This week we went to see lights in Vancouver. They had an Aurora (Northern Lights) festival at the PNE grounds. Heather was able to go on stage and act out the part of Santa's reindeer, Prancer; she was able to go on a lot of rides and we were able to walk around and look at a lot of really interesting lights. A few days prior, we were in Victoria. This year they have lights in Centennial Square. We took a look at those with the girls’ cousin and my folks. We also looked at the lights in Chinatown and on the Parliament Buildings. And a week ago today Heather and I went to look at the lights at Milner Gardens.
That was really quite something. Heather had been the day before so she knew exactly what she wanted to show me in the garden. We looked at all the lights through these special glasses that made them look like stars, candy canes, or reindeer. Then we had story time, cookies and hot chocolate, listened to musicians and carollers and had a very nice tea and scones. Heather was taken aback by a Christmas Tree they had in the teahouse that was decorated entirely with tea cups. It was a fun evening that Heather and I had together in the garden.
Our scripture today is about a garden, a vineyard, in which God wanted to spend time with His children, His people. Isaiah shares this song about a loved one who had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. He loved it. He tended to it. He rototilled it - or the ancient equivalent - he dug it up, picked the stones, built a watch tower, made a grape press (a wine press). He loved it. He cared for it. He did everything one could be expected to do for His vineyard. And he kept looking for a crop of good grapes from this loved, tended to vineyard on fertile soil but it refused to produce fruit.
The songwriter tells us that the Lord's vineyard which was refusing to produce fruit is Jerusalem and Judah. Later he reiterates that the vineyard are the people of Judah and Israel. We know what Judah, Jerusalem and Israel are right?
Israel was an ancient kingdom named after who? (Israel) and who was Israel? What was his other name? (Jacob). And who was the person Judah in the Bible? (Jacob's son). The ancient Kingdom of Israel were people descended from Jacob and they were made up of 12 or 13 provinces/tribes named after Israel's sons and/or grandsons. About 60 years after Israel became a Kingdom there was a civil war and the country split into two. The southern country named itself after its dominant province/tribe: Judah. That would be like if Canada spilt up and we just named the new entity back east Toronto or Ontario or just called the West here BC, Vancouver or Alberta. The southern country is called Judah. The northern country keeps the name Israel. (As a result sometimes the name Israel can refer to just the northern country and sometimes it can refer to both. Just like with present day Korea. If we say Korea we may mean South Korea, North Korea or both the Koreas. It was the same with East and West Germany when I was growing up.) The capital of Israel is Samaria and the capital of Judah is Jerusalem. Jerusalem may be mentioned here not only because it is the main city but because sometimes you refer to a whole country by just its capital. In Canada we like to blame Ottawa for things that that city is really no more to blame than any other city who elected the same people to office and the world blames Washington - rightfully or wrongfully - for a lot of our woes today.
So then this is what Isaiah is saying in the song: he is saying that the Lord's vineyard that is refusing to produce fruit is Judah and Jerusalem (the southern kingdom and its capital) and Israel (the northern kingdom and all of both of the kingdoms). These are the people of God and the One who loves them, provides for them, and cultivates them is God.
In the song, he tells us some of the ways God has been cultivating His people whom He loves. They, however, refuse to produce fruit and as a consequence they will no longer be His vineyard. They will instead be a wasteland in perpetual drought because, even though God loved them and cultivated them, and planted them in fertile ground, they still refused to produce fruit. The fruit that they refused to produce, Isaiah tells us, is justice and righteousness and as a result the vineyard is destroyed. Historically speaking this happens. The Kingdom Israel is destroyed in 586 BCE and the Kingdom of Judah is wiped from history in 720BCE - never to rise again until the end of the age.
God has tended to our country too - just like He did with Israel and Judah. He has provided us a very fertile land. He has provided us a heritage of faith. Even many of the First Nations here have been Christian as long as the Germans have been Lutheran or the Scots Presbyterian. Our constitutional acts of 1867 and 1982 recognize the supremacy of God, as does our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Order of Canada's motto comes from Hebrews 11 and the country's motto comes from Psalm 72. God has provided many good things for this country, His Dominion. We are among the best blessed nations on earth; so have we borne fruit in keeping with repentance? Are we producing fruit of righteousness and justice?
Prime Minister Pierre Eliot Trudeau spoke about moving us towards a just society. His government was the one that enshrined God and the Bible in the Order of Canada, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the Constitutional Act of 1982. How are we doing today, about 40 years later, in the reign of Justin Trudeau at being a just society? Let us look at what Isaiah says about what a just and an unjust society looks like.
Isaiah says,
Woe to you who add house to house
and join field to field
till no space is left
and you live alone in the land.
He says in a just society small family farms won’t be taken over by large corporate one - like is happening all over the Canadian prairies today. And the wealthy will not monopolize the housing so that the poor have no place to live in the land. Gene M. Tucker says, “in the eighth century BCE, economic shifts in the direction of capitalism were undermining the traditional ideas of stewardship of the land.” In our time and place, how are we doing at providing accessible housing and the like?
