Proper 15
Preaching
Preaching and Reading the Old Testament Lessons:
With an Eye to the New
This passage is famously known as Isaiah's "Song of the Vineyard." It begins with the prophet singing, in what we would describe as troubadour-fashion, a love song about his dod, his friend, the beloved. Everyone is interested in a love affair, of course, and so the song is intended to capture the interest of Isaiah's listeners.
The story that the song tells is simple. The beloved had a vineyard, upon which he lavished the most careful attention, clearing the ground, planting it with choice vines, building a watchtower to guard off wild animals, and even preparing a wine vat in anticipation of an abundant grape harvest. The beloved therefore expected the vineyard to yield choice grapes, 'anabim. Instead its grapes were wild, be'esim, bitter and full of seeds. (The poem consistently gives contrasts by using Hebrew words that sound very much alike, but that have exactly the opposite meaning.)
Thus, as with a parable, the prophet's listeners are asked to make a decision. Was there anything more that the beloved could do for his vineyard? Obviously, the answer is no. The listeners are undoubtedly disgusted with such an unproductive crop. (Cf. the same device used by the prophet Nathan to arouse David's indignation in 2 Samuel 12:1-7.)
The result is that the beloved will stop caring for the vineyard, will break down its wall, let it be trampled and devoured by animals, and -- most astounding of all -- command the clouds to hold back their rain! With that sentence, the listeners are brought up short. Only God can command the rain, and the prophet's audience suddenly realizes that the love song has been about the Lord and his people Israel. The beloved is God in his constant and intimate care for his chosen folk, and Israel is his vineyard. That latter is a figure often used throughout the Bible (cf. Jeremiah 2:21; Psalm 80:8-16; Mark 12:1-11; John 15:1). And the final stanza of the song spells out that meaning. God looked for Israel to bring forth justice, mispat, and instead it produced bloodshed, mispah. He expected from Israel righteousness, s'daqah, and got the cry, s'qah, of the oppressed and poor instead.
It is not difficult to see ourselves in this song, for God has been our beloved, the one who loves us, for a very long time, has he not? Think of all the intimate care he has lavished upon us from our beginning. Job tells us that it was God who shaped us so carefully in our mother's wombs (Job 10:8-11), and then he brought us forth and gave us our breath of life, marking each one of us with our own individuality and fingerprints and DNA like no other. He was with us through all of our youth, though perhaps we did not know it, and now, says the Psalmist, he is acquainted with all of our ways, knowing when we sit down and when we rise (Psalm 139:2-3), surrounding us with his mercy as if with air. God even numbers the hairs of our heads, Jesus teaches (Matthew 10:30 and par.), and he knows our needs before we ever ask.
God loves us so much that, seeing our sins, our despair, our deaths that would separate us from him, he sent his beloved Son to take all of our miseries upon himself, dying that we might live with our God. And then God raised that Son and gave us the promise of eternal life with him in glory. All, all of that has been loved poured out upon this congregation assembled here this morning.
And what has God expected from us in response to his amazing love? Surely he can do no more for our abundant benefit than he has already done. So what should be our love in return for his love? Gratitude, dear vineyard of the Lord, gratitude. Thankfulness that issues in the will to praise and serve our Lord of love all our days. Gratitude that honors his loving lordship over our lives and tries each day to walk in the ways of goodness and justice and peace that he has set out before us. Loving us with all his mighty heart, God expects from us love and obedience to him with all our hearts and might, in every thing we do. That is the "reasonable service" of anyone who loves the Lord (cf. Romans 12:1-3).
Lutheran Option: Jeremiah 23:23-29
This is a dangerous passage for a minister to preach, because it is dealing with false prophecy. It comes at the end of the collection of Jeremiah's oracles on the false prophets (Jeremiah 23:9-32), and it deals with those prophets who have been preaching "peace, peace" to the people of Judah, when the people actually have no peace with God (cf. 6:14; 8:11).
Ignoring the people's sin and the coming judgment of God upon it, the false prophets are like our "therapeutic preachers" of today. Their aim is to make their audiences feel good about themselves, assuring the people that all is well, and that God accepts and loves them just the way they are, with no necessity for the listeners to change their ways.
