The Vineyard of the World

Sermon

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; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; he expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild [rotten] grapes.

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 [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 thorns; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.

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!

This week I was listening to an interview with The Most Reverend Michael Curry, Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church. You may remember him as the American pastor who participated in the wedding of Prince Harry and Megan Markle. Anyway, Reverend Curry was talking about growing up in faith and about his grandmother, who had such a close relationship with God that someone once commented that it was like she lived next door to the Almighty.

That is the ideal for us – that we have a close relationship with God. And throughout scripture, and especially in the Hebrew scriptures, God is described as being deeply in love with us, with God’s human creatures. That is why God gets so angry and jealous and smite-y when we betray God and are unfaithful to God’s commandments. God is like a jealous lover, and we are the guilty party.

That sets the scene for this reading from Isaiah on this World Communion Sunday. God has planted a vineyard, which is the people of Israel. God has tended the vineyard with the dedication of the greatest vinedresser, but despite all the love and care, the vineyard produced only wild, rotten grapes. God has loved us with tender care, and yet we disobey, we disregard God’s commandments, we go astray and neglect the call to justice and righteousness.

Well, this is not the cheeriest of texts for World Communion Sunday, but stick with me, and perhaps we will find some hope.

Throughout the Hebrew scriptures, when the writer uses the imagery of vineyards and grapes and wines, we should sit up and pay attention. Wine was a symbol of joy, and a promise of the great banquet that awaited all of God’s faithful people. A bad harvest – a crop of wild, rotten grapes – would be seen as a judgment on the people who failed to take the steps necessary to provide the wine for the joyful celebration.

So yes, this is a text of condemnation for a people who failed to respond to God’s love by dedicating their lives to justice and righteousness.

It feels a bit like we’re under God’s judgment right now. Some have weakly joked that we’re experiencing the ten plagues: pandemic, racism, a presidential election, hurricane, wildfire, zombie nutria, murder hornets. Many of us have felt condemned by our failure to respond to the racial injustice that has been woven into the very fabric of our nation. This virus has gotten old, and it’s not going away, and not even the most protected man in the world is immune from it.

Are we under judgment? Have we born rotten fruit and spoiled the vintage? Is this the beginning of the end, or is it the end of a beginning?

I hope it is the latter, that this is the end of the beginning of a reckoning of so many things that will enable us to reset. That’s optimistic of me, I know.

What if these days of October are the beginning of the end of the worst of this virus? What if the president’s diagnosis is the final sign that we really do need to be wearing our masks, and practicing social distance, and washing our hands all the time? What if the rumors of a vaccine are true, and soon enough – months, probably – the process of immunization will begin?

What if all the protests are the end of the beginning of dismantling structural racism? What if the call to fund the police differently, and the abundance of educational tools on becoming anti-racist, and the courage to look at the hate and prejudice in our own hearts really do move us to the justice God so desires for us? What if Black and Brown people receive the equity that has been withheld from them, and they too live out that dream of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

What if the ravages of nature – hurricanes on the Gulf Coast, fires in the western states, typhoons in Asia – are the end of the beginning of our waking up to Mother’s Earth’s gasping? What if smoke and flood finally push us into taking the hard steps not just of banning plastic straws but of demanding clean energy and enforcing fines for companies that pollute for profit? What if we look at our children and our grandchildren and so desire a better future for them that we put aside the way we’ve been living and make sacrifices so that they have clean water to drink and clean air to breathe?

What if this is not the beginning of the end, but the end of the beginning?

If you stick with the whole of the book of Isaiah, you will see so many beginnings and endings. Then again, the book was written over at least three different periods in Israel’s history and by at least three different authors with various editors – it’s like J. R. R. Tolkien wrote the first book, then Maya Angelou wrote the second, and then Gabriel Garcia Marquez finished it out for us. Different authors have different takes on the story, but each has a word to say, and for the authors of Isaiah, each has a word to say about God.

What is consistent among the sixty-six chapters of the book is God’s deep love for the people, God’s anguish – and rage and jealousy and vindictiveness – when the people stray, and God’s willingness to stick through the good and the bad and to promise the people hope and light and a feast at the end.

On this World Communion Sunday, I want us to remember God’s faithfulness to us, to all of us in the world, which in so many ways is still the vineyard of the Lord. It is a hard time, and maybe it is a time of God’s judgment, or maybe it is a judgment of ourselves, or maybe it’s just what happens sometimes.

George Washington, the imperfect and amazing first president of the United States, often quoted part of the prophet Micah. For him, the words painted a promise that he hoped for this new nation. I think it is a promise that holds, not only for us but the for the world. May this vision come true.

From the fourth chapter of Micah:

In days to come
 the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
 and shall be raised up above the hills.
Peoples shall stream to it,
 and many nations shall come and say:
‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
 to the house of the God of Jacob;
that he may teach us his ways
 and that we may walk in his paths.’
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,
 and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between many peoples,
 and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away;
they shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
 and their spears into pruning-hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
 neither shall they learn war any more;
but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees,
 and no one shall make them afraid;
 for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.

For all the peoples walk,
 each in the name of its god,
but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God
 for ever and ever.