This morning, I want to invite you to grab a jacket and go with me to a beautiful winery, high atop a mountain with a breath-taking 360-degree view stretching in all directions. As we arrive, our host leads us to a table overlooking the vineyard which has been planted on the hillside. A waiter brings us a mouthwatering charcuterie board filled with all kinds of goodness and a flight of their best-tasting wines. As we begin sipping our first glass, we notice a musician standing in front of a mic tuning his guitar.
The artist clears his throat and introduces himself:
“My name is Isaiah. Please allow me to share a love-song that I have been inspired to write and sing for you today.”
“Oh, how we love a love-song!” we say to one another as we sit back and eat a bite of cheese.
Isaiah begins singing with this soft, mellow, folksy voice…
My beloved had a vineyard
on a very fertile hill.
“Ooooh, he’s good!” we say, as we take another sip of wine.
He dug it and cleared it of stones,
and planted it with choice vines;
he built a watchtower in the midst of it,
and hewed out a wine vat in it;
The pleasant voice of the musician is soothing to our ears. We are touched by the song’s lyrics describing the love and nurturing care of the beloved: “What a wonderful love-song this musician is serenading us with!”
But then, like a typical love song, there’s some heartbreak…
he expected it to yield grapes,
but it yielded wild grapes.
“Well, that’s unfortunate. I wonder how that happened?”
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 wild grapes?
Taking another sip of wine: “How disappointing! You work so hard. You give so much, all that you have and all that you are! You faithfully and lovingly do all that you can do! And for what? Heart ache. This is a sad love song.”
At that very moment, the singer’s face contorts, and in what seems like a fit of rage, he angerly hits the strings of his guitar causing his instrument to scream! The soft, gentle love ballad has become an ear-splitting, deafening heavy-metal hard rock anthem![i]
With a loud, shrieking, most unpleasant voice, the musician yells:
AND NOW I WILL TELL YOU
WHAT I WILL DO TO MY VINEYARD.
We are now nervously drinking our flights like they are shots of liquor, one after the other!
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 THORNS;
I WILL ALSO COMMAND THE CLOUDS
THAT THEY RAIN NO RAIN UPON IT.
We start bobbing our heads to the beat, trying our best to get into it, make the best of it, go with it: “Yeah, cut down the Vineyard! Down with the vineyard! To hades with the vineyard! Destroy the vineyard!”
But just when we get riled up, Isaiah begins strumming the guitar gently again. And back with his soft, folksy, pleasant voice he sings…
For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts
is the house of Israel,
and the people of Judah
are his pleasant planting;
he expected justice,
but saw bloodshed;
righteousness,
but heard a cry!
And suddenly, realizing that the musician was never singing about a vineyard; but lamenting the disappointment the people of God have become to God, lamenting the pain and suffering the people of God have caused in the world, we spit out our wine and choke on a piece of cheese!
What begins as an enjoyable “love-song” is quickly transformed into a harsh, allegorical anthem of judgment.
God, the creator of the vineyard, graciously and generously gave all that God had to give to ensure a fruitful harvest. No expense is spared in picking a good site, in preparing the land, in choosing the best plants, in protecting it from thieves, and in the processing of the grapes. But, in response to the boundless love of the creator, what the vineyard produces is “wild grapes,” or literally from Hebrew, “stinky things.” God “expected” or “hoped for” sweetness, but all God received was bitterness. And consequently, there is catastrophic judgment.
It’s very important to note that in the theology of the Hebrew prophets, including Isaiah, judgment is always something that we bring on ourselves. I often hear people say: “I prefer the New Testament God over the Old Testament God. Less judgement!” However, God is never portrayed by the prophets throwing lightning bolts down from heaven in the way some ancient Greek god might do. Thus, judgment should never be understood as God’s need or desire to punish or get even with sinful humanity. God lovingly grants us freedom allowing us to make our choices. If we choose the way of darkness, then we will have to face the consequences of those choices. God, even in the Hebrew Bible, is always love, always generous, always gracious. That’s why the prophet’s song begins as a love song.
And in response to the love of God, what does humanity freely choose? Instead of the justice that God expected, God sees bloodshed. Instead of righteousness, God hears a cry. To emphasize this harsh truth, Isaiah uses a play on words. Instead of the “justice” (mishpat) that God expected, God sees “bloodshed” (mispach). And instead of “righteousness” (tsedaqah), God hears “a cry” (tse’aqah). Instead of the goodness, kindness, fairness, hospitality and equality that God expects the people to enact and embody, there is only cruelty, oppression and injustice that leads people to cry out for help.
