Isaiah 5:1-5
Psalm 80:7-14
Philippians 3:4b-14
Matthew 21:33-46
It can be dangerous to ascribe human characteristics to God - to describe God as compassionate, or judging, or kind, or angry. It's dangerous because when we give human attributes to God, we risk limiting God with our definitions. We end up turning God into a glorified human, and we fail to recognize that God is so completely different from us that there is no comparison, no point of reference.
On the other hand, it is absolutely impossible to relate to a God who is so different. If God is just "God," with no defining characteristics - if God is just "God," not loving or angry or caring or judging or anything - than how can we love such a God? Or even hate such a God? How can we feel anything whatsoever towards that God? Or, most importantly, know that that God feels anything towards us?
Well, the writer of our Old Testament reading from Isaiah decided to risk the former rather than the latter. That is, the writer of our portion from Isaiah decided that it was better to over-personalize God than to under-personalize, because the writer wanted us to understand how much of a relationship God has with us, and how much of what we do affects God in deeply personal ways.
And so the writer invites us to imagine God as a gardener, as a farmer in love with his vineyard, with us. "Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines;" So there we have the very beginning images of what God is doing for the vineyard, for God's chosen people. First the gardener selects the site for the vineyard and then begins the back-breaking work of breaking ground and clearing out the stones. Now, remember, this was before diesel-powered roto-tillers or yard-sized back-hoes. The gardener had only a plow, and a team of oxen to help him pull it, and every couple of feet there would be another huge stone to drag out of the way. Israel is, after all, a very rocky country, and clearing land there is a lot of work. But, after what was probably months of labour-intensive work, finally the gardener could begin to plant.
And so he travelled the area, buying and trading with people for their vine shoots, carefully building up a selection of the perfect vines. And then he planted them, spacing them out carefully, marking out the rows where they would grow, giving them all just a little bit of water and nourishment, clearing out the weeds that would choke them.
And then the gardener with the vineyard waited. Did you know that it takes anywhere from three to eight years for vines to produce grapes that are good enough to press into wine? It doesn't happen right away. This is no instant-gratification project. It takes a long time. But, while the gardener waited, he built a hedge on one side to stop foraging animals from chewing up the vines, and he built a wall on the other, probably from the stones he'd picked out of the ground, to stop the sheep from walking through the rows. And then, he built a watchtower in the middle, so he could climb it and survey his vineyard. And lastly, remember, he still has a couple of years, he built a wine vat, a big tub where he could press the grapes and make wine, where he could reap the rewards of all his work. And he kept weeding and watering and waiting.
Now, after all these years of hard work, of single-minded care and tending of his vineyard, how do you think the gardener felt towards his vines? If you've ever taken care of a garden, or even just a single plant, and nurtured it from a small seedling to a flourishing plant, then you know that a person can get attached to what they're growing. You're proud when you spot a new shoot, you worry when you have to go away and leave it for a while. You attack the weeds with vigour and fret when there's not enough rain. And, like the vineyard grower, like God, you expect to see results for all your hard work.
"He expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes." Rotten grapes, actually, is the better Hebrew translation. God expected the vineyard that he had carefully cultivated to produce grapes that were worthy of wine, but instead, the vines put forth grapes that were rotten, that mocked God's hard work, that turned to nothing all the time he had spent on them.
Of course, we know, since the prophet who wrote this told us so, that the vineyard is not just any vineyard, and the vines are not just vines. After all, who can blame plain old vines for the kind of grapes they produce? We know that the vineyard is actually God's chosen people, and that the production of rotten grapes is personal betrayal of the worst kind. After being cared for and nurtured, after being set in the perfect place and protected by walls and watchtowers, the people of God turn their backs on the one who cares for them. Rather than trying to produce fruit in thanks for such care, we produce rot. We put forth words of hate, rather than love. We produce actions that put down others, rather than lift them up. You know what kind of rot we produce on a daily basis. I don't need to tell you.
"And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield rotten grapes? And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and it shall be overgrown with briers and thrown; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it."
God's reaction is devastating, and can we blame him? We have betrayed God, turned our back on the relationship that God would have with us, scorned the care and protection God offer us. And God reacts by leaving us to ourselves - by removing the protective hedges and walls so that we can fend for ourselves among the wild animals, by abandoning us to the weeds that choke our lives and stop us from seeing the sun, by leaving us to survive without the nourishment and sustenance that God provides. It's not really punishment so much as it is God saying, "Well, if you think you don't need me, then I can't help you. I won't force myself on you - try it on your own for a while."
But leaving a vineyard to itself leads to the death of the vineyard, and that's where our reading from Isaiah ends for today. The vineyard is destroyed, the people of God torn down, and God's heart is broken over the whole matter. We know, after all, what happens when we are left to our own devices, when we are place in a situation with no boundaries at all. We flounder, and fail, and even die. We end up in desperate need of rescuing and the psalm that we sang today says it perfectly, "Turn now, O God of hosts, look down from heaven; behold and tend this vine; preserve what your right hand has planted."
And God does. Death is not the final end of the vineyard or of us. God does not let things end with our destruction, in part because our death is so painful to God. After all, who can abandon a garden they have worked so hard to keep alive? Even when things appear completely dead, there is always hope that something might come back next spring. And so God brings new life out of death and new vines out of the destroyed vineyard. Later in the book of Isaiah, Chapter 27, actually, we read, "On that day: A pleasant vineyard, sing about it! I, the Lord, am its keeper, every moment I water it. I guard it night and day so that no one can harm it; I have no wrath. If it gives me thorns and briers, I will march to battle against it. I will burn it up. Or else let it cling to me for protection, let it make peace with me. . . . In days to come Jacob shall take root, Israel shall blossom and put forth shoots, and fill the whole world with fruit." God restores us to what we were meant to be, and in doing so, we become the people God intended. We bear fruit worthy of God.
Now don't think for a minute that this is an easy thing for God to do - giving us new life and restoring us to what we are meant to be. In doing this, God risks being betrayed again, God risks that we will once again bear rotten fruit, God risks that we will crucify his son all over again. But God takes that risk nonetheless, because of a love for us that is great, passionate, and never-ending. And all that we can do in return is to grow good fruit, to reach for the sunlight, to appreciate and give thanks to the gardener who keeps us growing. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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