God's vineyard

Good morning friends,
Our passage this morning shows that it wasn't just Jesus who used parables to teach. Isaiah sings what he calls a love song about his beloved's vineyard, but it seems more like a story than a love song. It's not just the story format that reminds us of Jesus; Jesus often encouraged his listeners to bear good fruit too. It's an analogy that makes sense. Israel was an agricultural society, so the concept would be familiar every-day stuff both for Isaiah's listeners and Jesus' listeners. God plants us and gives us good soil and abundant rain. Particularly with both Israel and the church, he specifically tends and cares for us. Our role is to bear fruit, to show in our lives that God's care isn't wasted on us, to return not only to God but to our neighbors as well, a harvest of love and justice.

This passage can serve as a call to repentance, an opportunity to examine our lives and see if we are bearing good fruit for God, and if not, to return to God. It can also be an invitation to think what we might need more of in our life to be more fruitful. Pray for what you need from God and share with me or with other leaders in the church what the church could give you more of. Together we can bear good fruit for God and for a world in need of justice.

In Christ's service,
Sam

Isaiah 5:1-10
Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. 2He 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. 3And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. 4What 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?

5And 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. 6I 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. 7For 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!

8Ah, you who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is room for no one but you, and you are left to live alone in the midst of the land! 9The Lord of hosts has sworn in my hearing: Surely many houses shall be desolate, large and beautiful houses, without inhabitant. 10For ten acres of vineyard shall yield but one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield a mere ephah.