Garden Gone Bad
Sermon
Sermons on the First Readings
Series III, Cycle C
This summer I decided to take up some simple vegetable gardening. I knew it would happen someday. It's in my blood. My dad has planted and tended summer gardens of various sizes my whole life. For several years, our family's garden filled the whole half acre second lot behind our home. We had strawberries, melons, tomatoes, sweet corn, lettuce, onions, cucumbers, zucchini, acorn squash, and even pumpkins.
I don't remember much about Dad planting the garden each spring, but I suppose that is because planting wasn't my job. My job was weeding, and I absolutely hated it! Dad gave my brother and I the incentive of five cents for every two-quart bucket of weeds we pulled, which was a lot for seven- and nine-year-old children in the late 1960s, but he could have paid ten times that much, and I still would have hated it! Nonetheless, we picked the weeds and enjoyed the fresh berries and salad and corn throughout the summer.
When my husband and I bought our home, we gained a garden of similar size on our corner lot. But our children were very young, and we knew that the fenced-in yard would best serve our family as play space for the boys and for our dogs. We leveled the soil, planted grass, and built a swing set and fort there.
Now our boys are young men in high school. The fort and swing set have been passed on to another family with young children, and I have begun to think that it is time for our family to enjoy really fresh tomatoes. That's where I've begun -- with cherry tomatoes and herbs in a container garden arrangement on our back deck and Big Boy, Early Girl, and Beefsteak tomato plants along the fence in the side yard.
This all has seemed easy enough, until I discovered that the younger of our two dogs has found these staked tomato plants along the fence very interesting and very inviting. Maverick has begun tramping between the plants as if their stakes were agility weave poles. But even worse, he has been seen relieving himself on a few of them. All of which has required another trip to the garden shop to purchase some tomato cages to try to protect my precious plants.
Along with these concerns, I am learning to keep an eye on the amount of rain or lack of it and water accordingly. I have fertilized the plants and am weeding around them. I don't know how many tomatoes we'll end up with, but I am hopeful that our family will enjoy Caprese salad -- sliced tomatoes with fresh mozzarella and basil and olive oil -- very soon.
My efforts don't even begin to measure up to the work my dad does in his garden to this day, or even the weeding I so despised doing as a child. This little tomato project of mine has given me a new respect for the care that he had given his garden over the years.
Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his 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.
-- Isaiah 5:1-2
As we hear the love song that Isaiah sings for his beloved and his vineyard, perhaps we feel a similar sense of awe and respect for this diligent gardener. It's obvious that he has put a great deal of effort into selecting rich soil and preparing space for a grapevine, planting the best vines, and then protecting and nurturing them to maturity and productivity. Can you imagine the dismay and frustration you would feel if after all that work you ended up with nothing more than wild grapes? (The Hebrew text for these wild grapes is most accurately translated "poison berries.") You can't get much more inedible or useless than that.
Friends, this is no ordinary love song; this is a sad song, a real tragedy. It is the kind of song that tugs at the heartstrings of its listeners, the kind that wins Country Music Song of the Year Awards hands down!
And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem, and people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?
-- Isaiah 5:3-4
Can you feel the frustration of Isaiah's beloved as he hears this dirge? He simply cannot remain silent any longer. So he interrupts Isaiah's heartbreaking song:
And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.
-- Isaiah 5:5-6
Now whenever we hear a garden (or gardener) mentioned in the scriptures, a biblical interpretation principle called "first mention" is going to direct us to a very familiar place for people of the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian faiths. That place is Genesis 1 and 2. There in the opening narrative of God and humanity's story, we read that creation began with God and a garden, a thoughtfully planned and carefully cultivated place of life, beauty, harmony, and productivity. The Genesis narratives introduce us to a gardening God who is very invested in all of creation. But this gardener also has the power to wipe out any part of it that isn't full of life or beautiful. This gardener can destroy any planting that is not in harmony with the rest of the garden or doesn't produce.
God will take away this vineyard's protection and let it go. God will not give time or effort to it if it will not fulfill the purposes for which it has been created. Like a field that is plowed over and allowed to lay fallow, God will leave this land to grow over, hoping that in some future time, it may become useful for cultivation again someday.
For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting; he expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry!
-- Isaiah 5:7
Isaiah's poem ends with one more twist -- the vineyard being lamented isn't just any place. This vineyard is God's people -- Israel and Judah. Now we are getting to what is sometimes called the crowning glory of God's creation, aren't we? This unruly, unproductive vineyard is the whole of God's beloved people, who God created, declared to be stewards of God's creation, then later delivered from bondage, and finally planted in a fertile place where they could reflect God's image as readily as a good and well-tended vine bears tasty fruit. These people, created in God's image, were formed with the capacity to be righteous and do justice, as the one who planted them is righteous and just.
