The image that weaves through three of today’s readings is the vineyard.
Scripture often, as in these texts, employs the image of vineyard/vine to describe the people of God. Given the destruction that happens to the vineyard/vine in two of the readings, I was led to ponder: Will there be a time as the result of droughts, wildfires and floods that a vineyard will no longer exist, and we won’t know what the metaphor stands for? Perhaps, vineyards are already producing wild grapes. As the globe continues to heat up, what biblical creation metaphors will cease to have a referent?
The Isaiah passage is one of my favorites with this haunting, pathos-filled question from God the vineyard owner: What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? God wants to know why we have produced wild grapes when the vineyard owner has tended us with such care. The question is on God’s lips but what if it is placed on ours: What more could we have done for the vineyard/for creation that we have not done in it? Here is a pathos of a different kind and the evoking of a further question. Do we really want to know? Do we really want to know what else we could’ve done? The answer to God’s articulation of the question is– “nothing else”, but the answer to ours is a very long one indeed.
The rest of the passage describes the consequences of producing wild grapes: the vineyard is devoured; it’s trampled; it's laid to waste. It is no longer lovingly tended to and the clouds no longer shower rain upon it. When we fail to produce the fruit God seeks, we witness the impact.
The last word of the passage is intriguing. God expected righteousness and justice, but saw bloodshed and heard a cry. Whose cry is it? The earth’s? The creatures? The oppressed people’s? The people who have oppressed? Or is it God’s?
Psalm 80
As a pastor, I hesitate to put words of lament about racial justice and climate justice onto people’s lips. Laments are meant to be a reflection of sorrow and pain emerging from the depths of the heart, but often people haven’t done that work; so the words become just that, words not heart-wrenching plea. [This doesn’t mean these realities are absent from confession, preaching and prayers]. But today we have this gift of Psalm 80 which is a communal lament. It is not I or our racial justice team or our creation care team writing words but the ancient words of Scripture where the people lament where they find themselves. Certainly, this lament can be used to talk about where we find ourselves vis-a-vis creation and racial justice.
In this psalm the pathos that came from God in Isaiah seems now to come from the people. Why have you broken down the walls so that we are no longer protected? The people understand that they had been tended to as a vine but now everything has changed. Yes, indeed, everything has changed not only for humanity but for earth and sky and all its creatures. The psalm can be read as blaming God for withdrawing support but it can also be heard as another question for us to ponder. Why are we feeling no longer protected from fires, floods, tornadoes, earthquakes? Can we delve into the role we have played in that reality?
The lament begins and ends with the people’s understanding that in order to move into a new future, they need God. Restore us; turn again; look down and see; have regard for this vine. Only with our acknowledgement of where we are and of our deep need for God will we be able to undertake the restoration work of repairing creation and relationships between peoples.
Matthew 21
In this parable we once again have the image of the vineyard and what it means to care for it and the larger question of who does it and its harvest belong to? On this Indigenous Peoples’ Day what a great text to use in order to uplift Native American connection to the land. Native peoples seem to have an innate sense that everything belongs to the Great Spirit not to us. This has also been my understanding of my Christian faith, but I recognize that that has not been Christian practice and certainly not Native American experience of white Christians and their need to possess and own, even if that means through deceit and violence. If I were preaching this Sunday, I might make reference to Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann. We are reading this as a congregation and inviting people to go to the movie. It is the story of the Osage people who were forced to leave their home to go to Oklahoma where the land they “were given” just happens to sit on oil. White men marry Native women whom they then kill so they can get ownership of the land and the oil wealth. Perhaps, you hear the similarities to the parable? Uncovering the truth took a long time and required an outsider to discover it. That, too, connects to the parable. The insiders have lost their way. It’s easy to do. We pray that the outsider who is crucified outside the gates whose message continually trips us up becomes the cornerstone for our lives and our communities.