God’s Fruitful Vinyard

Sermon from March 15, 2020

Mark 12:1-12

         Wow, what a whirlwind of a week! What started out as a rumor of perhaps a  few confirmed case of corona virus in our area ended up in an avalanche of unprecedented closings and quarantines all in the hopes of better weathering the approaching storm. First, all large gatherings of spectators watching events were shutdown, then the activities themselves were cancelled until every professional and college sporting events were all shuttered. Schools, uncertain of how to carry on under the circumstances were soon given the mandate that they too were to cease activities and send the children under their care, home for the next several weeks. This meant all colleges, universities and public schools. Then the president addressed us on how we as a nation were going to fight the coming pandemic and one of the many measures was that there would be no allowed travel to and from many of the other countries of the world basically self quarantining ourselves on a national level. All of this, of course affects our economy and the lives of all those who go to work each day. It is just amazingly overwhelming the vast sweeping changes brought about by a virus that cannot be seen without an electron microscope.

         The real danger though may not be the disease associated with the corona virus but rather the fear and panic that has gripped the hearts of people since they first learned that this pandemic had hit our shores. I mean, what is with all the hoarding of toilet paper folks? With all of the closings of what could be considered the pillars of normalcy for our society, things like professional basketball or baseball games, the fun of March Madness or even the mundane trudging off to school, when all of these get swept away in order to keep the virus at bay then we feel a sense of disorientation deep within our souls and out of us comes fear. Fear is a heart issue, that place within us that is to guide us through life and if it is fear that is doing the guiding then it is not hard to figure out that our life will be in trouble. This is where God must enter into the picture because what we find throughout scripture is that one of God’s favorite sayings to his people is “Fear not.” My kids, a long time ago attended a VBS program that had as one of its figures from the Bible the person of Joshua. They learned the words that God spoke to Joshua as Joshua was about to go into the Promised Land and defeat the giants who dwelled there. Even to this day my kids can still sing those words, “Be strong and courageous do not be terrified for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” You see, when God tells us to fear not, to be strong and courageous, to not be terrified, he is not just saying for us to have a stiff upper lip. No, God is telling us to not fear for a very important reason and that reason is that God Almighty is with us. You see, what Joshua understood is yes, there were giants who lived in what was God’s Promised Land but what Joshua also knew was that his God was greater than any giant. So, as long as God fought the giants then the battle was victorious even before they started. This is what we must also must remember when we are feeling overwhelmed, swept about by so many unbelievable happenings unsure of how things will unfold that there is one who is greater than all of this and this one is with us to fight this battle for us. What we must do is instead of yielding to our fear is to instead tighten the grip on our faith. 

         This is why I believe that this Lenten season is a season that is made for a time such as this. As we have said before, we are looking at Lent this year as a pilgrimage, a journey that leads us to Zion as depicted in the twelfth chapter of Hebrews where we read this beautiful description of our resurrected hope “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festival gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.” What an amazing portrait of heaven and Earth together in a great festival of love, worship and celebration, of victory over death, of life evermore. Now, what we cannot forget is that the writer of Hebrews begins his writing on this resurrection hope in the eleventh chapter of his letter, the section often referred to as “The Faith Hall of Fame.” There, in this chapter, person after person is brought forth from the pages of the former Testament and their testimony of faith is heralded by the writer of Hebrews. There we read of the faith of Abel, the faith of Noah who built the ark before the rains came and of course there is the story of the great faith of Abraham and Sarah who though childless were promised by God that one day they would be the founders of a great nation and on that promise, they believed. Yet, the writer of Hebrews continues, these great examples of faith did not receive all that God had promised them which may catch us a bit off guard. The writer of Hebrews explains “These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted then from afar, and having acknowledging that they were strangers and exiles on the Earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland…as it is they desire a better country, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.” This city God prepared for our patriarchs of faith is the one we are headed to this Lent and it is the city of the heavenly Jerusalem, Mount Zion and to get there requires faith, a faith that may not receive all that God has promised us in the here and now but a faith that can see these promises one day fulfilled in the heavenly country.

