Tending the Vineyard
based on Matthew 21:33-46, Isaiah 5:1-7, Psalm 80:7-15
by Rev. Karen A. Goltz

            From what I've heard, vineyards are a huge investment.  The vines have to be nurtured and cultivated for years after they're planted before they're able to produce a viable crop.  Years of painstaking work, caring for these tiny, fragile vines, but done with the hope and expectation that eventually these vines will produce sweet fruit fit to be turned into the finest wines.  The payoff of this fruit makes it all worth it in the end; the expectation of that payoff turns all that painstaking labor into a labor of love.

            The owner of the vineyard in Matthew's text knows that his vines have produced a worthy harvest, but the tenants taking care of the vineyard have seized the grapes for themselves, doing violence to the slaves and even killing the son of the owner.  They deny him the fruit of his own vineyard.

            The owner of the vineyard in Isaiah's text is able to harvest his grapes, only there's no reason for him to do so.  He is rewarded for all his hard work with a crop of wild grapes, sour, unusable.  His hopes and expectations for the sweet fruit of his labors go unfulfilled.

The psalmist paints a mournful picture of a vine brought out of Egypt, lovingly cared for so it flourished, only to be cut down, its fruit devoured by beasts of the land and strangers passing by.

            Vineyards and grapes are all around us in these readings, but none of these readings has anything to do with grapes or vineyards.

            The psalmist's sad picture has the people of Israel identifying themselves as this vine.  They say to God, "You have brought a vine out of Egypt; you cast out the nations and planted it.  You cleared the ground for it; it took root and filled the land."  They describe themselves as a vine strong enough and big enough to cover the mountains in its shadow.  Cedars, tall and mighty, are dwarfed by this single grapevine that God brought out of Egypt.  Such pride in having been chosen by God, freed from their slavery in Egypt and led to the promised land.  Only, just as God had once made the walls of Jericho crumble and fall, the city to be pillaged and plundered by these chosen people, these chosen people themselves have now crumbled and fallen.  They are now being pillaged and plundered, all their strength and might gone.  In the verses of this psalm that we didn't read this morning, the people are crying out to God for salvation.  Over and over again they beg to be restored to the place of special favor that they once enjoyed.  "Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel," (Psalm 80:1a) they cry.  "Stir up your might, and come to save us!  Restore us, O God of hosts; let your face shine upon us, and we shall be saved.  O Lord God of hosts, how long will you be angry with your people's prayers (Psalm 80:2b-4)... Restore us, O God of hosts; let your face shine upon us, and we shall be saved (Psalm 80:7)... Restore us, O God of hosts; let your face shine upon us, and we shall be saved. (Psalm 80:19)"

             This psalm, taken by itself, shows Israel to be innocent victims of the Lord's wrath.  They blame God for making them drink tears, and for making them the scorn of their enemies.  They acknowledge that God is angry with them, but they make no mention of what may have caused that anger.  They only cry out to God to restore them, and give them life.

            The prophet Isaiah tells us God's point of view.  First using the vineyard metaphor, Isaiah speaks of a vinedresser who lovingly cultivates his vines, doing everything possible to encourage sweet, rich grapes to grow unhindered, only to have the grapes themselves inexplicably rebel against him.  Almost as though in response to the cries of the people in Psalm 80, God says, "What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it...For 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 he saw bloodshed; [he expected] righteousness, but [he] heard a cry!"  God agrees that he did indeed tear down the vineyard, just as the psalmist accuses him, but he also explains why.  After doing all he could to cultivate and nurture his beloved people, they turned from him, and rebelled against him.  He cultivated them to be just and righteous, showing them mercy upon mercy, choosing them out of sheer grace, and they chose bloodshed over justice, and rebellion over righteousness.

            Two points of view: Israel's and God's.  I find myself sympathizing with both.  On one hand, I can understand where the psalmist is coming from.  They'd had all this good fortune for so long, it seemed a birthright to them.  It was their own, to do with as they wished.  To suddenly have it all taken away like that is devastating.  To suddenly be the conquered, rather than the conquerors.  To suddenly be despised, rather than feared.  Overall, they were good people, just doing their best to get ahead.  They had minds of their own--given to them by God--and they were doing what was right and just in their own sight.  What had they done that was so terrible that it deserved their being brought down so low?

            But on the other hand, God did nurture and protect his people, choosing them based on no merit of their own, wanting only for them to remain faithful to him and practice his justice and righteousness.  Instead they rebelled, using all the good things God had given them out of sheer grace to further their own personal objectives, turning away from the source of all their good fortune while claiming that fortune to be their own.  Just like the wicked tenants in Matthew's gospel.  Just like us.

            It's easy enough to say that we'd do differently if we were those tenants in the gospel story.  It's easy enough to say that we're thankful to God for all that we have, but it's also just as easy to treat all that we have as our own personal possessions, to forget that the source of our fortunes also has a claim on them.  Instead we might get a little offended when different people and organizations try to make demands on our money, and on our time.  There are so many demands being made on us, and we've worked so hard for what we have.  We've earned it.  To just keep on giving something for nothing is not the way the world works.

Those tenants worked for years, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, before the vines produced grapes worthy to be harvested.  And then the owner of the vineyard, who hadn't done a thing to earn those grapes, sent his slaves to collect them.  Sure, he gave the tenants what they needed to be able to produce those grapes, and they presumably knew that they weren't the rightful owners of the vineyard, but that's not the same as our situations, is it?

There was a prayer as part of the liturgy in the old Lutheran Book of Worship that didn't seem to make it into the new red hymnal.  After the gifts had been received and before the Great Thanksgiving, we would pray, "Merciful Father, we offer with joy and thanksgiving what you have first given us--our selves, our time, and our possessions, signs of your gracious love.  Receive them for the sake of him who offered himself for us, Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen."  In that prayer we give thanks for the gifts God has given us, and then we offer those gifts back to God.  As the fruit of his labor.

            I find it interesting that our selves is listed first.  Ourselves.  Who are we?  And what is it about ourselves that is such a gift that we are to offer it back to God?  How do we do that?

            I remember one night back in seminary I was debating with some friends about how a person can be defined.  Yes, this is what some seminarians argue about late at night.  The position I held then, and that I still hold now, is that a person can't really be defined outside of relationships with others.  It's how we respond in human relationships, what we do, what we say, what we allow to be done to us and said to us, that helps determine who we really are as people.  How we offer ourselves to others, and how we accept when others offer themselves to us.

            Think about your own relationships.  How do you offer yourself to your family, and to your friends?  It's through your time, and your possessions.  These things are extensions of ourselves, and so we offer ourselves through them.  It's not the actual time, or the actual possessions that matter as much as the part of yourself that you're giving through them, out of love for the other person.

            God cleared the stones from fertile ground, and planted the choicest vines.  God built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat.  God leased his vineyard out to us, and the vines took root and filled the land with its fruit.  But we kept the fruit for ourselves, and killed God's messengers.  What more could God do, that he had not already done?

God sent his Son to us, and we killed him, too.  But he is not like the other messengers.  We gave him death, and he conquered that death and transformed it into everlasting life for us all.  He responded to our greed and envy with love and mercy.  You might say he got nothing, and then gave something for it.  The world doesn't work that way, but thank God that God does.

How will we respond to that?  Will we continue to do what is right in our own sight, still claiming the grapes to be our own?  Or will we accept that we are merely tenants, unable to produce anything on our own and recipients of a grace that surpasses our understanding?  Amen.