the Father’s plan. Vinedressers also tend the soil, preparing it even before planting, to improve the production of crops. God was preparing our hearts and our soil long before we gave our lives to Him.  Finally, the Father must constantly evaluate the vineyard and be vigilant against pests (like THE pest, the enemy himself) because invasions could compromise the next growing season. We must guard our hearts daily, while the Father Himself is keeping vigil over us for our next growing stage. 

Guerilla Gardening

I almost did guerilla gardening yesterday. Guerilla gardening is putting flowers or plants in surprising or unexpected places, where they show up suddenly without warning. There are guerilla gardening organizations all over the world; people taking over public spaces with a bit of beauty, whimsy, function, and/or food. It is simply one easy and fun way to 'pay it forward' and make this world a better not to mention more aesthetically pleasing place.


To engage in guerilla gardening, you being by coming across an orphaned piece of land, or perhaps some corporate piece of land that could really use some bright pink flowers! Then you need to plan your mission, find some lucky blooms and under cover of dark, or at a minimum with anonymity, go and plant them. Better yet, plant wildflower seeds in spring and watch them transform a small parcel of land. What I love about guerilla gardening is that it does require stealth, occuring often in the light of the moon. Virtually no one needs to know

your good deed, but everyone whose heart is kindled by an unexpectedly tended patch of earth will benefit.

So, I said I almost got to do guerilla gardening yesterday. I walk or drive down a certain road in my neighborhood every day and saw two large flowers that had nothing in them, even though the rest of the neighborhood is teeming with abundant color. I also ran into that particular neighbor that day and she seemed down to me (I might have been projecting here!)  So I went out to the store with a plan to fill those planters on my way home, as long as their car was missing from the driveway. Happily I went and picked out a 6-pack of the brightest flowers I could find. But on the way home, I saw .....the planters had just been planted! Maybe some other neighbor beat me to it. I guess I'll just have to find another spot for my surprise strike!

The Power of a small group of committed citizens: the birth of Project H.O.P.E.

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In fall of 2005, I was asked to teach a class called Applied Sociology and I intended to take the title literally. Each week, I asked myself, how can I get these 15 college students more hands-on involvement in the local community? This course focused on how to assess the health and needs of a community, and how to attempt to fulfill their needs.

One evening, I was sitting down to meditate. I had a pen and paper nearby as I usually do to capture insights, or more realistically, to write down a to-do list, so I can actually relax into meditation. I realized before closing my eyes, that I did have a question on my mind, so I simply posed that question: “What can I do with my class tomorrow?” I was truly only focused on the next day’s class, and was unprepared for what happened next.

When I closed my eyes, I literally saw Project H.O.P.E. (helping other people and the earth) unfold before me. I saw my class go to our little local Catholic school (St. Michael School) and conduct interviews: asking students, faculty, and staff about what improvements they would like to see in their school. I then saw us and many others creating a beautiful garden in the front of the school, fixing up the playground, and painting the inside hallways; just simply beautifying a school that did have the extra resources to do so on their own.

My immediate reaction was to say, “Have you lost your mind? I am not doing all this!” But it quickly became clear to me that I would not be doing anything; I just needed to facilitate the process and let it unfold as planned. Moreover, I would have to believe in the power of a “small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” (--Margaret Mead)

I still did not intend to follow through on this ‘crazy’ idea. In fact, I completely dismissed it as unrealistic. However, I did take my class to St. Michael School that week to conduct the interviews and outside analysis for our assessment assignment. When we returned to our class room to debrief the exercise, I was utterly astonished by MY students’ reaction. The first words out of their mouths were, “Dr. D, we HAVE to DO this project! We can’t just go there and get their hopes up and not follow through!” Now is when I began to realize that the divinely-inspired plan I saw in meditation was going to unfold whether I wanted it to or not.

I will never forget that day in the classroom: their eagerness was contagious! They began to brainstorm ideas at once and we had the entire year’s worth of work fleshed during that one class session.

Our intention was to build community relations between our college and their grade school; beautify their school with gardens, murals and playground improvements; and “Pay it Forward” by partnering with the grade school to raise money for another Catholic school in Mississippi that had been entirely wiped out by Hurricane Katrina.

By the end of the day, we had our Kick-off party planned. Within three weeks, we were going to have an ice-cream party at their school, and unfold our ideas for the project. I will never forget Carla getting on her phone right there in the classroom to call Vale Wood Dairy about donating all the ice cream we would need for our event. (I can still see Carly, Moe, and Renee dishing out ice cream that day!)

We wanted to go there bearing gifts so Michelle offered to solicit sports equipment donations from her softball team and the rest of athletics, while Anna quickly researched buying pencils for each student with our two names on them to demonstrate our unity. Without delay, Neil stepped up to organize the equipment we’d need to eventually create these gardens.

In the end, the main Project H.O.P.E. team that worked together for the rest of the year consisted of Michelle, Anna, Neil and myself. By late April of the following year, we had raised over $3000; completed the gardens (we built two-foot high stone garden walls which enclosed two large 9foot by 9foot garden plots); with the art skills of one of the moms, we created an enormous mural which covered an entire hallway; fixed up the playground; organized dozens of students, local community members, faculty and various student groups to participate in the work parties; and finally sent $1000 to Saint Clare School in Mississippi to help rebuild their school.

Throughout the many months of service work, we were sustained by the energy and enthusiasm of that first class that said, ‘hey, we need to DO this!” and that was a call that a few committed citizens could not ignore.
Thanks to all of you former students who still inspire me to this day!