Isaiah’s Vineyard Song Transcript

Would you pray with me? Loving God, we hear her hard words from you and your scripture this day. From the story and the song of Isaiah's Vineyard, we hear of people who do not trust injustice and whose lives do not lead to it, and you remove your protection. As we dive into your difficult words, we ask that your spirit would be with us, open our ears, open our hearts, and let us hear your still, small voice speaking to us so that we might not only find correction but we might find hope, guidance and instill within us a fire and desire to serve you in a world that desperately needs you. Amen. Last week, I misspoke. I had talked about how, Isaiah, we had made a leap in time, when the reality is, I misspoke. 

The challenge for the prophets is they're happening at the exact time that various kings are in power in both the northern and the southern kingdoms. If you remember, the northern kingdom is about ten tribes large, and the southern kingdom is all of Judah, the one tribe. There is one tribe left that is relatively spread out between the two of them: the Levites, the priestly class, the priestly tribe. So this division has happened, and there are kings in this history that rise up, and some of them do good, some of them do evil, and more do evil than good. More turn away from God and God's teaching than turn towards. And, as we discussed with Hosea last week, the prophets, like Isaiah and Hosea and the others, are not necessarily predicting precisely what the future holds. Still, they're telling the people that they're on a path that is taking them away from God's will and plan, and if they keep following that path, bad things will happen. And they're using language, both Hosea and now Isaiah. They're using metaphors. They're using stories to get the people to understand what's going on, and the first passage I read for you is Isaiah proclaiming and telling the people to listen in. 

Let me tell you of my beloved vineyard. My beloved did so much to prepare this vineyard. He. He owed the ground, brought in fresh soil, built up a wall to protect it, planted the choicest vines, and built a watchtower in the midst of it. And he cared for this vineyard, expecting it to grow magnificent grapes for making more. Now, the grape growing process takes time. I remember when my uncle planted a few grapes in his backyard and hoped they would grow and start yielding some grapes. He was going to try to make his own wine. I don't think that was ever handed out, and the grapes weren't all that tasty to eat. This may relate back to the story. But it took a long time between preparing those vines to the point where it was producing enough grapes to do anything worthwhile with them before the grapes were full size before anything was ready. And so this notion of this vineyard, the beloved, is taking care in time, not only the work that it takes to prepare the grounds, to prepare the soils, to build the wall, to build a watchtower, but also intending the vineyard so that it would grow these beautiful grapes that would be used to make magnificent wine, which is what a vineyard is ultimately there to do. And so we have this sense of time and intent. 

I remember I've always fashioned myself a desire to be a gardener. I've never really been one; I've never been good at it, both a mixture of a brown thumb and an aversion to hard work. It is probably a combination of the two. I remember moving rocks and trying to move this dirt pile from one place to another to prepare the space to lay out the edges of the garden. I've done this a few times, both where I used to live and at my father-in-law's house. Wherever I could be, I would make these raised beds in these spaces where the right things would grow, where I wanted them to, and they would grow well, producing what I wanted them to produce. And by the end of the seas, something happened along the way, and often, it didn't give me what I expected. It didn't give me what I had intended, didn't give me what I had planned for, didn't give me what I had put worth what I had put into the ground. So, I can relate to what's going on in this passage in that way. To put all of that time, effort, and energy into it. There's a reason there's a book called The $60 Tomato that exists right now. Gardening is hard; it takes intent, and you put much time, money, and energy into it. Frequently, it either doesn't work out, or you don't get what you expect, and that's what's happened. 

Isaiah's beloved vineyard, we don't know yet. No, in this story, we see it coming that it's God and God's vineyard, but we don't see it there. Isaiah's beloved vineyard is there, and he's telling this metaphor, this parable, and the language shifts. It's no longer Isaiah telling the people about his beloved vineyard. The beloved speaks for itself and says you make the decision. What more could I have done? I prepared the soil, chose the choicest minds, tended to it and cared for it, and protected it from the elements, marauders, and anything else that might destroy it. What more could I have done? Now, he doesn't wait for an answer because it's either the answer is that there's no more that could be done, or there really is no way to judge between a vineyard and a purse. 

But then the grand reveal comes: the vineyard is Israel, and the vines are the people. They're producing wild, sour grapes, not men, not good enough to make wine, barely good enough to eat. They are not producing what the vineyard was created and intended to produce. And at the end, we hear what that was: justice, quality. These are the things that God had intended for this vineyard to produce, and it did not. And so we hear challenging words, especially today. 

God does not actually say that he's going to destroy the vineyard. He's just going to remove His care, the work he put into building the walls to protect it. He's taking down the work he was doing to remove the weeds, which he's no longer doing. The only thing God directly does in this metaphor, this narrative that directly impacts the garden, is he tells the clouds to no longer rain on it, but everything else lets it be. We have to point back to Isaiah. I'm just going to let it go. Whatever you choose to do, you do. Whatever happens as a result of that happens. Whatever happens when it no longer has my protection happens. It's not God causing it. It's simply the natural outcome of what happens. 

And upon hearing this, it's incredibly terrifying for all of us. What if God removes His protection from us? What if God removes and keeps His love and protection from Israel? In this story, in this passage, is there any hope? Is there any future? That's possible. It is all lost, so we jump forward to Isaiah, chapter 11. This thumb is there. 

