Father Dominic Emmanuel

I am writing this column and hope to write a few more from the exotic environs of Kerala, often described as “God’s own country”. The large and picturesque green expanse of tea gardens in Kerala is an absolutely gorgeous surrounding. And equally fascinating is the view of men and women plucking tea leaves and tossing them into the baskets on their back.

After the process of crushing, tearing and curling, these leaves, in a completely different form, will be used in our kitchens and restaurants to help us relax with a cuppa.
Tea leaves, which look so splendid, once plucked, however many tasty cups of tea they may churn up, have no life of their own. They will never grow again. Well, that is the fate of all leaves and branches. Plucked or cut, if not grafted onto another plant/tree, they will simply dry up and die. But do leaves and branches have a choice, can they refuse to be chopped, trimmed or cut off? Do environmentalists ever ask for a ban on plucking of tea leaves or for that matter for so many other types of leaves?
It is interesting to find a parallel of the same in the Bible and that too in a very crucial context, with regard to our relationship with God, our Creator. In the 15th chapter of John’s gospel, we come across such a passage which, incidentally, bears significant relevance to our life.
In the concerned passage Jesus says, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener... No branch can produce fruit alone. It must stay connected to the vine. It is the same with you. You cannot produce fruit alone. You must stay joined to me. I am the vine, and you are the branches. “If you stay joined to me, and I to you, you will produce plenty of fruit. But separated from me you won’t be able to do anything. If you don’t stay joined to me, you will be like a branch that has been thrown out and has dried up”.
Jesus was a master communicator and was well-versed in picking up revealing material from ordinary happenings and events in the lives of His listeners. He would then quite skilfully relate them to correct their wrong understanding and image of God, of life, of other people and so on.
Here Jesus was telling his disciples that their relationship with Him and with God, the Father, was not limited to prayer time, when one would visit the synagogue (or temple, church, mosque and gurdwara), or while reading the scriptures, or performing a puja or indeed during pilgrimage to holy places. He was drawing the disciples’ attention to another level, in fact to the ultimate level where they can have a deep and intimate relationship with the Divine.
How wonderful it would have been if we could have looked at our life and conducted our relationship with God on such warm and intimate terms as branches have with the plant.
Curiously, one of the allegations made against Jesus by the religious leaders of his time and which was held against him at the time of His trial leading to His crucifixion was that of blasphemy. And what could be that blasphemous act of Jesus to earn the wrath of the Pharisees and Sadducees? The strange but true reality was that Jesus had dared to address God, residing up in the heavens, with an intimate term, as Abba or Father.
Those who had always thought of God as inaccessible, deserving enormous respect as the mighty Creator, could not take in the fact that Jesus was showing them an entirely unique way of addressing that God.
God, as the people of that time knew, was to be surely adored and honoured but also to be feared.
In the midst of such an understanding of God, comes along Jesus and revolutionises that concept by revealing to them that God was a loving Father and needed to be addressed in as intimate terms as one would identify one’s earthly dad or papa. Bringing God down to such a personal level of relationship was for many blasphemous.
There is certainly a difference between the way we relate to our dad and to someone we hold in awe. But Jesus draws us to a personal relationship with Himself and with our God. Just as cut off from the vine a branch has no life, without understanding and thus relating to God intimately, how can we be really called children of God?

— Father Dominic Emmanuel, a founder-member of Parliament of Religions, is currently the director of communication of the Delhi Catholic Church. He was awarded the National Communal Harmony Award 2008 by the Government of India. He can be contacted at frdominic@gmail.com