But, says Jeremiah, the false prophets are saying, "Thus says the Lord," when the Lord has not sent them (Jeremiah 23:31-32). They have not "stood in the council of the Lord to perceive and to hear his word" (23:18). Jeremiah is referring to God's heavenly council (cf. 1 Kings 22:13-28 for the scene). But in our terms, the false prophets have not had that intimate, daily communion with God from which issues true prophetic speech. In fact, the false prophets even steal oracles from one another (Jeremiah 23:30), a practice not unknown in our day among some clergy. Occasionally, whole sermons are clipped out of seminary library books, to be used by preachers. And I personally have heard of preachers who dishonestly use one of my published sermons as their own. We have our own false prophets in our society.
Certainly our society is full of religious messengers these days, those who claim to speak for God, or those who maintain that they have a new revelation from God. Televangelists, authors of religious books, New Age gurus of every sort, feminist re-imaginers, self-appointed "doctors" of theology, media reports -- on every hand, we are barraged with so-called spiritual messages, and it becomes confusing sometimes to know how to separate the true Word of God from the utterances of our present-day false prophets. Those in New Testament times had the same difficulty.
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are of God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world. 1 John 4:1
And the Book of Deuteronomy found it necessary to give two tests of true prophecy (Deuteronomy 13:1-3; 18:21-22), tests which are still a good measure for us.
First, says Deuteronomy, if a prophet tells you to go after and serve other gods whom you have not known, that is a false prophet and "you shall not listen to the words of that prophet" (Deuteronomy 13:2-3). In short, those of us who follow Jesus Christ know there is one God, the Father of our Lord. He is the God to whose word we cling in faith and obedience. Therefore, when you hear someone tell you that he is speaking in the name of the Lord, ask yourself, "Do that person's words accord with the true revelation of God that we have in Jesus Christ? Do they accord with what the universal church everywhere has always believed?"
Second, Deuteronomy says that if a prophet's words come to pass, they are truly the Word of the Lord. Indeed, that is why the oracles of the prophets that we have in the Old Testament have been preserved -- because their words came to pass.
Lying behind that is an understanding of the Word of God. As our text for the day says, in Jeremiah 23:29, the Word of the Lord is like fire, or like a hammer that breaks rock in pieces. The Word of the Lord is powerful; it brings about results. So when you hear someone preaching a message from God these days, ask yourself, "Is this the Word of the same God who overcame sin at the cross of Jesus Christ and who conquered death on Easter morn? Is this the Word of God that created a people and a church and guided them and comforted them, judged them and saved them through all the ages? Or is this some alien word of a false prophet that has no power?" The Word of God does that of which it speaks, and if you line up some modern word of some preacher against the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, given us in the scriptures, you will know if the preacher is a false messenger of God or a true one.
The story that the song tells is simple. The beloved had a vineyard, upon which he lavished the most careful attention, clearing the ground, planting it with choice vines, building a watchtower to guard off wild animals, and even preparing a wine vat in anticipation of an abundant grape harvest. The beloved therefore expected the vineyard to yield choice grapes, 'anabim. Instead its grapes were wild, be'esim, bitter and full of seeds. (The poem consistently gives contrasts by using Hebrew words that sound very much alike, but that have exactly the opposite meaning.)
Thus, as with a parable, the prophet's listeners are asked to make a decision. Was there anything more that the beloved could do for his vineyard? Obviously, the answer is no. The listeners are undoubtedly disgusted with such an unproductive crop. (Cf. the same device used by the prophet Nathan to arouse David's indignation in 2 Samuel 12:1-7.)
The result is that the beloved will stop caring for the vineyard, will break down its wall, let it be trampled and devoured by animals, and -- most astounding of all -- command the clouds to hold back their rain! With that sentence, the listeners are brought up short. Only God can command the rain, and the prophet's audience suddenly realizes that the love song has been about the Lord and his people Israel. The beloved is God in his constant and intimate care for his chosen folk, and Israel is his vineyard. That latter is a figure often used throughout the Bible (cf. Jeremiah 2:21; Psalm 80:8-16; Mark 12:1-11; John 15:1). And the final stanza of the song spells out that meaning. God looked for Israel to bring forth justice, mispat, and instead it produced bloodshed, mispah. He expected from Israel righteousness, s'daqah, and got the cry, s'qah, of the oppressed and poor instead.
It is not difficult to see ourselves in this song, for God has been our beloved, the one who loves us, for a very long time, has he not? Think of all the intimate care he has lavished upon us from our beginning. Job tells us that it was God who shaped us so carefully in our mother's wombs (Job 10:8-11), and then he brought us forth and gave us our breath of life, marking each one of us with our own individuality and fingerprints and DNA like no other. He was with us through all of our youth, though perhaps we did not know it, and now, says the Psalmist, he is acquainted with all of our ways, knowing when we sit down and when we rise (Psalm 139:2-3), surrounding us with his mercy as if with air. God even numbers the hairs of our heads, Jesus teaches (Matthew 10:30 and par.), and he knows our needs before we ever ask.
God loves us so much that, seeing our sins, our despair, our deaths that would separate us from him, he sent his beloved Son to take all of our miseries upon himself, dying that we might live with our God. And then God raised that Son and gave us the promise of eternal life with him in glory. All, all of that has been loved poured out upon this congregation assembled here this morning.
And what has God expected from us in response to his amazing love? Surely he can do no more for our abundant benefit than he has already done. So what should be our love in return for his love? Gratitude, dear vineyard of the Lord, gratitude. Thankfulness that issues in the will to praise and serve our Lord of love all our days. Gratitude that honors his loving lordship over our lives and tries each day to walk in the ways of goodness and justice and peace that he has set out before us. Loving us with all his mighty heart, God expects from us love and obedience to him with all our hearts and might, in every thing we do. That is the "reasonable service" of anyone who loves the Lord (cf. Romans 12:1-3).
Lutheran Option: Jeremiah 23:23-29
This is a dangerous passage for a minister to preach, because it is dealing with false prophecy. It comes at the end of the collection of Jeremiah's oracles on the false prophets (Jeremiah 23:9-32), and it deals with those prophets who have been preaching "peace, peace" to the people of Judah, when the people actually have no peace with God (cf. 6:14; 8:11).
Ignoring the people's sin and the coming judgment of God upon it, the false prophets are like our "therapeutic preachers" of today. Their aim is to make their audiences feel good about themselves, assuring the people that all is well, and that God accepts and loves them just the way they are, with no necessity for the listeners to change their ways.
But, says Jeremiah, the false prophets are saying, "Thus says the Lord," when the Lord has not sent them (Jeremiah 23:31-32). They have not "stood in the council of the Lord to perceive and to hear his word" (23:18). Jeremiah is referring to God's heavenly council (cf. 1 Kings 22:13-28 for the scene). But in our terms, the false prophets have not had that intimate, daily communion with God from which issues true prophetic speech. In fact, the false prophets even steal oracles from one another (Jeremiah 23:30), a practice not unknown in our day among some clergy. Occasionally, whole sermons are clipped out of seminary library books, to be used by preachers. And I personally have heard of preachers who dishonestly use one of my published sermons as their own. We have our own false prophets in our society.
Certainly our society is full of religious messengers these days, those who claim to speak for God, or those who maintain that they have a new revelation from God. Televangelists, authors of religious books, New Age gurus of every sort, feminist re-imaginers, self-appointed "doctors" of theology, media reports -- on every hand, we are barraged with so-called spiritual messages, and it becomes confusing sometimes to know how to separate the true Word of God from the utterances of our present-day false prophets. Those in New Testament times had the same difficulty.
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are of God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world. 1 John 4:1
And the Book of Deuteronomy found it necessary to give two tests of true prophecy (Deuteronomy 13:1-3; 18:21-22), tests which are still a good measure for us.
First, says Deuteronomy, if a prophet tells you to go after and serve other gods whom you have not known, that is a false prophet and "you shall not listen to the words of that prophet" (Deuteronomy 13:2-3). In short, those of us who follow Jesus Christ know there is one God, the Father of our Lord. He is the God to whose word we cling in faith and obedience. Therefore, when you hear someone tell you that he is speaking in the name of the Lord, ask yourself, "Do that person's words accord with the true revelation of God that we have in Jesus Christ? Do they accord with what the universal church everywhere has always believed?"
Second, Deuteronomy says that if a prophet's words come to pass, they are truly the Word of the Lord. Indeed, that is why the oracles of the prophets that we have in the Old Testament have been preserved -- because their words came to pass.
Lying behind that is an understanding of the Word of God. As our text for the day says, in Jeremiah 23:29, the Word of the Lord is like fire, or like a hammer that breaks rock in pieces. The Word of the Lord is powerful; it brings about results. So when you hear someone preaching a message from God these days, ask yourself, "Is this the Word of the same God who overcame sin at the cross of Jesus Christ and who conquered death on Easter morn? Is this the Word of God that created a people and a church and guided them and comforted them, judged them and saved them through all the ages? Or is this some alien word of a false prophet that has no power?" The Word of God does that of which it speaks, and if you line up some modern word of some preacher against the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, given us in the scriptures, you will know if the preacher is a false messenger of God or a true one.
