Richard Davenport
October 8, 2023 – Proper 22
Isaiah 5:1-7
God and his vineyard. It’s further evidence that the problems Jesus addresses in his day aren’t really new. Jesus brings up the parable because it’s one people are familiar with. While there are a lot of similarities between them, they aren’t quite the same. Everything that God had done for his people was pointing forward to Christ and now Christ is here. Jesus makes sure the Jews understand that this had all been about him to begin with.
Still, that original story was very important and continues to be today, for it was written for God’s people. A story about a man who owned a plot of land and decided to plant a vineyard. He prepared the land and made it suitable for planting, then planted the vines. He built up all of the things necessary for it to be a productive vineyard and set up a watchtower so he could be on the lookout for any danger that might come along.
Everything is set and ready. The vineyard has what it needs to flourish. The owner had ensured that it will be protected as well. So what’s the problem? It isn’t as though the vineyard wasn’t adequately cared for. Hence the rhetorical question, “What more was there to do for my vineyard?” The answer is, of course, nothing. Nothing more was needed for it. The soil was fertile. The vines were carefully selected. The wine vat is provided because the grapes aren’t there just to be ornamental, like flowers. They have a further purpose. They will be refined for use. The watchtower ensures the owner can keep it safe from natural disasters or from anyone that might want to destroy it for some reason or other.
Now, you might think that the vineyard’s problem was a lack of fruitfulness. While that is something that occasionally happens in the history given to us by Scripture, that isn’t the case here. The vines are fruitful. There are grapes in abundance. The problem is that they are bad grapes. Grapes that aren’t fit for wine, not fit for much of anything, certainly not for the purpose the owner intended.
In the days of Israel, especially as we know how the story continues, the warning is clear. Sure, the vineyard itself is figurative, but the resulting consequence of their actions is not. It will no longer be tended. Its defenses will be torn down. When there is no one to care for it and there is nothing protecting it from the ravages of the world around it, then it’s just a matter of time before whatever might still be of value there is picked clean and the whole thing is destroyed.
That’s precisely what happened. God promised the Israelites as they took possession of the land that he would keep their enemies at bay for as long as they continued to worship him alone. He would ensure their harvests were plentiful and their inhabitants will live long, full lives. But, if they turned away from him, he would start reminding them of how much he was doing for them by slowly taking it away. The more they persisted in doing without him, the more he would give them what they asked for, until they had nothing left at all.
Foreign nations finally come through, uprooting all of the people and God gives the land rest from the idolatry and other nonsense that the people have been inflicting on themselves and everyone else around them. They had a great thing going, but then they made a mess of it and now it’s all gone.
Here we are now, thousands of years later, but nothing has changed in that regard. God still cares for his chosen people. He tends them and gives them what they need. He protects them from those things that will do them harm. God claims his church as his chosen people. We produce fruits, that’s a given. But what kind of fruits? What is it we are here to do?
The simple answer is to say we are here to worship God, but it isn’t quite so easy as that. Sure, we gather here and we talk about God. We sing praises to God and all of that, but to what end? Is the goal to feel good about ourselves? Do we go to church so we have the ability to tell other people we go to church? Do we go to church so we can say we’ve met the requirements of our Christian faith for the week, leaving us free to go about our business? Do you come to church so that when you’re having trouble you can make a big show of how much trouble you’re having, all so you can get some sympathy and maybe some charity?
The reputation, the connections, the chance to assuage our guilt about all of the bad things we do because we do this one good thing, there’s all sorts of reasons people go to church. Granted, our society today makes it a little more of an effort to make the experience worth it, but still, many feel there’s still a payoff to be had. As onerous as it may be to make church at least a semi-regular part of your life, there are still some benefits.
God carves out a place for his church and plants his people in it. He tends them and protects them. They grow and produce fruit. But who is the intended recipient of that fruit? If I can draw on the vineyard analogy a bit more without pushing it too far, who are the grapes for? If the vines were always intended to keep the grapes to themselves, then there wouldn’t be any problem here. But that isn’t what they are for. The owner builds a wine vat in his vineyard because the grapes have a purpose. They are meant to be used by the owner for the benefit of those who receive that wine.
Now, we, as people who are familiar with work and payment, jobs and salaries, might think that surely we deserve some of the fruits of our own labors. We must earn some kind of spiritual salary for everything we do. That all might be true if we had actually earned anything we had. But it was all a gift to begin with. We didn’t plant ourselves here. We didn’t create the fertile soil suitable for growth. We aren’t the ones that made any of this possible. Just as Israel was put there to produce spiritual fruit that was a benefit to the world around it, so too are we. Just as Israel was uprooted because it refused to do that job, so too can the church.