This could also be translated as a log falling down the language. Here. There is a stump, but out of that stump, a shoot rises up. Out of that stump, a remnant of the tree, a remnant of what was, rises out of the roots. It's connected to and a part of what existed before. It's not a wholly distinct plant; it's not something taking over in its place. It's an offshoot, a carrying one, a regrowth and rebirth of what was, and that's key. It's rightfully so. 

For Christians, we read this passage as though it is predicting Jesus is coming, the offshoot from the root of Jesse, the one who will judge with righteousness, whose voice will be of truth, will be as of a sword, and he will not judge according to what he sees or what he hears, by what cannot be seen and cannot be heard. And so we, as Christians, read Jesus here saying this is pointing to the one who would come and who is coming yet, and we think that's right. But it's not the only, it's not the only way to read this passage, and, like most passages, you can't open up the Bible and say this is what it says; this is what it means. I never have to deal with it again. This passage provided hope and still provides hope. Who does not know Christ? Who does not proclaim Christ? This passage spoke to the people in Isaiah's time, long before Jesus came, and speaks to Jews today and gives hope. That hope is no matter how bleak things look, no matter how destroyed something looks, no matter if you think it is so bleak that no good could ever come from something that appears dead, new life is possible. There is hope. 

I remember walking through the woods. My grandparents had a cabin up in the mountains, Huntington County, racetab Lake area. I don't know if you know it, but there was a tremendous beautiful mountain, and we would walk through the woods, and every once, you would come across a tree that had fallen at some point in the past. It was either breaking down in some form, some further along from others. Still, a tree had fallen over, and you could see its root system, which was holding this tree into the ground at one point, was taller than me. We also saw this in Alaska when we were walking through the woods. These trees were so majestic, grand, and striking that the roots closest to the tree when it fell over to the flare, were taller than an adult, and it's easy to look at that. 

It's easy to see a majestic tree that has been cut down, and it's easy to think that this is the end of that tree. It's just going to wither away, it's going to disappear, it's going to dissipate, be reclaimed into the soil, but the tree itself would be gone forever. Well, what I found on my walks and what I found in various instances where I find these trees and seen them before is that somehow out of the roots or somehow out of the stump, after a tree has fallen, and there's a tree I wish I had found the image for you. I'll send it out in the weekly email. There's a tree where there's hardly any soil around the roots, yet the tree has found a way for new growth to rise out of it in what we thought and what looks like a hopeless situation. 

This is what I want you to hear today because some of you, maybe in your personal lives and your relationships or as you look at our church today, look around and see what was once majestic, what was once immense and powerful, what once stood out among the trees, what stood out among the churches, what stood out among life itself, now looks like it's been cut down, looks like it's decaying, looks like all is lost, looks like there is no hope, there is no way new life can come through it. It looks like the end. You've reached a dead end somewhere and think there is no way out of this. You look as hard as we work, see so many empty pews around you, and say there is no way out of this. No life could come from this. It's slowly, gradually, being reabsorbed into the ground around us. 

This passage can tell us that, as bleak as things look, as hard as things seem, as dead as things look in our life or anywhere else, there is always a chance. There is only hope for a new life, an offshoot of what was into something alive Now. That offshoot frequently does not grow to look exactly like the tree that had been cut down, or that fell down. It's the same species, the same root system, the same life, but in its fullest expression. When it grows into what it will be, it will have been shaped by the life that it now lives, the circumstances that it now finds itself in, the transformation that happens around it, the seasons of droughts and of plenty, the seasons of warmth and summer and rains and harsh winters, whether it gets crowded out for a little while as it's struggling to grow. These things shape what this new life will become, and it will look different than what it was, but it is still life. It is still a carrying-on of that original life that seemed dead, needy, and lost, but it's now alive. 

This should give us hope. This should give us a desire to to nurture that growth, to see in our own lives where we think all is lost, to look at that and say, God, help me to see where new life is possible. Please help me see where you are nourishing the roots of this new life, where transformation can happen and growth can occur. And one day, this offshoot that will grow will provide care, shade, and protection for all those that will grow out and underneath it. This is what we get from trees that grow, and this is what we get from a church that we desperately need to nourish. That new life will look different, but it will be from that same source of life. For Isaiah, the desire and God, the desire was for the people to show justice and equity in life, to judge the meek and the poor with equity. God has a plan for this world that is not just spiritual, not just in our heads, and not just about our comfort, but is transforming our world for the sake of others. Here are some things I'd like you to discuss, think about, and pray about with one another. 

As you grow, where do you see new life, new shoots taking root and growing? 

Can you see them? Even now? Do we have to remove some of the leaf litter around it to find it so that it can grow? And what can we do to nurture that growth? If we're not seeing it yet, how can we patiently wait? How can we set the conditions to give that new growth a chance? And outside of the church, as you look at your own lives, maybe this is something you need to focus on as well as what parts of your life, what parts of relationships, whatever they may be parts, seem like they've reached a dead end and have no hope. What parts feel like they've been cut down in front of you, and you see no way of anything good coming from it? And how can you pray and live in the face of that cutting, in the face of that fallen, in that breaking, knowing, and trusting that God will bring new life? How do you give yourself? How do you find the energy? How do you find the focus? How do you find the intent to give that space and that time to happen?