         It is this faith, a faith that trusts in the promises of God even if those promises are not received in the here and now, this faith is surprisingly a very important element in what appears to be a little story Jesus tells his audience about a vineyard, its owner, the tenants who are put in charge of said vineyard and the abuse of the owners servants and the murder of the owners son at the hands of those the owner trusted to farm his vineyard. Now, to us it may not be apparent but this story of a vineyard is an ancient one in the lore of the people of Israel. Found in the fifth chapter of Isaiah, Isaiah records a song for the one he loves and the vineyard which his love has planted. The one he loves is of course his God and the vineyard as we listen to Isaiah’s song is the house of Israel. Isaiah tells of how God had a very fertile hill where he dug the soil and cleared it of stones and planted his ground with choice vines. Isaiah continues saying God built a watchtower in the middle of the vineyard to guard his vineyard and God carved a wine vat out of stone all in anticipation that his grapes would yield the finest of wine. All seems so perfect until we hear Isaiah say the tragic words “But it yielded wild grapes.” So what was God to do? His vineyard had had not produced grapes that he could eat or turn into wine, so what was he to do? So what God decided to do is to tear down the thick hedge that kept out marauding animals so that they could come and devour and trample down the worthless grape vines. No longer would he prune those vines or hoe the weeds but instead he would just let the briers and the thistles take over. Now, what Isaiah was getting at in this song of the vineyard was that the house of Israel was very much like a vineyard in that God had taken the people of Israel out of Egypt, out of slavery and brought them into the Promised Land and planted his people there for a reason just as one plants a vineyard for a reason and the reason is that both will produce what the one who planted them expected. The person who plants a vineyard does so in the hope of harvesting sweet abundant grapes that can be turned into the finest of wine. In a similar fashion, God planted his people in the Promised Land so that his people might demonstrate God’s wisdom that he taught his people, how to live with justice, righteousness and fairness. Isaiah writes that God looked for justice but behold what he found was bloodshed.God looked for righteousness but behold an outcry from people being oppressed. It was that God’s own people, the very people God had delivered out of Egypt when they were oppressed themselves as slaves to the Pharaoh, these same people that he had entered into a covenant with where God promised to be a king who would watch over the nation of Israel all this he had done so that in return these people would bring him honor. As Isaiah writes further in the fifth chapter of his book, “the Lord of hosts is exalted in justice and the Holy God shows himself holy in righteousness.’ So, through their deplorable behavior, the people of Israel were bringing dishonor upon the reputation of God and Isaiah is telling his people that this is why God was going to bring armies from the east, the armies of Babylon to carry the people of Israel into exile. Isaiah foretold that this would happen to his people so that when the day arrived they would not somehow believe that their God was in some way too weak to prevent Israels enemies from defeating her and destroying her city and her Temple. No, God was still all powerful, almighty; what would happen would be because God had ordained such calamity to come upon the people of Israel because they had broken the terms of the covenant that God had made with his people when they were brought up out of Egypt by God’s all powerful hand. When the people refused to do what they had promised then God would no longer be for them the king who would keep them, be gracious unto them and give them peace as heard in the High Priestly blessing found in the sixth chapter of the book of Numbers. Instead, they would experience fear, loss and conflict so that they knew first hand the consequences of their actions.

This is the story that Jesus is referencing in his story and Isaiah was one of those servants, Gods prophets, that God promised his people he would raise up out of the people of Israel as recorded in the eighteenth chapter of Deuteronomy. These prophets were those people that God put his words in their mouths. The prophets were to speak to the people of Israel the very commands of God. So, when Jesus tells us that God sent his servants and the people of Israel beat them struck them and killed them the implication is that all of this happened to the prophets because the words they spoke were the very words of God, the very commands of God. This gives us a clue to the underlying problem in the story that Jesus is telling, a problem rooted in the refusal of God’s people to be true to the life that they had Promised God they would live, a life that would bring God honor and glory.

