Isaiah 5:1–7
Philippians 4:6–9
Matthew 21:33–43
Vineyards are in the news these days. But the news is not good. The wildfires have approached and burned down and out some of the well-known vineyard areas of our country in Napa and Sonoma Valleys, California. It is a loss for the vineyard owners who had restaurants and guest houses on these vineyards and a loss for those of us who enjoyed drinking the vintage from these vineyards.
And vineyards are in the news we hear from the Scriptures today as well. And for both vineyards we are asked to visit in the parables given us, the news seems not always to be so cheerful as the drink that comes from these vineyards implies. But, if vineyards are not part of our immediate experience here today, then look closely at the stories. Harvest is very much a part of our stories today. And harvest we know firsthand these days. It features in household conversation. And there is harvest language in abundance in our stories: for these stories are about yield, produce, fruit. Two vineyards are offered us today. They are both parables inviting us to be part of the experience. But upon an attentive listening the stories have their own nuances.
Isaiah offers us a poem a friend of God sings of God’s vineyard. It starts out as a love poem but ends up on a very discordant note, a sour note we might say, literally and figuratively. We first hear about the love God has for his vineyard. God has shown tender love for his vineyard, a vineyard we know is an image for his own people. He spaded it, cleared it and planted it with choicest vines. God has invested himself in this vineyard, he has shown tender love for his people. He has spared nothing in time and labor. He did not hire anyone else to do the work; he did it himself. He protected his people so that others would do it no harm. He got everything ready for the harvest, even building a special wine press. We could ask ourselves if we even notice God’s loving care in our lives. God is nurturing us the chosen and choicest vine and giving us opportunities to bear fruit—for us as individuals and also for us as a believing community, the church. So what have I or we done with God’s nurturing care, with his opportunities for doing good?
When the time came for the harvest, the narrator says, the vintner found only sour grapes. The tone of his love song changes. We hear a cry from the heart: What more could I have done for my vineyard? What more could I do? How many a parent has not uttered the same when after years of nurturing, educating and coaxing, a child goes in a very different direction. How often have we heard that lament from a parent: Where did I go wrong, what did I forget to do? This lament is born of love. The same for our God over his community.
For Isaiah it is clear in the parable: it is the vineyard itself that has gone wrong, not the vintner, not the God of his people. The poem ends up saying that the community in some way resisted what God was cultivating it to be. It produced wild grapes. It did not take to the love and care that had been shown it. The community was under the care of God but in the end it distorted that care. In the poem God makes it very clear where the failure lies. For when God came looking for the yield of his vineyard what did he expect to find: judgment and justice he says. This is fruit that the God of Israel expected to find in a people that were his very own.
Justice for Isaiah, justice in God’s covenantal relationship means fair and equitable relationships in the community. God is about justice and those who belong to God are also to be about his justice. This justice looks like honest dealings among members. Justice is lacking, then, when one group of people take advantage of a weaker group; justice is lacking when no space is given for a word from those who are down and out; justice is failing when labor is reduced to profit and not the enhancement of a worker’s dignity and self worth. And justice is gone when the poor and vulnerable of any kind are no longer even seen but rather passed over or passed by or worse, kept out; and justice is not about tearing down my name, my honor to make you look strong for injustice is found in words as much as in action.
All that says the poet is nothing but a vineyard of wild grapes, sour grapes. Over that, God laments. The justice he has come looking for in the community he nurtured, he sees and hears has turned into bloodshed and shouts of violence. Isaiah, like his fellow prophets knows what that means; it means collapse of the community. A community belonging to God that does not reflect God’s justice is not a community in the truth.
Isaiah’s parable about the vineyard gone wild and sour puts us on notice. If we are serious about being the people of God, then we need to heed the spading, the clearing and the planting of the best that our God is doing with us. No matter how you read Isaiah’s parable or Jesus’ parable, the end is a judgment on our life now. And the judgement is whether we are true to our identity as the people who belong to God. The judgement is one we actually determine by our remaining within the framework of the covenant Jesus has renewed in his death and resurrection. And that covenant will always have at is heart a care for the other, a concern for the one who has lost their voice and their place in the human family. You were a slave and I freed you. You were dead and I brought you to life. That is our God’s clearing and spading. He cannot force us to accept what he has done for us; that is our part of the work of bearing fruit. But he has given us a word and example how it is to be done and that it can be done. The Father has given us the Son, rejected and scorned, to be the foundation of the community of the new covenant.
Between our vineyard parables, we hear Paul offering a word of encouragement to his favorite and beloved community at Philippi. He is speaking of the kind of fruit that will mark their community. In truth, he is perhaps giving us a view as to what our fruit can look like. He offers it to us to taste: “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise..think about these things…then the God of peace will be with you” (Phil 4:8–9).
This is the kind of fruitful community we long for—for ourselves, our church and our country. Let us recognize this fruit the Father of the vineyard is nurturing in us and make it our own…then there will be shalom, peace—then the Father’s love will have borne fruit.
~ Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB