The Vineyard of the Lord

A sermon delivered to All Saints Anglican Church on October 5, 2008 at the Convent Chapel of St. Mary's Medical Center, based on Psalm 80, Isaiah 5: 1-7, and Matthew 21: 31-46.

Have you ever been hiking in the country and come upon some wild grapes? They look plump and purple, and your taste buds start to taste the sweetness of the grape before it even gets into your mouth. But when you actually try one of those grapes, it’s sour and bitter – and you can’t spit it out fast enough!? If you can relate to this little example you might be able to catch a glimpse of how God feels about his Vineyard sometimes. Today, three of our readings make use of the Vine or Vineyard metaphor:

Ps 80:8: “You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it.

Who or What is this Vine? In Isaiah 5:7, Israel is actually named as the Vineyard:

7 For the vineyard of the Lord of hostsis the house of Israel,and the men of Judahare his pleasant planting;

In Matthew 21:33-46, Jesus tells a parable about Israel: “There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country..

Compare this language to Isaiah 5: 1,2:
My beloved had a vineyardon a very fertile hill.2 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;and he looked for it to yield grapes,but it yielded wild grapes.

Apart from the actual picture of the Vine and the Vineyard, the theme that I think holds all these passages together is summed up poetically in that last couplet: “…he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.” Because it yielded wild grapes, the Vineyard then experiences loss.

Let’s look at the background of Psalm 80 to begin to see how this works out in Israel’s history:


Background
2 Kings 17:2, ff describes how Hoshea, the son of Elah, began to reign in Samaria over Israel. This is the area where the tribes of Ephraim, Benjamin and Manasseh, mentioned in Psalm 80, lived. It was in the far north of Israel’s territory and vulnerable to Assyria. Hoshea reigned nine years – and he “did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.” Because he did evil, Shalmaneser of Assyria forced Hoshea to become his vassal and to pay tribute – ‘protection money’ if you will.

Apparently Hoshea was a player and schemer. He tried to cook up something with the King of Egypt and failed to pay his tribute…so Shalmaneser put Hoshea in prison and made war on Israel for three years, until Samaria was captured and the people were taken away to Assyria in exile in about 722 BC.

Exile Because of Idolatry
The text goes on to tell us explicitly that:
7 … this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt…

These are the same people in Psalm 80:8 :
“You brought a vine out of Egypt;you drove out the nations and planted it.”
God prepared the ground for Israel to flourish - and it actually did take root and begin to grow. It “stretched out its branches to the Sea – the Mediterranean - and its shoots to the River – the Euphrates. Israel was fruitful. But they turned away from the Lord.
II Kings 17:9 tells us that the people worshipped the gods of the peoples they conquered. “They built for themselves high places in all their towns, from watchtower to fortified city.”

They engaged in idol worship, the very thing that God told them not to do. And God warned them through prophets to turn back, but they wouldn’t listen. They abandoned the commandments, took up divination and even practiced child sacrifice to Baal.

Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight. None was left but the tribe of Judah only” (II Kings 17:18).

This is what caused the Psalmist’s lament in Ps. 80:4-6:
4 O Lord God of hosts,how long will you be angry with your people's prayers?5 You have fed them with the bread of tearsand given them tears to drink in full measure.6 You make us an object of contention for our neighbors,and our enemies laugh among themselves…

You would think that when the tribe of Judah, to the south, observed all that happened to their northern neighbors, they would have been warned, but no!

II Kings 17:19: Judah also did not keep the commandments of the Lord their God, but walked in the customs that Israel had introduced. 20 And the Lord rejected all the descendants of Israel and afflicted them and gave them into the hand of plunderers, until he had cast them out of his sight. This is the event our Isaiah passage references. Out of these experiences of Israel and Judah, we can state a Life Principle :

God desires for his People to be fruitful, but when his people fail to bear good fruit, they experience disaster.

Isaiah 5:4ffm, God laments:
What more was there to do for my vineyard,that I have not done in it?When I looked for it to yield grapes,why did it yield wild grapes?
5 And now I will tell youwhat 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.6 I will make it a waste;it shall not be pruned or hoed,and briers and thorns shall grow up;I will also command the cloudsthat they rain no rain upon it.
7 For the vineyard of the Lord of hostsis the house of Israel,and the men of Judahare his pleasant planting;and he looked for justice,but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness,but behold, an outcry!
God was looking for justice and righteousness, but instead he found bloodshed and outrage. The vineyard of the Lord did not produce good fruit, so it was destroyed.

