Die Weinstockrede Jesu und die missionstheologische Relevanz der gegenseitigen Liebe (Joh 15.1–17)

Abstract The Johannine commandment of love aims not only in an ethical-ecclesial sense at the cohesion in the church, but in a mission-theological sense at the winning of new church members. Jn 15.1–17 explains how the mutual immanence of God, Jesus and his disciples enables his followers to gain new fruit in the sense of new church members through mutual love. This continues the christological-ecclesial interpretation of Jesus’ foot-washing from John 13. The symbolic action illustrates how Jesus’ mission leads to the foundation of a community of disciples as a community of love, which becomes the place where the love of God can be permanently experienced (13.1–20, 34–5). The disciples are commissioned to make love present in the world. They are equal among themselves in their immediacy to Jesus, as members of the community of discipleship. A mission-theological use of the harvest metaphor is already found prominently in John 4.35–8 and 12.24–6 and thus in two texts, each of which describes the mission of the followers in correspondence to the mission of Jesus. The vine metaphor deepens that and how Jesus’ followers are to contribute to the enlargement of the community of followers even after his departure, whereby the pre-Easter community of followers is the model for the post-Easter community.