In the Western world, the general population decline has affected the church just like it has affected every aspect of our society. Much of the decline of the church as a whole can be attributed to this. Why are many churches primarily made up of older folks? Because that’s how our society has gone. That said, there are individual congregations that decline for other reasons. Some congregations make the work of the church all about their own contentment and comfort. They might say they are there on Sunday morning to worship God, but what God has to say means very little to them. It isn’t really about serving God or serving your neighbor. It's all about what it does for me.
Are they still bearing fruit? They are still there in the vineyard. God is still tending to them, but what fruits they may be producing are benefiting no one but themselves. Those who continue on that path are destined for the same fate. How quickly it comes or how violent their removal might be is uncertain from our perspective, but the end will be the same.
The warning is one we need to take to heart. How rare it is for us to be thinking of anyone other than ourselves. Even when doing something nice for someone else, there is still, in the back of your mind, the desire for some kind of pay off, even if it’s just a thank you, the knowledge that someone is indebted to you for what you’ve done. If someone was able to listen in on all of the conversations here, hear all of the secret thoughts, watch everything that went on when no one else was looking, this church probably wouldn’t fare a lot better. Can any of us say our fruit is all given to the owner to use as he sees fit? Can any of us say we live as though everything we have is an undeserved gift?
It would seem as though none of us are any better off. We are all living for ourselves in one way or another. We hoard our fruits, and, when we do hand them over it is only begrudgingly. We are misers with what we have, even though it isn’t actually ours. Why should we be treated any differently?
Jesus’ parable sheds more light on the situation. The owner is willing to send his own Son to claim the fruit that is due him. The parable is directed primarily at the religious leaders of Judea, a reminder of what has happened and a prophecy of what will happen. John’s Gospel also talks about what happens when the Son comes to his own. The world does not know him. His own people don’t know him, but to those who do receive him, to those who did believe in his name, he gives the right to become children of God.
John isn’t really working with the vineyard idea, but what he says gets to the heart of the matter. None of us know God. None of us are willing to receive him. But, the owner’s love for his vineyard is such that he continues tending it, he continues pruning and cultivating. He continues feeding it so that one day we see his grace for what it is, an unmerited gift. We see that everything we have, including faith itself, is a gift from him. Everything we assumed was ours, everything we took for granted, was in fact his all along. He should rip out each vine and plant a new one that will work the way it was intended. But he doesn’t. He wants to provide for the world. He wants to show the world his love and he uses the fruit to do that, but that also includes us. He could mercilessly prune and cut, painfully forcing us to do his will, but that isn’t his desire. He loves his vineyard and everyone he has planted in it.
His objective isn’t to fix, but to restore and renew. The vines he has planted are only ever going to feed themselves. That’s all we know how to do. God’s love and grace are what change us from self-feeding, self-serving people into those whose lives are dedicated to service to God and to neighbors. Sin isn’t just something we do, it’s who we are and we are powerless to change that on our own. As we confess our sins before God, we also ask for the strength to not commit those same sins, to not be those same people who freely act like that.
God’s grace covers both. He showers us with the water of his promise at the baptismal font, not just making us clean, but giving us new life. New life for new people. He gives us the water that brings new life, changing us from who we are into the people we were meant to be. What’s more, God feeds us with his own fruit. Christ, the perfect vine, offers us the wine of his own blood, giving us what we need to grow and produce proper fruit of our own. Since we don’t know how to live and don’t know how to use our work to benefit others, God does it through us. His life given to us. His love and grace given to us and through us. His life lived for others in our stead. Christ, the perfect vine, makes the whole vineyard good and righteous again.
It is because of Christ that we are not destroyed. It is because of Christ there is anything good and worth saving in us at all. Christ lives in us and among us. What God gives us hasn’t changed, but our willingness to receive it has. Because of Christ, we see what we have as a gift and we see our place in God’s creation. We pass along what we have been given, sharing the abundance of his love and mercy with the world.
We don’t do it very well. We constantly need to be forgiven for our faults, but we know now what we are supposed to do, for we have the perfect role model living in us and among us. And, we know, because of his sacrificial love for us, giving us what we need to live, that we need never fear being uprooted. This vineyard, this life, was always intended for us. God has made us people worthy to live this life and, because of Christ, that will for