I will sing for the family I love a song about their
garden;
My family had a garden in our backyard.
Our council president, Corey, dug
it up and my children cleared it of glass found all within it,
We went to Fareway and Pamida to
find the best seeds to plant in our garden,
Wanda
with all her gardening talents, worked all morning with us and showed us how to
hoe out the rows and how to plant seeds,
We
pulled weeds, watered our garden and watched.
But
when we looked out our kitchen window only half of our garden grew! The East side was lush and the West side was
desolate!
We looked for a wonderful crop
of watermelon and butternut squash, but, instead, our entire backyard is full
of acorn squash! 30 or 40 acorn
squash! Covering our entire backyard!
So this is what I’m going to do. Right before it frosts, I’m going to pull all
those acorn squash and I’m never going to plant them again! We should have enough for a couple of years.
Now,
what more could I have done with my garden?
Why, when I planted on the West side did only the East side grow? Why didn’t my butternut squash come up? Why do I have a backyard full of acorn
squash? Judge between me and my
garden. What more could I have done?
The family I am
referring to is my own family and, if you look in our backyard, you’ll see a
bazillion acorn squash growing from one plant on our west side. Besides one zucchini plant, not one of our
other five squash plants grew at all. Some
of you who are gardeners, or farmers, can probably relate. There are years when you plant, you
fertilize, you tend the fields, you do everything you can to get a good crop
and for some reason when harvest time comes you don’t get the production you
expect. If you understand my issues with
my garden, then you should be able to understand today’s reading about God’s
vineyard.
The poem in Isaiah
chapter 5 explains how a vineyard is planted.
The farmer spends a great deal of time and care doing everything he can
to make a beautiful, well tended vineyard.
He chooses the best vines. He even
builds a watchtower so that his vineyard would be protected from any enemies. And still, after all the work put in what
happened? Wild grapes. Bad grapes.
Bad production. What more could
he have done? The obvious answer is:
nothing. It’s not the farmer’s
fault. The plants themselves are to
blame. This section of the poem ends
with these questions: “What more could
have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it
yield only bad?”
In the next
section of this biblical poem, the farmer explains what he is going to do: He is going to destroy his vineyard. I mean, you can’t blame the guy for not
wanting to waste his time anymore on these bad plants. He spent an inordinate amount of time, it
appears, already. He’s cutting his
losses.
But, at the end of
the poem we hear the surprise, or maybe it’s not a surprise at this point for
you. We aren’t talking about
grapes! We are talking about
people. We are not talking about a
vineyard. We are talking about a
nation. “The vineyard of the Lord
Almighty is the nation of Israel, and the people of Judah are the vines he
delighted in. And he looked for justice,
but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.”
Out of all the
people in the world, God called a certain group and chose them as his own: the
Israelites. They were to be a light to
all the rest of the nations, an example for others, a blessing to others. God gave them many kids, or descendents, and
helped them to grow rich and famous around the world. He delivered them from trouble when they were
slaves in Egypt. He promised them a land
that would be fruitful and then gave it to them. He brought them victory in their times of war
and kept them at peace even though other nations wanted to destroy them, his
chosen people. But God had
expectations. He expected his chosen
people to follow his commandments—to produce things like love, justice, righteousness
and obedience. Because they were chosen
for a purpose: so that the rest of the world might know the Lord.
There
are 17 books of prophets in the Old Testament.
They tell us what happened in the Lord’s vineyard. God planted his people, he cultivated their
faith, he blessed them with good things and protected them from harm. But what was produced from all this
labor? Here’s a quick summary:
Isaiah
chapter 1:23, “Your rulers are rebels, companions of thieves; they all love
bribes and chase after gifts. They do
not defend the cause of the fatherless; the widow’s case does not come before
them.”
Jeremiah
chapter 5:7, “I supplied all their needs, yet they committed adultery and
thronged to the houses of prostitutes.
They are well-fed, lusty stallions, each neighing for another man’s
wife.”
Amos chapter
2:7, “They trample on the heads of the poor as upon the dust of the ground and
deny justice to the oppressed.”
Finally,
Malachi chapter 3:7, “’Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned
away from my decrees and have not kept them.