The Hebrew word translated “cry” is notably revealing. When God’s people were being victimized by Pharaoh in Egypt, their response was to “cry” to God for liberation (Exodus 3:7). This word also occurs in 1 Samuel 8 when Samuel warns the people about the “justice” of the soon-to-be-established monarchy. As Samuel puts it, the “justice” of the kings will be nothing but oppression; thus, the people “will cry out” because of the king they have chosen for themselves. The warning from Samuel is that the monarchy itself will re-create the oppressive conditions of Pharaoh’s Egypt. And through his vineyard love song, Isaiah suggests that the worst has happened. God’s own people have chosen a political system that creates victims who are crying out for liberation.
The details of the oppressive conditions are evident as chapter 5 unfolds. The displacement of poor farmers from their land result in both homelessness and hunger (13). Greed and excess are supported by a corrupt legal system (23). And although it is the poor who are directly victimized, everyone eventually stands to lose when justice and righteousness are not enacted and embodied (15,16).
Violence, victimization, hunger, homelessness, greed, excess, corruption —Sadly, not much has changed, has it?
A prophet called Pope Francis recently challenged French President Emmanuel Macron and other European leaders to open their ports to people fleeing hardship and poverty. With words that sound much like Isaiah’s, he called for the Mediterranean Sea that so many cross to reach Europe “to be a beacon of hope, not a graveyard of desperation.”[ii]
He said that today the Mediterranean Sea “cries out for justice, with its shores that on the one hand exude affluence, consumerism and waste, while on the other, there is poverty and instability.”
Today, we know that our entire planet is crying out due to the selfishness and greed of a minority of the world’s population.
And somewhere in our world today, a parent is crying as a child dies every 4 seconds from causes related to hunger and malnutrition.[iii]
In the United States, the so-called richest country in the world, 58.5 percent of people experience poverty by the time they reach the age of 75.[iv]
Nearly 30 million people in the United States still live with no health insurance.[v] All the while, corporate executives make 399 times more money than the average worker.[vi]
Every year, proposed state and federal budgets seek to drastically reduce or eliminate funding for programs and services that tend to the essential needs of our most vulnerable, most on the margins, most threatened citizens: the working poor, the hungry, the homeless, the physically sick, the mentally ill, the disabled, the elderly, those in public housing and public schools, and those buried in debt.
Psychologist and prophet Mary Pipher pointed out the obvious when she wrote:
We have cared more about selling things to our neighbors than we’ve cared for our neighbors. The deck is stacked all wrong, and ultimately, we will all lose.[vii]
Yet, we know we can do better. We should do better. God expects us to do better. But tragically, instead of justice, God sees violence. Instead of righteousness, God hears the cries of victims (Isaiah 5:7).
Instead of protecting equal access to the ballot box, we chose to find ways to suppress the vote.
Instead of banning weapons of war, we chose to ban books.
Instead of finding ways to support schools serving low-income and marginalized students, we chose to close the schools.
Instead of building a bigger table, we chose to build a bigger wall.
Instead of making the gospel about good news for the poor, the marginalized and the oppressed, we made it solely about an individual’s ticket to heaven.
Speaking on the behalf of God, the prophet asks us to judge between God and the people of God (Isaiah 5:3). The verdict is clear. The question is not: “Why does God allow bad things to happen in this world?” The question is: “Why do we?”
To quote another prophet, in his acceptance speech for the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel reminded us:
We must always take sides.
Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.
Human rights are being violated on every continent.
More people are oppressed than free.
How can we not be sensitive to their plight?
Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere. There is so much to be done, there is so much that can be done.
One person—a Raoul Wallenberg, an Albert Schweitzer, a Martin Luther King, Jr.
—one person of integrity can make a difference, a difference of life and death.
As long as one dissident is in prison, our freedom will not be true.
As long as one child is hungry, our lives will be filled with anguish and shame.
What all these victims need above all is to know that they are not alone; that we are not forgetting them,
that when their voices are stifled, we shall lend them ours,
that while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs.”[viii]
Jesus talked about vineyards. And one day, he referred to himself a vine and called his disciples the branches (John 15). May his gifts of grace mobilize us to bear fruit by caring for the lost, the least and the last among us. Amen.
[i] This thought was inspired from a sermon by Rev. Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson http://dimlamp.wordpress.com/2010/08/12/sermon-12-pentecost-yr-c/
[ii] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bc-eu-rel-france-pope_n_650efd6ae4b060f32d3aa5cf
[iii] https://www.who.int/news/item/10-01-2023-a-child-or-youth-died-once-every-4.4-seconds-in-2021—un-report
[iv] https://confrontingpoverty.org/poverty-facts-and-myths/most-americans-will-experience-poverty
[v] https://www.moneygeek.com/insurance/health/analysis/americans-without-coverage
[vi] https://www.npr.org/2023/09/13/1198938942/high-ceo-pay-inequality-labor-union-uaw-workers
[vii] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-20-3/commentary-on-isaiah-51-7-3
[viii] https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1986/wiesel/acceptance-speech/
Just Love 