Now fast forward to Israel in the time of Jesus. You would think that with all this as background the Jewish establishment would understand the importance of being faithful and fruitful – of taking care of the Vineyard of the Lord. But Jesus tells the story of the tenants and prophetically identifies the Jewish leaders as those who kill the Son – who spill blood when they should be producing righteous fruit for the God the Father, the Vineyard owner.

The result, says Jesus is that …” the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.” V.43

Mt. 21:45” When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them.” They got it. They realized that Jesus was impugning their leadership.
Jesus was saying that Israel had failed to bear righteous fruit, and because of it, God was going to take the Kingdom away from them and passed it on to others - the Gentiles. This began formally at the Day of Pentecost, but was marked in tragedy in 70 AD when the Romans invaded Jerusalem and burned the whole city, including the Temple. That was the day the Vineyard was destroyed in earnest.

Now, this is all very bad for the Jewish people, but how, you may ask, does this relate to us today?

Let me just relate it in terms of my own experience. I grew up in a Christian home, but rejected the Gospel decisively when I was about 14. By the time I was 20, I realized I was morally bankrupt. Because I saw nothing larger than Me in my life, I had become arrogant and self-centered. I tried to make Music a god in my life, but found that Music wasn’t big enough to give my life transcendent meaning. I used other people to further my own ends and was cynical about the possibility of Love. I had begun to use alcohol as a vehicle to oblivion. And there was even a time, when I was in my first year of college, that I was suicidal, thinking that there was no good reason on this Earth to keep on going. I was a dead man walking. Multiply this by millions, and you have a picture of a Vineyard that produces wild grapes.

But Thanks be to God, He pursued me until I saw the way out of Death: to simply repent and believe in the God who made me and died for my sins.

I’ve told the story before about how when I prayed for God to forgive me and come into my life, it was literally like someone opened the window and the Wind of God’s Spirit came into the room. I experienced the Reality of God as a Person, and I suddenly realized that it was possible to have a real relationship with Christ.

Over the years, I’ve learned the importance of staying close and connected to God, to walk with him every day, To talk to Him about the things that are important to me, and to listen to Him when He speaks in that Still Small voice. Jesus called it Abiding in the Vine. It’s how we produce good fruit, and literally the difference between Life and Death.

Friends, God’s basic saving message to us is this: Repent of the sin of self-sufficiency and learn to Abide in Him so that you can bear good fruit. It’s not just a message to pagans either. God’s message of repentance is addressed to His own people:

2 Chronicles 7:14: …if my people, who are called by my name will humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. (the Vineyard, if you like)

It’s not just ‘wicked people’ that need to repent, it’s God’s people! If we ourselves will repent of our practical atheism and faithlessness, God will bring healing into our lives and our land – and we will be a fruitful people, the Vineyard of the Lord.

Jesus is the Vine, and we are the branches. We must ‘abide’ in the Vine, for apart from Him, we can do nothing. (Jn. 15:5).

How do we abide in Him?
1) Call Jesus Lord and walk with Him every day.
2) Worship the Lord in the beauty of Holiness. Be faithful in public worship of God.
3) Offer up your life to Him. Everything that you have has come to you from him. Offer everything you have back to Him and let your Tithe of time, treasure and talents be the beginning of your giving.
4) Tend the Vine. Spend time with God in private worship, Bible study and formation practices such as Holy Reading, fasting, etc. Allow yourself to be formed by the Lord through these practices.
5) Finally, Be the body of Christ to each other and the world through loving one another and caring for each other’s needs. Share your faith with others and take the love of Christ to the world.

As we repent and abide, we look also for restoration as a people. Take out your inserts labeled “A Prayer for Restoration” and let’s say this together:

Restore us, O God;let your face shine, that we may be saved!
Turn again, O God of hosts!Look down from heaven, and see;have regard for this vine,the stock that your right hand planted,and for the son whom you made strong for yourself.Then we shall not turn back from you;give us life, and we will call upon your name!
Restore us, O Lord God of hosts!Let your face shine, that we may be saved!
Amen.