But when God came to the vineyard looking for justice, instead God found bloodshed. When God came looking for righteousness, instead God heard cries of distress. In the Hebrew this phrase is an excellent pun: God came looking for mishpat, and instead found mispach; for tsedaqah, but instead heard tse'aqah. It isn't quite as "punny" when rendered into English, but you might get the gist of it if I were to say that God looked for justice, but it was all a joke; God looked for righteousness, and found a load of rubbish.
As Isaiah sang in mournful tones, God will let his vineyard go. If it cannot (or will not) produce fruit, God will let it collapse in on itself, and begin again. Israel will be overtaken by Assyria, and Judah by Babylon. Each will be carried away from their homeland, transplanted as it were, in the territory of their conquerors. Righteousness and justice are not the ways of these conquerors, as a rule. And the people of Judah will sing mournful psalms in their captivity. However, forty years into their time in Babylon, God's righteousness will reach into their lives through King Cyrus, and the exiles will return home singing about the deliverance of their God. They will strive to be righteous and to do justice, to be the pleasant planting of the Lord.
And they will be, for a while. But the beloved gardener knows that it will take far more than planting and pruning and allowing fruitless vines to wither. At the right time, God will give everything he has for this garden, sinking his feet deep into the Judean soil in the person of Jesus. He'll teach about miraculous mustard seeds and enjoy the crunchy, nutty taste of grain freshly picked on a sabbath morning. He'll weave a telling story of sown seed and all its possibilities for growth or collapse, and curse a fig tree for its fruitlessness. Ultimately, he will die on a tree, and his blood will fertilize the earth, breathing new life and promise into all creation. Then after he has laid three days in the tomb, the risen, living Jesus will be mistaken for ... a gardener. But it is no mistake, for Jesus was with God in the beginning delighting in creation and promising to preserve, bless, cultivate, and enjoy it forever. It is a garden of righteousness and justice ... a garden where there is enough for all.
To quote the great hymn-writer, Fanny J. Crosby, "This is my story, this is my song" and it is your story and song, too. Grafted to Jesus through baptism into his death and resurrection, we have a song of hope and promise to sing, a song that invites all creation to delight in our beloved and trust his promises. It is a song that celebrates the value of all the living and pledges to preserve and bless it through righteousness and justice. It is a song each of us can sing, no matter how weak or strong our voices may be, or how perfect or out-of-tune our pitch.
Friends, may your lives sing a song for your beloved God -- a song celebrating this wondrous creation and the gift of our lives. May your lives point to Jesus -- and sing of the life we have through his life, death, and resurrection. May your lives and your voices be Spirit-breathed and empowered -- and may the song you sing invite others to join in the song. Amen.
I don't remember much about Dad planting the garden each spring, but I suppose that is because planting wasn't my job. My job was weeding, and I absolutely hated it! Dad gave my brother and I the incentive of five cents for every two-quart bucket of weeds we pulled, which was a lot for seven- and nine-year-old children in the late 1960s, but he could have paid ten times that much, and I still would have hated it! Nonetheless, we picked the weeds and enjoyed the fresh berries and salad and corn throughout the summer.
When my husband and I bought our home, we gained a garden of similar size on our corner lot. But our children were very young, and we knew that the fenced-in yard would best serve our family as play space for the boys and for our dogs. We leveled the soil, planted grass, and built a swing set and fort there.
Now our boys are young men in high school. The fort and swing set have been passed on to another family with young children, and I have begun to think that it is time for our family to enjoy really fresh tomatoes. That's where I've begun -- with cherry tomatoes and herbs in a container garden arrangement on our back deck and Big Boy, Early Girl, and Beefsteak tomato plants along the fence in the side yard.
This all has seemed easy enough, until I discovered that the younger of our two dogs has found these staked tomato plants along the fence very interesting and very inviting. Maverick has begun tramping between the plants as if their stakes were agility weave poles. But even worse, he has been seen relieving himself on a few of them. All of which has required another trip to the garden shop to purchase some tomato cages to try to protect my precious plants.
Along with these concerns, I am learning to keep an eye on the amount of rain or lack of it and water accordingly. I have fertilized the plants and am weeding around them. I don't know how many tomatoes we'll end up with, but I am hopeful that our family will enjoy Caprese salad -- sliced tomatoes with fresh mozzarella and basil and olive oil -- very soon.
My efforts don't even begin to measure up to the work my dad does in his garden to this day, or even the weeding I so despised doing as a child. This little tomato project of mine has given me a new respect for the care that he had given his garden over the years.
Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his 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.
-- Isaiah 5:1-2
As we hear the love song that Isaiah sings for his beloved and his vineyard, perhaps we feel a similar sense of awe and respect for this diligent gardener. It's obvious that he has put a great deal of effort into selecting rich soil and preparing space for a grapevine, planting the best vines, and then protecting and nurturing them to maturity and productivity. Can you imagine the dismay and frustration you would feel if after all that work you ended up with nothing more than wild grapes? (The Hebrew text for these wild grapes is most accurately translated "poison berries.") You can't get much more inedible or useless than that.
