Why Did It Yield Wild Grapes?

Isaiah 5:1-7; Matthew 21:33-41

“Some nights I come home fightin' mad Feel like runnin' my fist through the wall. Is it even worth it what I'm fightin' for anymore,

Feelin' torn all to hell with it all?”

These are lyrics from Jason Aldean’s love-song, “When She Says Baby.” This is the song he was singing as gunfire broke through the windows of the Mandalay Bay Hotel and rained down on concert goers killing 58 and injuring over 500 more. Love-song interrupted. Expecting a concert but saw bloodshed, expecting a love-song but heard gunfire. I’m torn all to hell with it all.

I can’t tell you exactly what I said when I heard the news, but it was along the lines of “What is wrong with this world?” I was crestfallen, heartbroken, sad, mad. What more is there for us to do? And mixed in with all of this is that pit in my stomach knowing that I’d have to step up to the pulpit this morning. So, with a heavy heart, I turned to Scripture, starting, as I normally do, with the passages from the lectionary. First was Exodus 20, the 10 Commandments, “Thou shalt not kill.” We all know that. Then there was Psalm 19, “The commandment of the LORD is clear…in keeping them there is great reward. But who can detect their errors?” All we’ve got to do is keep the commandments and maintain the beauty of the creation in which God intends for us to live and have life. Then I got to Isaiah.

A love-song interrupted. Expectations overwhelmed by bloodshed. The lament of a God unable to figure out “What is wrong with this world I created?”

The prophet begins to tell of a vineyard, carefully cleared and plowed, lovingly sown with seeds of hope, protected by a watchtower. So hopeful is the owner of this vineyard that he hews out a wine vat in the vineyard—he prepares to store the wine before the grapes have even grown. The love-song is interrupted by the voice of the owner. “I was expecting great things of this vineyard,” he cries, “What more could I have done to ensure that it would prosper? I expected to make delicious wine, so why have all the grapes grown wild and sour?”

We talked last week about the parable of the sower, commenting as we did about the willy-nilly scattering of seeds upon the path and the rocks and among the weeds. The owner of this vineyard shows no such disregard for his task. We’re told he carefully picks a very fertile hill, plows the earth, removes the stones, and plants “choice” vines. So lovingly has the owner worked the earth that he remarks of his own behavior, “What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it?”

Even before the prophecy of Isaiah, our Scripture contains the lament of our God over the fruitlessness and violence of humankind. At the very first, we hear the story of the garden being prepared and planted. Light is called forth, earth and sea and sky are separated, plants and animals and fish and birds, and last but not least, when all has been lovingly prepared, God plants the choicest of vines, a vine grown in the image of God. Within a few verses of this seed of hope being planted, we have a harvest of bloodshed. Brother against brother. The blood cries out to God from the soil. Just a few verses after that, and we read in Genesis 6: “The LORD saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that he had ever made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the LORD said, ‘I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created.’”

Skip back to Isaiah 5:

“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.”

What do we learn from this? What does this teach us at a time like this? What does this teach us about God? Listen. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. God has always been, is right now, and will always be exasperated with human violence. God placed us in creation to be fruitful and multiply, but humanity has, time and again, proven itself to be a vine of violence and destruction. “Why did it yield wild grapes?”

And God is torn to hell with it all. God takes no time to answer the question, “Why.” Instead God seems to say, “Let them be torn to hell, too.” And gunfire rains down. And we are. God's hand is not on the trigger, but nor does God's hand block the bullets. Isaiah 5 offers no words of comfort to a people torn to hell, unless you feel exasperated and exhausted and take comfort learning that God feels the exact same way.

I always go back to Genesis 4, God’s warning to Cain before he kills his brother, “Why are you angry? Sin is lurking at the door, it desires to win you over, but you must master it.” We are aerated with anger and fertilized by fear. That’s the why the grapes are sour, they’ve been transplanted into the soil of sin.

“Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watch tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. Finally, he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’ So they sized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”

They said to Jesus, 'He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at harvest time.'

Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scripture

‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone;

This was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes’?

Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.”

At first glance, Genesis 4, Genesis 6, Isaiah 5, and this parable from Matthew seem to suggest a God who abandons creation to self-destruction. Why doesn’t God step in to stay Cain’s hand? Why doesn’t God re-incline the hearts of humankind? Why does God keep sending servants to die? The great conflict in all of this is the gift of free will. Simply put, free will means God cannot cause the trigger to be pulled, nor can God keep it from being pulled. God guides us, inspires us, teaches us, advises us, as he did Cain, “You must master sin.” God issues commands, “Thou shalt not kill.” But God does not control us.

This seems to suggest that when a shooter fires into a crowd God does nothing but lament our abuse of the control we’ve been given. God doesn’t hold the gun, nor does God block the bullets. And when death and destruction seem to prevail, as they often do, it shakes our faith to look over and see God standing with us in confusion, exasperation, and grief. “You’re all powerful God, isn’t there anything you can do about this?”

And God responds, “What more can I do that I haven’t already done for you? I created you in my image and loved you into being. I’ve warned you time and again about sin. I’ve issued commands to keep you out of its soil. I’ve sent leaders to guide you, priests to teach you, judges to search you, prophets to warn you. I even sent my son to walk among you, to touch you, to heal you, to show you how to live. And you killed him, too. I’ve wept and wept and wept at each of your graves. I’ve even seen to it that the grave can no longer hold you back. I raised Jesus from the dead and eliminated the fear of death and the power of sin, and yet you still choose sin. What more can I do? Stop asking me that, as if my heart isn’t breaking as I watch you. I’ve fertilized your broken soil with forgiveness from my own broken body, I’ve watered you with my own life-giving blood. I have given you everything you need to live and thrive, and yet the greedy take more than enough while others suffer lack. Do not ask me what more I can do. I died for you. I’ve been to hell and back for you. And I die with every single one of your victims of violence. What more can I do? No, what more can you do?”

What can we do? For Stephen Paddock and his victims, it is tragically too late for “What ifs.” But the question still remains, “What now?” What can we do? Often times the ways we answer this question drives us apart, splits us along the lines of politics, pits us against one another, breaks and bruises us even more. What can we do? The church must not let this happen. We witness to and worship at a table where our brokenness brings us together.

Last Wednesday we dined together in the fellowship hall. There were about 10 children who showed up from the neighborhood who I had never met before. Before blessing the meal and the fellowship we shared, I said something along the lines of this, “I like to think of these tables as an extension of the table in our sanctuary where we celebrate Jesus eating with friends. Just like that table, so too do I want all to feel welcome at these tables.”

What can we do? We can create more tables like that, literally and metaphorically. Create places where all are welcome. Start conversations where people feel listened to, not attacked. Curate spaces where grace abounds and love is shared, whether in your home, at your workplace, with your friends—maybe even take a page out of the Psalmist’s book and prepare such a table in the presence of your enemies. Sin lurks at the door, seeking to plant seeds of fear in our hearts and harvest hatred. Sin seeks to separate us. God and grace bring us together. We are called mourn and rebuild beside people with whom we’re going to disagree. What can we do? We can go wild, give into sin, become bitter, actively participate in tearing ourselves to hell; or we can sing “Amazing Grace” and let that sweeten us in the assurance that “the kingdom of God will be given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.”

You are sweet and beautiful and beloved children of God. This world needs your witness to love and your invitation to the table of grace.