Isaiah says,
11 Woe to those who rise early in the morning
to run after their drinks,
who stay up late at night
till they are inflamed with wine.
12 They have harps and lyres at their banquets,
pipes and timbrels and wine,
but they have no regard for the deeds of the Lord,
no respect for the work of his hands.
He says a just society is one where people do not spend their days in idle pursuits such as drinking and their nights out partying abusing their bodies with noise, food and booze; gorging themselves completely forgetting that it is the Lord who provided these resources for us to use and to share with our neighbour. The inference here can be made that the rich are indulging themselves while the poor go hungry. Geoffrey W. Grogan says, “in an affluent society all do not always profit from increased wealth” if that was the case then how are we doing at taking care of our neighbour today as well as not abusing our own mind, body, and spirit through overindulgence?
Isaiah says,
18 Woe to those who draw sin along with cords of deceit,
and wickedness as with cart ropes,
19 to those who say, “Let God hurry;
let him hasten his work
so we may see it.
The plan of the Holy One of Israel—
let it approach, let it come into view,
so we may know it.”
He says that in a righteous and just society, people will not be deceptive and we will not challenge God. A just society is one who perseveres and waits upon the Lord rather than one that whines and grumbles reminiscent of the Hebrews in the desert after the LORD delivered them from Egypt or in Judah of Isaiah’s day. What about our day? Do we remember what the Lord has done? Are we appreciative of what He is doing in our lives or do we bait Him, challenge Him, and mock Him; demanding that he perform for us when summoned like a genie in a bottle? How do we do today at loving, trusting, and waiting upon the Lord?
Isaiah says,
20 Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter.
21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes
and clever in their own sight.
He says that their society had become so unjust that people were calling good evil and evil good. I have heard that same complaint more than once in our contemporary Canadian society. I think in this age of twitter, facebook, social media; mainstream media, parliament, and universities, many of us have become wise in our own eyes projecting, accepting, rejecting things based simply on how we feel inside ourselves about it. I think there are many these days who think that they, that we are so clever; has our wisdom really become so limited? Have we become wise in our own eyes?
Isaiah says,
22 Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine
and champions at mixing drinks,
23 who acquit the guilty for a bribe,
but deny justice to the innocent.
He says woe to those who are heroes at things as harmful or as inconsequential as imbibing but ignore the importance of justice. Woe to those who give preferential verdicts to those who can afford a lawyer to argue their case eloquently over the working poor or others who are not able to afford for justice. The justice system in this country is one that is particularly skewed in favour of the wealthy, the educated, and the eloquent; leaving the rest outside in the cold. Maybe there are outright bribes in some western countries. The US elects their judges. It costs money to get elected. Who are the judges indebted too? But even if there is not individual corruption there or here, this passage is not speaking to individual rights; it is speaking to societies that deny justice to the poor; is that us?
These aren’t just rhetorical questions that I am asking. I am not looking to be upset and downcast on this new year. If these condemnations do apply to us as well as to Israel then Isaiah offers us the same consequences. Isaiah does say,
24 Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up straw
and as dry grass sinks down in the flames,
so their roots will decay
and their flowers blow away like dust;
for they have rejected the law of the Lord Almighty
and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel.
But Isaiah also has this to say. In Isaiah 4, just prior to this pericope, Isaiah spoke about the branch of the Lord and look here at Verse 15. Isaiah always embeds hope in the midst of distress. Isaiah always includes good news. Isaiah often speaks of the coming Messiah and as a result Isaiah has even been referred to as the fifth gospel. Isaiah says,
15 So people will be brought low
and everyone humbled,
the eyes of the arrogant humbled.
16 But the Lord Almighty will be exalted by his justice,
and the holy God will be proved holy by his righteous acts.
He says people will be brought low; everyone will be humbled including the arrogant; and the Lord will be proved holy by his righteous acts. This is important. When we are humble the Lord will lift us up; when we are down He will restore us; He will make us holy. But when we exalt ourselves we will be brought low. And once we are humbled He will lift us up again.
This is how it works. What God wants is for us to love Him and our neighbour the same way that He loves us; He wants to care for us and give us the joy of the Lord even when life is miserable. Sometimes, however, we try and do things on our own; sometimes we think that we can handle things just fine; sometimes we do what is right in our own eyes, under our own strength. That is sad because if we only rely on ourselves, who do we turn to when we are humbled? But when we rely on the Lord seeking His justice and righteousness, seeking His face, He promises that we will find Him and He will comfort us when we mourn and He will embrace us as we grieve; as we seek the Lord we will find Him and as we hold onto His embrace, He will never let us go. Let us in this New Year resolve to seek the Lord for it is from Him that we get our strength, our love, and our power to continue on.
Let us pray.
Let us pray.
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