Recently Fran and I stepped off a lake boat and were surrounded by people in wigs and brilliant costumes from various periods of history. The most prominent of the performers were those people who were carrying huge baskets of grapes. This was the “Fête des Vignerons,” the festival of the vineyards that occurs only once every twenty-two to twenty-five years. The festival shows the seasons of work in the vineyards through song, dance, and pageant—catapulting the vines, harvesting the grapes, making the wine. It shows weeds, bugs, and frosts that spoil the vines, and it shows the success of combating elements to bring forth a harvest.
The festivals in this area of Switzerland probably go back to the fourteenth century and were started by monasteries, though the records of the fêtes were burned in a fire in Vevey in 1643. The early fêtes were no more than parades with singing and dancing. The first organized fête des Vignerons took place in 1791, and the next one in 1797. Because of the French Revolution the third festival didn’t occur until 1819. This was hailed with such enthusiasm that people thought that there should always be a long period between fêtes. So from that time until now there have been just eight, and the next projected time for a fête is the year 2001.
Preparations for this year’s fête started in 1973. It took four years to compose the music, write the script, and design the costumes. Planners chose the dance troupe, professional orchestra, and the actors. And thousands of volunteer participants signed up. There were 3,800 “extras,” 350 singers, fourteen bands totaling 400 musicians, a symphony orchestra of eighty-three professional musicians, and 200 electricians, sound men, and safety personnel. They had a budget of 18,000,000 Swiss francs. There were thousands of costumes, but the people, according to tradition, bought their own. Organizers sold about 208,000 tickets at an average price of ninety francs a ticket, and 32,000 people saw the dress rehearsal. Thousands more saw the four-kilometer parade.
Here is a tradition of fun and celebration. It helps people appreciate a year’s work in the vineyards. It stirs up thoughts of dead vines coming alive in spring and bearing a heavy crop of beautifiil grapes in the fall. However, a Bacchus festival is intertwined with it. Bacchus, the fat god of wine, arrives on the lake. He has a prominent place in the cycle of the vine.
As I heard of all the preparations, and as I looked at the prancing people it struck me that Christians have every reason to celebrate vineyards. It is a central metaphor of our Christian lives. Yet we have not seen the possibilities of an imaginative festival, where we could highlight God’s use of the vineyard motif. Jesus talked about this in one of his last discourses.
“I am the true vine and my father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away; and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love” (John 15:1–9).
Jesus has given us the metaphor of the vine. We need to bear fruit, grapes. Or sometimes we should watch as the husbandman or keeper of the vines prunes and fertilizes the vines for a good harvest. He cares for the soil, he removes weeds, and sprays bugs. Fertilizing, spraying, hoeing, watering—all have parallels with our spiritual lives. It is a good thing to visit the vineyards or work in your own garden to learn the power of the metaphor. We can see the fresh leaves and the growing bunches of grapes as sap flows from vine to branch. And we see weak, withered branches where the sap has stopped. These are vivid images of life with Christ and without him.
Jesus is speaking to his disciples before he dies about things of central importance. He wants us to choose to abide in him. We can ask for his strength to stay in him. We need his Word abiding in us, and we can choose to read and meditate on it. We can put other thoughts aside and ask forgiveness for letting ourselves become wild, unfruitful branches. If you imagine yourself as having become an unpruned branch on the vine, you can ask God to cut you back and graft you again into the lifegiving sap of his words. One of the conditions for prayer is that we abide in Christ. Our prayer should always be, “Lord teach me how to live as you would have me live.”
We can never reach the end of what the vine metaphor means. Until Jesus comes again we will not be perfect as fruitful branches. To remind us of the truth of John 15 Christians should hold a fête des Vignerons. Sitting under a vine you have grown is one way to have the illustration penetrate your whole being. Another would be to celebrate in music, pageant, and dance the cultivation of a vine. The vine is so important that Jesus tells us as at the last supper that he will not taste of the fruit of the vine “until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” And in Revelation we are told we shall be served by Jesus at the marriage supper of the lamb. The vine metaphor goes beyond the present life. Let’s take the celebration of the vines away from Bacchus. Its importance belongs to Christians.
