AND GOD SAW... stories of God seeing and acting in Hebrew Scripture
Isaiah 5:1-7; 11:1-5; Mark 12:1-3
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Today I will be unapologetically romantic
in my call for us to embrace a life
of righteousness and justice as a people of God.
Yes, I want us to use our brains today,
to use our rational and mental faculties.
They are essential elements of a healthy faith.
And they are necessary and wonderful aspects of our humanity.
But so are our hearts—
hearts that beat wildly when they are in love.
I have to be a romantic today,
because the prophet Isaiah, of all people,
has given us a love song as his guiding metaphor.
Yes, a love song—
from God the lover, to God’s people, the beloved.
Until today, I don’t think I’ve ever approached prophetic writings
in quite this way.
I’m trying out some new thinking on you, in this sermon.
Prophets, as you probably know,
are typically seen as strange, a bit eccentric,
socially awkward, and even off-putting to others.
They are interested in speaking cold, hard truth,
not in how they come across to others,
or how their listeners respond emotionally.
They often use harsh language,
dress strangely, eat strange food, and live in dark hideaways.
We never picture them as the warm and romantic type.
They are loners, not lovers.
But Isaiah, for some reason,
when searching for the right linguistic form
to communicate with God’s wayward people,
came up with the bright idea of using a love song.
So here we go.
Let’s set the mood.
We already have the candles.
Maybe we should dim the lights, and cue the violins.
Seriously, I hope you hear me out, now.
This is as much of a stretch for me as it is for you.
Like many of you,
I’ve never been very drawn to this stream of spirituality.
I’ve had plenty of charismatic friends over the years
who eat it up,
who sing quasi-romantic praise songs to God as lover.
I’ve been more drawn to the life of the mind,
and to meeting God in nature, in other people, in the arts, etc.
I don’t picture my relationship with God,
as a relationship between lovers.
Yes, I know I am loved by God, but not in that way.
I picture myself being loved more like a parent loves a child.
And it is like that.
We have that metaphor in scripture, often.
And I picture myself being loved
like a creator loves their creation.
That’s also biblical.
But I’m less familiar, and less comfortable, frankly,
with the idea that the love shared between God and me,
could in any way be compared to a pair of human lovers,
or spouses.
I know that idea is out there.
It’s embedded in Christian hymnody.
A well-known hymn from the 1930s—not my favorite—
was made popular by George Beverly Shea.
My God and I go in the field together;
We walk and talk as good friends should and do;
We clasp our hands, our voices ring with laughter;
My God and I walk through the meadow’s hue.
It continues . . .
My God and I will go for aye together,
We’ll walk and talk just as good friends do;
This earth will pass, and with it common trifles,
But God and I will go unendingly.
Not really my preferred style of music or theology,
but I can’t dismiss it too quickly,
because it’s entirely biblical:
God as a pining lover,
sometimes loved in return,
sometimes jilted by their lover.
It’s a recurring theme in scripture.
We can’t deny it.
So how do we make sense of it?
Hear that? I’m going back to familiar territory—
making sense, being rational.
But let’s think about this love song in Isaiah 5,
and see where it might connect with us today.
God has written this love song using another metaphor—
that of a vineyard.
Like a lot of the best love songs out there,
it’s a sad song.
More than sad, it’s tragic.
So God’s love song tells about Godself
as a farmer tending a vineyard.
God’s lover is the vineyard,
which of course is a symbol, of God’s beloved people.
The song starts out with a dreamy, hopeful vision.
God tilled the soil,
carefully cleared it of stones,
planted the best quality grapevines,
built a tower to keep watch over it,
to chase off any birds or intruders,
carved a beautiful wine vat out of the stone,
everything needed to produce
the choicest and sweetest grapes,
and the finest wine.
The vineyard is picture perfect—a romantic image itself.
But despite all the love God poured out on God’s beloved,
it was unrequited.
It wasn’t returned.
It yielded rotten grapes.
No good for eating.
Worthless for wine.
So like a lot of other love songs,
this one eventually devolves into a breakup song,
reminiscent of Paul Simon’s “50 ways to leave your lover.”
It’s not exactly “slip out the back, Jack, make a new plan, Stan,
no need to be coy, Roy . . .”
but, it’s awfully close.
God the lover says, I’m stepping back,
leaving you to your evil ways.
I won’t forget you. I won’t be far.
But I will no longer actively protect you from yourself.
Literally, it says in Isaiah,
“I will remove its hedge.”
God won’t actively harm God’s people.
God still loves them too much for that.
But God withdraws God’s hand, so to speak,
and let’s nature take over, let’s it return to the wild.
