Provision

A sermon for Sunday, August 18, 2019

Would you pray with me?

Creator God, Gardener of us all, be with us here today. And may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable to you, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Last week, we talked about passages from the books of Hebrews and Isaiah, about how reading different passages in the Bible can cause us to challenge our definitions, and about what we mean when we talk about faith. We talked about how both patience and endurance, and accountability and action, are faithful responses to the world we live in. We did a lot of work understanding the context of the biblical scriptures, and how that changes how we read them.

Today, we’re still in Hebrews and Isaiah, so we won’t need to talk context as much for each of the scriptures. This means that we can talk a little more about our context. See, I follow three basic steps as I learn about what the Bible is telling me:

1.     I learn about the context of the passage.

2.     I figure out who I am in the passage.

3.     I discern how to apply the passage to my context.

It’s a context sandwich. It’s also a lot like a conversation: I figure out who’s talking to me, who they think I am, and what I should do with the information they’re sharing with me. This method is how I actively listen to what God is saying to me through scripture, in the same way that I actively listen to those around me. Because when you engage in conversation with another, it’s not enough to just listen to the words that are being spoken. You have to pay attention to who is saying them and what your relationship is with them before you can decide how to respond.

In many conversations, the work of listening is pretty easy. It’s come with practice. If you’re talking to a friend, a family member, a significant other, or someone you’re close to, you already know who they are and who they think you are. You know whether someone’s just teasing you about your tendency to be fifteen minutes late to everything or whether they’re actually concerned and you need to make a change.

A similar thing happens with the Bible. We feel like we know Jesus and we know that Jesus is talking to us in love when he tells us to remove the plank from our own eye before getting the speck out of our neighbor’s. There are some verses in the Bible that have a pretty clear application for our context.

But if we want to learn, and be pushed, and grow, then we have to reach out beyond familiar conversations and easy listening, in life and in the Bible. We have to listen to the stories of people who are different from us, either by talking to the people we encounter in our day-to-day life or by seeking out books, music, movies, and articles by people who don’t share the same background that we have. We grow by seeking out these interactions.

And we grow by digging into unfamiliar texts in the Bible, or by reading familiar texts with fresh eyes. This is when I apply my context sandwich, my three steps: I learn about the biblical context, I find my place in the passage, and I discern how to apply it to my context.

For me, this makes the Bible come alive. It’s no longer a book written primarily by men who lived a long time ago far away from me. It’s a whole library of stories and sermons and poetry and history and prophecy written by different people in different times, yes, but who still have something to say to me today, even though I’m separated by continents and centuries from them. I can sit down with Hagar or Rahab or Deborah or Tamar or Bathsheba or Phoebe or any of the Mary’s and learn from them, hear my story reflected in theirs and be encouraged or challenged by what they have to say to me. I can struggle alongside Cain or Jacob or Joseph or Jonathan or Nathan or Peter or Paul or Jesus. I can listen in wonder to what Isaiah or those who followed him had to say. I can weep along with Jeremiah. I can pray and praise and mourn and rebel and sing along with any of the psalmists. But I only get to experience these things if I listen to where the biblical writers are coming from, figure out who I’m most like in their stories, and then discern how what they’re saying applies to me today.

So, with all that in mind, let’s turn to Isaiah and see what he has for us this morning.

As we know from last week, Isaiah is a prophet in a nation on the brink of crisis. He’s seen the Assyrians conquer Israel and he’s worried that the Babylonians are coming for Judah. When he speaks a word from the Lord, he’s speaking it to those in power, those who have the capacity to turn things around. And this morning, he speaks a love song.

This is actually a common tactic among prophets, starting off with a story that draws the listeners in with pathos. Nathan does this with David. Amos does this with the entire nation of Israel. And Jesus actually does it, most notably in the parable of the Good Samaritan. And we, like Isaiah’s listeners, are drawn into this story. A man has planted a vineyard and he has done everything he should do: he picks the perfect place with the perfect soil, he clears away the stones that would inhibit growth, he even sets up a watchtower, so no one can come and raid his vineyard. He hews out a wine vat, so that he can press his wine on-site. He’s ready for this vineyard to yield. He’s invested in it.

And then, the bottom drops out. The grapes aren’t useable. They’re wild. The Hebrew here is בְּאֻשִׁים (be-oo-sheem), which can also mean stinking, worthless things. It’s not just that these are grapes that aren’t cultivated (after all, you can eat wild grapes if you find them out hiking, as long as you don’t confuse them for moonseed); it’s that they’re stinking, rotten on the vine.

