Remembering Who Planted
Ordinary Time XX; August 19, 2007
Isaiah 5:1-7
The prophet says this is a love-song. If so, then it’s
either country or blues, because it’s a “she done him wrong” song. Just to move
the point along, here’s a likely problem with the translation: the prophet says
he’s singing for his “beloved.” That probably works okay in ancient Hebrew, but
in modern English it sounds a little suspicious. Most guys don’t refer to their
best friends as “my beloved.” The picture here is of a poet singing a song
about his best friend and how things went wrong for his friend.
Of course, the best friend is the Lord God and the lady who “done him wrong” is
the people of Judah and Israel. But in this song, the lady is represented as a
vineyard (which is done at other times in the Bible too), so let’s go with that
image for a while. The prophet sings about the vineyard, about how hard his
friend worked to make it a good vineyard, ready to produce beautiful grapes for
eating and for drinking, but despite his hard work its yield was no good.
Now, the people sitting in the bar listening to this song are asked to decide: whose fault is it that the crop was no good? Did the singer’s friend forget to do something important? Or was it just a bad vineyard?
In the Bible, the first person to plant a vineyard is Noah. After the Great Flood, with the world washed clean and the good earth producing again, Noah decides to plant himself a vineyard. He plants it, tends it, works it, then harvests the grapes. He stamps them out into juice and puts the juice into jars to ferment and makes good wine. Then he celebrates by getting drunk and lying around naked in his tent (Genesis 9). Yes, that’s the good and righteous man on whom God pinned the hopes of the world.
Whatever else that story means, it certainly reinforces the belief that the growing of grapes and the making of wine go back to the earliest years of human civilization. In the world of the Bible, grapes are used not only for wine, but also for eating fresh. They also dried them to make raisins in order to eat them later, just as we do, and also pressed them into a sweet syrup. Grapes were a staple crop and the image of the vine and of vineyards is important throughout the Bible.
The people Isaiah was singing to were no dummies; he probably did not need to add the comment that “the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting,” but perhaps he thought he should make it clear in case there was anybody in the crowd who didn’t understand allegory. God planted good vines and did everything that a vineyard owner is supposed to do; why have things in Israel and Judah turned out so bad?
Jesus, never one to miss a trick, picked up on the image in one of his stories too. He belonged to the Cecil B. DeMille school of story-telling. After The Ten Commandments, Samson and Delilah and King of Kings someone asked DeMille about his liking for biblical epics. He said, “Why waste 2000 years of good publicity?” Anyway, Jesus, not one to waste centuries of good publicity, told a story about a vineyard owner in which things don’t turn out right in the vineyard (Mark 12:1-12). In Jesus’ story, the owner has done all the preparations that Isaiah’s “beloved” does, and then lets the vineyard out to tenants. The vineyard produces just fine, but the tenants refuse to pay their rent, and beat, scorn and even kill those the owner sends to collect the rent, in particular, the owner’s son. It’s just about as subtle as Isaiah’s song.
Isaiah’s song and Jesus’ story both ask the same question: Why don’t things turn out the way they should? God does the work to make a good vineyard and expects great things from it, but things turn sour.
Isaiah’s song of the vineyard and Jesus’ story of the vineyard are both relevant to us. Sure, Isaiah is singing about Judah, but has the Church turned out a whole lot better? Sure, Jesus’ story is aimed at the Pharisees and Temple authorities, but has the Church hierarchy always delivered to God a perfect product? “When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?”
Thank God that Isaiah’s song of the vineyard is not the last word on the matter. Some other poets got their work included in Isaiah’s scroll, perhaps because they were his students. Anyway, another poet wrote a song about the vineyard (Isaiah 27:2-5), in which God sings about his careful viticulture and love for the vineyard and promises the vineyard will be pleasant. God will guard the vineyard himself, and will burn up thorns and briers, while the vines cling to him for protection. The poet concludes:
Let it make peace with me;
Let it make peace with me.
Isn’t that great? God sings to the vineyard himself this time and gently calls, “Make peace with me.”
Jesus’ story about the evil tenants who will be turned out of the vineyard for not doing their duty is not his last word, either. “I am the vine; you are the branches.” (John 15:5) We are not just any vineyard: our roots are in Jesus Christ. If we don’t bear fruit, he says, we’ll get lopped off; that’s simply good policy to make the vines as productive as possible. But so long as we stay rooted in Christ, we’ll always bear fruit.
So, here’s the conclusion I draw from all this: remember who planted us. The best friend had fertile land, prepared the soil, planted good vines, built a watchtower to protect it from thieves, and build the vat where the wine would be made. What more could he have done? Not a thing; but the vines apparently forgot who they belonged to and their grapes were wild, no good at all for making the choice wine of God.
You and I, sisters and brothers, are intelligent, comfortably-off, hard-working, and generous. It is very easy to think that we are self-reliant. It is easy to think that we built a society, that we built a church, that we build our own spiritual lives. You and I may escape the fallacy of thinking we are so self-reliant that we do not need each other, but it is always very tempting to think that we do not need God.
But who created us? Who said “Let there be light!” and set the stars in their courses, some of them to go nova and send carbon, iron, oxygen and other elements to earth, needed to make life? Who spoke to Abraham and made from him the people of the Covenant? Whose deeds are recorded in the Books of the Covenant? Who sent our Savior to us and gradually led him to understanding of what he was to be for us? Who has given the gifts of the Holy Spirit? Who has gathered us into sacred communities? Who has spoken through the Word, gives the people understanding of the Word, gives the preacher ability to interpret the Word, and touches us in our hearts when we hear the Word? Who planted us?
Perhaps the reason the Presbyterian Church (USA) has asked us to give more emphasis on the Sacraments is simply that they are reminders that we have not planted ourselves. You cannot baptize yourself. You can give yourself a bath, but that is not baptism. You cannot feed yourself with the Body and Blood of Christ. Oh, you can take bread and wine and eat and drink, but that is not Communion. Regular reminders of our Baptism and frequent celebrations of the Holy Supper help us remember Who planted us. Everything else we do as Christians should have the same purpose: preaching, singing hymns, and doing mission all should help us remember Who planted us.
When the people of God remember Who planted us, when we give thanks and trust in our Holy God, then we produce good grapes. Those grapes are so good, that Christ takes the wine they produce and says, “This is my blood, shed for you.”
Lord, you have planted choice vines and given every needed care; give us such grace that we will bear good fruit. In the name of Jesus, who is the vine and whose branches we are; amen.
Robert A. Keefer
Westminster Presbyterian Church
Clarinda, Iowa