For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of America,
and the people of this land are his pleasant planting;
God expected justice, but saw bloodshed;
righteousness, but heard a cry!
Forgive my changing a few words from scripture but it does feel like those words from Isaiah this morning are being addressed to us.
God expected justice, but saw bloodshed;
righteousness, but heard a cry
And once again our land is thrown into anxiety with such carnage and senseless death.
276 mass shootings this year. Over 11,000 dead; 24,000 injured. We hear & see shootings in our cities, in the countryside and now this horrific scene in Las Vegas.
On top of that we have fires, earthquakes, hurricanes (a new one that has just come ashore), flooding. I feel overwhelmed by it all. So much death and destruction.
Our land indeed is crying out for justice, for righteousness, for peace. We caught glimpses of it at that terrible event.
From our first reading, we hear about God planting a 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 grapes.
This is not the Jones Farm Winery, but God talking about us, planting his choice vines, but instead of yielding grapes, it yielded wild grapes. For we have not done justice, loved kindness or walked humbly with our God. Instead what followed was violence, bloodshed, a cry.
Isaiah goes on (in a verse not printed in the bulletin) to make it clear that the violence mentioned is about those “who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is room for no one but you, and you are left to live alone in the midst of the land!” (Is. 5: 8)
A vineyard given to many becomes a land where through greed, it has become a land for only one.
It is with this background that Jesus is telling his parable of the evil tenants, for they do not understand Jesus as the cornerstone of the faith but many understood his parable that he is the son and they are the wicked tenants and they want to arrest him but fear the crowds…
And yet if we think about the parable, we are now the generations who are the tenants in God’s vineyard called the Church. How do we give of the harvest today? What is our fruit?
The warning of the last line, “The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.” is a reminder that God has expectations that we produce fruit. Not unblemished, perfect fruit, but fruit of who we are, our time, our talent, our treasure, those God given gifts. God is not waiting for us to fail. No, God is waiting for us to follow Jesus, to live in faith so we can truly have joyous, generous & authentic lives, to be the fruit that is born from a vision of abundance, and share that with the world. For God expects among that fruit to be justice.
“Thinking of the vineyard of Isaiah with Jesus’ parable prods us to understand this parable, too, as referring not only to collective violence such as that threatened against Jesus but the ongoing social violence of the religious and political leaders. Properly tending the vineyard of the Lord is about properly caring for all people in society, especially the poorest and most vulnerable. Jesus was seeing quite the opposite in his time and the Risen Christ continues to see this systemic injustice continuing unabated in our time.” (Abbott Andrew of St Gregory’s Abbey)
We must tend God’s vineyard in our land, to help justice take root for everyone, not anger or fear… Think about it this way.
Once upon a time, in a kingdom far away, a dragon wreaked havoc throughout the land. One day, while the king was away, the dragon attacked the castle. The dragon was so ugly and smelled so disgusting that the guards froze in terror as the dragon demolished the palace. As the destruction continued, the guards finally came to their senses and began to shout and curse at the dragon and threatened the beast with their weapons. But the angrier and more threatening the guards were, the bigger the dragon got, the worse the dragon's smell became, the more violent destruction the dragon wreaked.
In the midst of the turmoil, the king returned. He had never seen a creature as ugly or experienced a stench as foul as this dragon, now twice the size it had been. But the wise king knew exactly what to do. He smiled at the dragon and welcomed it. He softly patted the dragon's scaly tail.
"Welcome to our palace," the king said. "Has anyone offered you anything to eat or drink?"
And with each kind word and gesture, the dragon became a little smaller, less smelly, and less threatening. The king's court began to catch on. One steward offered the dragon tea; another brought bread and jam; the court physician treated an old wound in the dragon's hide. At every kind word, deed or thought, the dragon grew smaller and less threatening. The king and his court continued to be kind. Soon the dragon became so small he could hardly be seen. Then, after a maid offered a blanket for the night, the dragon vanished completely.
In its place there appeared a small dove, that flew away into the morning light. [Adapted from "The anger-eating demon" from Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung? by Ajahn Brahm.]
In Jesus, God transforms the ugly dragons of our vineyards by his Spirit of compassion, mercy and forgiveness. We, too, can re-create God’s vineyards by embracing Christ's Gospel of selfless and humble servanthood. Jesus comes with a new, transforming vision for the vineyard given to us: a vision of love rather than greed, of peace rather than hostility, of forgiveness rather than vengeance, a vision that enables us to reconcile even the ugliest and smelliest dragon among us.
In the end, it is you and I that will help tend this beautiful land we have been given from our beloved creator. One plant at a time. One kind gesture at a time. Into the lush Kingdom of God meant for everyone, no exceptions. May we dirty our hands working to produce that fruitful kind land. Amen.
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