We get a better understanding of what this God honoring life looks like from looking at the covenant relationship the people of Israel had with God. The people of Israel entered into this covenant with God and both parties had obligations which were spelled out in the covenant, a covenant which we know as the Ten Commandments. In these Commandments, God as the great King agreed to do three things for the nation of Israel: he would give them life and keep safe that life; he would be gracious to them giving them everything necessary for a good life; and he would give them peace. So, what we find in the Ten Commandments is that God would be their source and protector of the life of the people of Israel. Once every seven days, the people of Israel were to stop from their efforts to acknowledge that it was not their efforts but rather the action of God which gave them life. This was known as keeping the Sabbath. The people of Israel were also to acknowledge that the life that they had had come about and was kept safe because of a father and a mother; God insisted they should be honored. God also demanded that the people of Israel be people who revered life because the source of their life was a holy God. This is why revenge was to be left up to God for only the God who gave life could legitimately take it. This is also why they could not murder because God had promised to keep their life and if someone took a life they made God out to be a liar.

God not only gave his people life but he also gave everything they needed to have an abundant life. God provided men with helpmates, their wives, so to take another person’s husband or wife would be an affront to God. God also provided all the resources a person needed for life therefore to take what God had provided was to in essence take from God himself therefore they were not to steal. God also by his actions in a person’s life was giving that person a life of honor so if someone defamed another person they were actually destroying a work of God. All these things a person was given for life by God were acts of God’s grace, gifts from heaven above.

God also desired his people be contented with the life he had given, the life he had provided everything necessary for a good life. It is just make sense that God would hope that his people be content with the life they have, that they would live a life of peace where life was all that God had created it to be. This is why God commanded that people were not to covet another person’s wife or another person’s property.

So, God the great king promised to provide life, a life where God would provide all that was needed for a good life, a life that was all that God created life to be. This is what God in his covenant relationship with Israel promised to provide to the people of Israel. Now, what the people of Israel promised to do according to the covenant that they had entered into with God was two things. First, they were to worship God alone. They were to have no other gods that they would bow down to and serve; God alone was the one who would be worthy of their service, the one voice that would direct their life The second command was that the people of Israel were to bear, or carry the name of the Lord and when they bore or carried the name of the Lord out in the world, wherever they would go, this name of God, his very essence, his character of steadfast love and faithfulness was to bear fruit in their lives as actions which bore the stamp of steadfast love and faithfulness. When we read that we are to not take the name of the Lord in vain, the meaning of the word “vain” in the Greek is “to not bear fruit, ‘ as in a person who goes go seek fruit on a tree or grapevine and finds none.This is why this understanding should be of interest to us when we listen to Jesus’ tell us a story of God and his vineyard.

So, the people as they lived their life were to demonstrate mercy, grace, to have a long fuse on their anger, and their lives were to abound with steadfast love and faithfulness, all those qualities which are the essence of God’s name. One can never forget that in a covenant relationship the reputation of one partner is bound up with the reputation of the other. So, the reputation of God was dependent on the actions of the people he had promised to be faithful to. In Deuteronomy 14:22 through Deuteronomy 16:12, God spells out just what it meant or the people of Israel to demonstrate steadfast love and faithfulness, a life that would bring God glory and honor. Every year they were to take  a tenth of what the produced and eat this produce in the presence of God as an act which reminded them that it was God who gave them life. Every three years they were to take a tenth of what they produced and share their produce, their life, with the foreigner, the one’s passing through their land, those who had lost their Daddy’s, and the women who had lost their husbands, these who were in need of love and faithfulness were to find it in their neighbor. At the end of seven years, all debts were  to be released, a time to let the continually impoverished get a new chance on life.The whole thought behind these actions was that they were to look out for those who were falling through the cracks, the poor  they encountered on their way. They were to open up their hearts, open up their hands and give to them sufficient to their need. In the seventh year they were also to give those who served them a chance at a new life, setting them free but to not let them go empty handed but give to them abundantly so they can have a good start to their new life.