Return to me, and I will return to you,’ says the Lord Almighty.”
God planted a vineyard with choice vines, but all he got
from the deal was bad fruit.
And
then comes Jesus. The Messiah. The chosen one of God sent to God’s chosen
people, the Israelites. And he tells the
story of God’s vineyard again. The main
character, the vineyard, is the same, but the story is a little different. The vineyard is leased to tenants who are
supposed to take care of it. However,
when the harvest time approaches, the tenants don’t give the owner of the land
his proper share and, instead, beat and, eventually, kill the owner’s son. Jesus asks, “Therefore, when the owner of the
vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” The answer?
That owner will kill the tenants and rent out his land to someone
else. By the end of the passage, the leaders
of God’s people realize that Jesus is talking to them—they are the tenants who
deserve death. They were supposed to
help God’s people bear good fruit and, instead, they were in the process of
killing his only Son Jesus.
So,
why does God’s vineyard matter to you? You
are now part of that vineyard. According
to Saint Paul in Romans chapter 11, “Because of the Jews’ transgression [their
rejection of the gospel of Jesus], salvation has come to the Gentiles to make
Israel envious.” You are a Gentile. That’s good news for you. Saint Paul says that you have been grafted
into the vine. You are a part of God’s
vineyard. But there is another reason
you need to know about the history of God’s vineyard as saint Paul also
explains a little later in Romans, “You will say then, ‘Branches were broken
off so that I could be grafted in.’
Granted. But they were broken off
because of unbelief, and you stand by faith.
Do not be arrogant, but be afraid.
For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you
either.” Jesus gives this same warning
in the gospel of John, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will
bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” God’s vineyard may look different today, but
he has the same expectations. He’s
looking for good fruit.
“You did not choose me,” Jesus says, “but I
chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last.” Pastor Tim Ross explains what this means: to bear
good fruit. He’s not trying to be
judgmental or anything— he’s just a fruit inspector. And he says this, if you
say that you’re an apple, but you look like an orange and you smell and act
like an orange—you’re an orange! I don’t
care what you SAY that you are, a fruit inspector would put you in the box with
the oranges. If you say that you are a
Christian, one of God’s chosen people, grafted in God’s vineyard, but you are
full of pride, looking at porn on your computer, cheating on your taxes,
gossiping evil about one another, ignoring God’s commandments and holding
bitterness in your hearts . . . well, if you have the smell and taste and
texture of a non-Christian, what do you think God would say that you are?
Jesus
says, “I am the vine you are the branches.”
If you think that you can be a Christian and hardly ever attend worship
and never read your Bible and never pray and never share your faith well, what
would the fruit inspector say? What would
you do if you were looking out into your garden? What does God see when he inspects his
vineyard? You can have all the good
intentions in the world, but if you separate yourself from the vine, you
die.
Now,
understand me, please. I’m not telling
you that God chose you or will continue loving you because you do good things
like feed the poor, visit the sick and go to church. No, we stand by faith in Jesus Christ, not by
good works. We were grafted into the
vine by faith. But faith is defined by
being alive and active. It’s like at
night when my kids are in bed goofing around after the lights have been turned
off. If I walk back there and they have
their eyes closed and heads under the covers, but they are giggling and
laughing, they might SAY that they are sleeping, but I know they’re not. When you are truly asleep you are, for the
most part, quiet and calm—you can’t help but act that way. When God grafts you in the vine and gives you
the gift of faith you should expect your life to change, not because you want
it to, but because you can’t help it.
This
morning, I want you to be a fruit inspector.
I want you to be a farmer or a gardener and, instead of studying the
fields or the produce, I want you to take a look at yourself and your life. What do you see? Do you look good on the outside, but are
rotten through the middle? Sour to the
taste? Not mature enough? Have you fallen off the vine? Confess that to God above and expect God to
change your life. To give you faith. To respond when you ask for his help. To heal your brokenness and despair. You can’t attach yourself to the vine any
more than a fallen branch can reattach itself to it’s grapevine, but God the
gardener is merciful and compassionate. God
promises to graft the broken branches into his Son Jesus Christ. Call out to Him and wait for his mercy. Trust in him alone to save you. Amen.
