When Grapes Go Bad

Click here to read Isaiah 5

Isaiah begins this chapter with a parable of a vineyard owner.  If that sounds familiar, it might be because Jesus told three parables that were set in a vineyard: Matthew 20 is the parable of a vineyard own who hires workers throughout the day but in the end pays all the workers the same amount causing no small amount of grumbling from those who worked all day.  Matthew 21:28 is about two sons who are told to go out and work in the vineyard - one says yes but does not go; the others says no but does go - and the question is, who was faithful?  Matthew 21:33 echoes the parable we have in Isaiah, where a landowner plants the vineyard, builds a tower and then goes away leaving it in the hands of tenants, who eventually try to take over the vineyard and become as Isaiah calls them, bad grapes.

Isaiah tells us he is going to sing a love song and it starts out in a way that would make Michael Buble smile.  The owner of the vineyard does everything possible to make this vineyard bear good fruit.  The owner clears all the stones from the ground.  I remember the first time I tried to plant a garden in New Hampshire, which is named the Granite State for a good reason.  Every time I pushed my shovel into the ground, I felt the resistance and heard the clunk of several rocks.  I tried to dig as many of the rocks out of the ground so that my tomatoes might prosper.  In the end that summer, my yield of rocks far out weighted my yield of tomatoes.  So, to say the owner cleared the rocks should not be over looked as some easy task.  It is arduous work to prepare the soil, especially in a desert.

The owner planted the top of the line seeds, the owner builds a wall (perhaps out of the stones that were pulled from the ground) and also a watch tower for protection.  But then this love song goes from a major key to a minor key; it goes from something sentimental that warms our hearts to a country song of love lost.  Because the grapes are no good at all.

Isaiah then says the vineyard and grapes are like the people of Israel and Judah, the Northern and Southern Kingdoms.  And because they are bad grapes there are consequences.  I have to be honest that I struggle with images of God be vengeful or angry.  I prefer the sentimental God.  And yet recently I read an author who suggested that perhaps our desire for God to be always loving and kind and not get upset at us makes God out to be like a bit senile, who only sees us through rose colored glasses and is willing to overlook even our most destructive and broken actions and say, "Ah, its okay."  The author says there are times we need to be held accountable, not with violence, but with an anger that says God knows we are better than our broken actions and hurtful words.

That makes sense to me because when I get upset with my kids, the question is not about whether I still love them, I do unceasingly.  But, I also have a hope that they will grow up to know responsibility and accountability.  I want them to know that actions and words have consequences.  And to be honest when I am upset with my kids those are some of the hardest and heart-wrenching times.

I don't know if I understand God's anger any better thinking about it that way.  I am somewhere in the messy middle. On the one hand I want God to instantly forgive my boneheaded mistakes but also I don't want what Bonhoeffer called "cheap grace," which was grace that came so easily and with so little demands that a person did not need to change at all.  When I say hurtful things or my actions cause brokenness, I want God to help me realize the way I missed the mark (which is really what sin means, "to miss the mark" or "to get off track").  I want God to be invested and engaged in my life and challenge me in a good way to grow into the image of God in which all of us are crafted.

There is a story about a priest in Russia who would go out into the streets late on Saturday night and take into his arms those who were drunk and say, "This is beneath you.  You were created to reflect the fullness of God." In the end, that is my image of the vineyard planting God, One who is willing to say when my actions or words become bad grapes, "This is beneath you.  You were created to reflect my fullness."

May the traces of God's grace be found in your life this day and as we gather tomorrow at the communion table and taste the fruit of the vine.

Blessings and peace!