The man pleads his case before the gathered listeners. “What am I to do?” the man says. “I did everything I could and yet my grapes are worthless.”

We, as the hearers in the court of public opinion, are meant to shake our heads. Must have had some bad seeds, we’re meant to say. You did everything right. Time to tear out that old growth and plant something new.

And the man reacts to that anticipated response. “I’ll tear this whole vineyard down!” the man says. “I’ll make it a waste. I won’t care for it at all. In fact, I’ll command the clouds not to rain on it!”

This is when you’re meant to start squirming in your seat. Who is this person, who says that he can command the rain? Maybe this isn’t the simple story we thought it was.

Isaiah comes out and says it. “For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting.”

Oh. Oh no.

The Lord has cared for Israel and Judah and they have not yielded what they were meant to. The Lord looked for מִשְׁפָּט֙ (mispat, justice) but got מִשְׂפָּ֔ח (mispah, oppression); The Lord looked for צְדָקָ֖ה (ts’dah’qah, righteousness) but heard instead צְעָקָֽה׃ (ts’a’quah, a cry for help).

Isaiah, in telling this story, is doing all he can to get his hearers to understand that they have not done what the Lord has asked them to do. He’s told them this heart-wrenching story. He’s even made a catchy saying, playing on words so people will remember them. He’s got a slogan. Mispat, justice, not mispah, oppression. Ts’dah’qah, righteousness, not ts’a’quah, a cry for help. It’s a speech that’s meant to send his listeners away with sorrowful hearts, hearts ready for change.

And now comes the difficult part for us. Who are we in Isaiah’s tale? Are we the planter? No, that’s God. Are we the storyteller? Well, not unless we’re feeling pretty prophetic. No, in this story, we’re meant to be the grapes. God planted us. God provided for us. And yet, we have not grown the fruit God needs. We participate in oppression, not justice. We drive people to need, not to righteousness. We were cultivated and cared for and we still grew up wild.

“No, no,” you might say. “I’ve been a Christian all my life. I can show you good fruit from my ministries. I’m not the one God wants to uproot. Isaiah’s talking to someone else.”

And this could be true. It could very much be that you, in your life, have earned your place among the cloud of witnesses that Hebrews talks about. God has made a different provision for you than what Isaiah is talking about. God has seen your faithful work and God will see to it in the eschaton, in the world to come.

But friends, today, I invite you not to rest in the assurance that you are already among the saints of God (not least of all because the writer of Hebrews tells us that even they do not receive their promise in this world). No, I invite you to sit in the uncomfortable knowledge that you have the potential to be wild grapes.

I know that there are parts of my life where God intended to grow goodness but God’s intentions weren’t cultivated in me. For many years of my life, God planted friendships, but I grew emotional distance instead. God planted patience, but I grew demanding. God planted justice, but I grew anxiety. God planted joy and endurance, but I grew despair.

It is up to you to figure out what God has planted in you that hasn’t grown. As people who live together in a community, a state, a nation, and a world, it is up to all of us to figure out what God planted in us that didn’t grow, and to change our ways accordingly. The story of the vineyard is a story of repentance, but repentance can only come when we’re aware of the problem. Our first reaction to hearing Isaiah’s prophetic words should be introspection. We have to look inside ourselves and see where what we have grown is outside of God’s desires for us. What grows in us that stops either ourselves or another from life and life abundant?

Now, it may also be that I’ve misread who you are in Isaiah’s story. You might not be the grapes planted that did not grow. You might be the people that suffered because the grapes didn’t grow. You might be the workers that didn’t get paid. You might be the wine seller who had nothing to sell. You might be the spouse or the children of those who could not provide for their houses because the grapes grew up wild. That is, of course, part of Isaiah’s story. Isaiah is raging at the leaders because there is suffering in the land, and suffering leads to weakness, and to being conquered, which only leads to more suffering. You might be the off-stage person that Isaiah is sticking up for.

There are many sides to every story.

But if you are, then the passage from Hebrews is especially for you, even if it broadly applies to all of us. Take encouragement that God has been faithful to others in the past, even as they have been faithful to God.

We can all take the message of Hebrews to heart, even as we investigate where we have not grown as God intended. No matter what, we are not alone. God never leaves us alone. Just as the saints who have gone before us, who have endured more than we ever hope to endure, God is with us. Not only that, but we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, including some who have charted the way from wild grapes to flourishing vineyard. It is up to us to listen to them, learn from them, and allow God to change our lives.

Amen.