         Now, it seems like we have strayed far from our story about the vineyard but what I have described from Deuteronomy is the fruit that God’s vineyard was to produce, a community where steadfast love and faithfulness abounded. What produced this harvest of fruit is that the owner of the vineyard gave them life and kept their life. The people of Israels first concern was not the concerns of their life because they had a God who was the King and ruler over their life, a God who gave abundantly so they could have a good life, a God whose desire was that his people be content and experience peace. This is why they were freed to instead focus on bearing the name of God out into their communities, bearing the sweet fruit of steadfast love and faithfulness. Yet, while creating a community of steadfast love and faithfulness was a great result of the covenant that the people of Israel had with God this was not the ultimate goal of their relationship. The ultimate goal is heard in a prayer that King Solomon prayed at the dedication of the first Temple built in Jerusalem. On the day when the glorious Temple was dedicated, King Solomon prayed, “Likewise, when a foreigner who is not of your people, Israel, comes from a far country for your name sake, for they shall hear of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched hand, when this foreigner comes and prays toward this house, hear in heaven, your dwelling place, and do according to all the peoples of the Earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel and that they may know that this house that I have built is called by your name.” Do you see why God commanded that his people bear his name and that his name produce fruit in the life of his people? When people live together in a life marked by steadfast love and faithfulness people are going to talk about it because such a life is a marvel and a wonder that only God can create. The country of Israel sits at the crossroads of the Middle East so it is on display for people from all corners of the world. Those who traveled through Israel, these were the people God wanted to influence through the lives of his people. The foreigners would see the peoples actions and want to know the God who had inspired them and their eyes would turn toward the house of this God.  The hope is that those so intrigued by the life they saw would want to have that life and so they would pray, cry out to God and God in his mercy would answer them and speak to this one who is not one of God’s people, and God would tell him of his mercy, his grace, his steadfast love and faithfulness; this is what it means to know God’s name. In the prayer, Solomon prays that these foreigners who would come that they would fear God which if you meditate on it, means that they were not afraid for their life when they encountered God but rather they were in awe of the life of God, a life he is willing to give to those who ask for it. This means that the foreigner would come to know God as the giver and keeper of his life, that he would come to know God as a gracious God who gives all that is needed for a good life and he would know God as the God who desires his people be content, to know the peace of life as it was created to be. Then this foreigner would worship the one, true living God and go and bear the name of this God in the community where he lived, bearing fruit, the fruit of a life marked by steadfast love and faithfulness. This is what is all wrapped up in the hope of Isaiah, found in the fifty sixth chapter of his book, where God tells Isaiah “my house shall be called a house of prayer for all people.”

         Yet, this dream of foreigners coming and praying toward the Temple because of the name of God being carried out into the world, this was not evident when Jesus strode into Jerusalem to inspect the Temple. The Temple authorities, those who were the tenants in the story Jesus told of the vineyard, were people who wanted to take the kingdom by force. They desired to kill Jesus, the very Son of God, all so that they might bring God’s inheritance, the people of Israel, under their influence. By their actions they proved that they no longer had any faith in God to give them life and so instead by their own efforts they would make a life for themselves. No longer did they trust God; their faith in God to keep and protect their life was no longer evident. This is why they longed to go to war with Rome, taking lives, hoping in doing so they might keep their own. The good life to them was taking all you needed by force, even taking from their own parents and unsuspecting widows and the result of such a life was a life of quarrelsome conflict. This is the life they lured the people under their influence to believe they were created to live but nothing could be further from the truth. This is why Jesus told them in no uncertain terms that the Temple which stood in Jerusalem would one day be destroyed because the people who worshipped there no longer bore the name of the one true living God and therefore the Temple no longer was a beacon of the name of God.

         Yes, these Temple authorities would hand Jesus over to be crucified yet Jesus knew his heavenly Father had granted him life and would keep his life and on the third day the whole world knew this very truth. As Jesus had faith in his Father to give and keep his life, to give all that he needed for life and that the love of his heavenly Father was his certain peace, the life of Jesus is a life  of mercy and grace, a life that is slow to get angry, a life overflowing with steadfast love and faithfulness. Jesus is our new Temple that we pray towards and remember in fearful times to hold on to our faith in the God who has given us life and who keeps our life safe, a God whose grace has given all we need for a good life and a God who desires us to be content and find our peace in him. May we hold fast by faith to this truth, today and always! Amen!