Verse 6: “it shall not be pruned or hoed,
and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns.”
Why did God do this?
What exactly were the rotten grapes?
It’s all explained in verse 7:
For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel,
and the people of Judah are God’s cherished garden.
God expected justice, but saw bloodshed;
expected righteousness, but heard a cry!
Justice.
Righteousness.
Those were the grapes God the lover was after.
That is why God poured out so much love, and time, and effort,
on God’s people.
God gave them everything they needed to produce
what God loves best—justice and righteousness.
But they, as it turned out, did not love as God loved.
They loved themselves more.
They loved what they could accumulate for themselves.
They loved the power they could exert on others.
So instead of a beloved community marked by justice,
righteousness, and the shalom of God,
what actually grew in that garden was violence.
Human oppression and suffering.
God says, “I expected justice, but saw bloodshed;
righteousness, but heard crying.”
I cannot read a verse like that in the Hebrew Bible,
and not have my mind drawn to what’s happening right now,
in that very same part of the world—
the horrific bloodshed in Gaza, and the endless crying,
and utter destruction,
going on there in the name of God—
as if God is working out God’s purposes.
God’s vineyard is once again, as ever,
being mismanaged, and bearing rotten grapes.
And I have to wonder if God’s response is much the same—
grief, disappointment, weariness with our wicked ways,
and a decision to withdraw God’s hand,
and let come what comes.
And . . . I believe when it comes to vineyards
that God is pouring love into—
tilling the soil, carting out stones, planting vines, etc—
those vineyards are not just in and around Jerusalem.
God is singing a love song for vineyards all over the world.
These vineyards are in our own backyard.
God loves good grapes of justice and righteousness,
wherever they may grow,
and gives us everything we need to produce them.
We frequently misunderstand where God the lover has invested,
where God’s passion lies.
Take a scripture like Isaiah 11, also read this morning, where it says,
“A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him.”
We read this, and rightly so, as a sort of Messianic foretelling.
But what kind of shoot is this? What kind of Messiah?
verse 4: “With righteousness he shall judge for the poor
and decide with equity for the oppressed of the earth;
“Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist.”
The shoot that comes out of Jesse’s root,
is not about the biological connection to David’s line.
It is describing the sort of life that will spring up
where the old had been.
It is a life that pursues justice, equity, and righteousness.
God is all about establishing relationships with people
who love righteousness and justice as much as God does.
God does not want to extend a pure bloodline based on genetics,
with those descended from Abraham or King David
or Menno Simons, or from anyone else.
God does not want to establish a pure people
who engage in all the proper rituals and religious rites,
or recite perfectly-worded creedal formulas,
or speak, think, and believe all the right things.
No! God wants lovers.
God wants worshipers.
God wants devotees,
people who are utterly smitten,
who have fallen in love,
who are attracted by everything that smells of God.
God wants an exclusive monogamous covenantal commitment
to God’s priorities in this world.
God wants to be in a relationship with
those who love justice and righteousness.
Sorry if that sounds too romantic for your taste.
But this is biblical reality.
God is love.
God loves us.
And we are invited to love God back,
with the same passion that God pours out on us.
If we are filled with that kind of love,
we will share God’s passion for the well-being of all,
we will protect the vulnerable,
we will care for the poor and the small and the wounded,
we will grieve what God grieves,
and we will rejoice in that which brings God joy.
Like any significant romantic partnership,
the romance may ebb and flow.
We will go through rough patches.
It requires effort on our part to maintain closeness.
We must learn to forgive ourselves, and—dare I even say it—
forgive God.
Or at least, forgive the God we thought we knew,
when God’s perceived actions don’t quite line up
with what we expected or hoped for.
But like any good relationship, we persist.
We respect what God has poured into us, and into our vineyard,
and produce fruit accordingly.
The more we cultivate our love for God,
the more likely our lives will be characterized,
by loving what God loves;
the more likely that we will be ignited with a passion
for the same things God is passionate about.
Join me, if you are willing, in the prayer of confession,
in your bulletin and on the screens.
one God, who sings an endless love song
to us and to all your creation,
all we confess we often neglect to listen for your song,
one we forget the words, and cannot recall the tune,
we get lost in vain efforts to earn your approval.
all Still, you keep singing your love for us,
one in the voices of nature, in the tongues of diverse peoples,
in the poetry and prose of scripture.
all God, help us to hear. We will listen, and we will sing back to you.
[silence]
one The God who made us and loves us,
and who loves righteousness and justice,
accepts our confession, forgives us,
and the love song goes on, and on, and on.
—Phil Kniss, November 19, 2023
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