Friends, this is no ordinary love song; this is a sad song, a real tragedy. It is the kind of song that tugs at the heartstrings of its listeners, the kind that wins Country Music Song of the Year Awards hands down!
And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem, and people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?
-- Isaiah 5:3-4
Can you feel the frustration of Isaiah's beloved as he hears this dirge? He simply cannot remain silent any longer. So he interrupts Isaiah's heartbreaking song:
And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.
-- Isaiah 5:5-6
Now whenever we hear a garden (or gardener) mentioned in the scriptures, a biblical interpretation principle called "first mention" is going to direct us to a very familiar place for people of the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian faiths. That place is Genesis 1 and 2. There in the opening narrative of God and humanity's story, we read that creation began with God and a garden, a thoughtfully planned and carefully cultivated place of life, beauty, harmony, and productivity. The Genesis narratives introduce us to a gardening God who is very invested in all of creation. But this gardener also has the power to wipe out any part of it that isn't full of life or beautiful. This gardener can destroy any planting that is not in harmony with the rest of the garden or doesn't produce.
God will take away this vineyard's protection and let it go. God will not give time or effort to it if it will not fulfill the purposes for which it has been created. Like a field that is plowed over and allowed to lay fallow, God will leave this land to grow over, hoping that in some future time, it may become useful for cultivation again someday.
For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting; he expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry!
-- Isaiah 5:7
Isaiah's poem ends with one more twist -- the vineyard being lamented isn't just any place. This vineyard is God's people -- Israel and Judah. Now we are getting to what is sometimes called the crowning glory of God's creation, aren't we? This unruly, unproductive vineyard is the whole of God's beloved people, who God created, declared to be stewards of God's creation, then later delivered from bondage, and finally planted in a fertile place where they could reflect God's image as readily as a good and well-tended vine bears tasty fruit. These people, created in God's image, were formed with the capacity to be righteous and do justice, as the one who planted them is righteous and just.
But when God came to the vineyard looking for justice, instead God found bloodshed. When God came looking for righteousness, instead God heard cries of distress. In the Hebrew this phrase is an excellent pun: God came looking for mishpat, and instead found mispach; for tsedaqah, but instead heard tse'aqah. It isn't quite as "punny" when rendered into English, but you might get the gist of it if I were to say that God looked for justice, but it was all a joke; God looked for righteousness, and found a load of rubbish.
As Isaiah sang in mournful tones, God will let his vineyard go. If it cannot (or will not) produce fruit, God will let it collapse in on itself, and begin again. Israel will be overtaken by Assyria, and Judah by Babylon. Each will be carried away from their homeland, transplanted as it were, in the territory of their conquerors. Righteousness and justice are not the ways of these conquerors, as a rule. And the people of Judah will sing mournful psalms in their captivity. However, forty years into their time in Babylon, God's righteousness will reach into their lives through King Cyrus, and the exiles will return home singing about the deliverance of their God. They will strive to be righteous and to do justice, to be the pleasant planting of the Lord.
And they will be, for a while. But the beloved gardener knows that it will take far more than planting and pruning and allowing fruitless vines to wither. At the right time, God will give everything he has for this garden, sinking his feet deep into the Judean soil in the person of Jesus. He'll teach about miraculous mustard seeds and enjoy the crunchy, nutty taste of grain freshly picked on a sabbath morning. He'll weave a telling story of sown seed and all its possibilities for growth or collapse, and curse a fig tree for its fruitlessness. Ultimately, he will die on a tree, and his blood will fertilize the earth, breathing new life and promise into all creation. Then after he has laid three days in the tomb, the risen, living Jesus will be mistaken for ... a gardener. But it is no mistake, for Jesus was with God in the beginning delighting in creation and promising to preserve, bless, cultivate, and enjoy it forever. It is a garden of righteousness and justice ... a garden where there is enough for all.
To quote the great hymn-writer, Fanny J. Crosby, "This is my story, this is my song" and it is your story and song, too. Grafted to Jesus through baptism into his death and resurrection, we have a song of hope and promise to sing, a song that invites all creation to delight in our beloved and trust his promises. It is a song that celebrates the value of all the living and pledges to preserve and bless it through righteousness and justice. It is a song each of us can sing, no matter how weak or strong our voices may be, or how perfect or out-of-tune our pitch.
Friends, may your lives sing a song for your beloved God -- a song celebrating this wondrous creation and the gift of our lives. May your lives point to Jesus -- and sing of the life we have through his life, death, and resurrection. May your lives and your voices be Spirit-breathed and empowered -- and may the song you sing invite others to join in the song. Amen.
