Pent 10, yr c, 2025

I love it when I get back from a vacation, look at the readings and think…nope! Back to the mountains I go!  This is not your happy clappy Jesus today.  This is more like, Jesus read the news and thought….just burn it down!

And this theme isn’t new, Isaiah preached about how lovingly God tended to his people, singing a love song to the vineyard of Israel.  Singing about the tender care, and devoted attention God paid to the people.  How God provided all the best for them to thrive.

“What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?”

This is a theme throughout Isaiah, how God loves and cares for the people of God and how over and again they grow wild and head strong; bearing the fruit of their own interests rather than producing what God had intended.

“Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watch-tower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it;”

In terms of the metaphor here, God the gardener has done everything possible to encourage the vines to thrive and produce a wonderful grape and a full and delicious wine.  God lovingly chose the people of God… think back to Abraham and the covenant that I will be your God and you will be my people.  A covenant that through Christ has grown to include us as members of that promise.  We are the carefully chosen land, that fertile hill.  

Furthermore, through scripture, prophets, promises and much hard work God has tended that fertile hill; removing stones and sins, obstacles and ignorance, digging over the earth of our lives to ensure that we are receptive to God’s teaching.  Breaking though our hard surfaces and self interest, removing weeds and distractions… teaching us through personal care and prophetic interaction how to be a fertile people.  God built a watchtower of scripture, to make sure that we would always have the Word of God in the midst of us, reminding us to grow straight and tall. 

After all this care and love, lavished on the people, on us God felt confident that we would be a righteous and fruitful people, and in anticipation of a good harvest God dug a wine vat in the middle of the vineyard.  After all, with such loving care surely this garden would provide a vast harvest of good fruit, that could be made into a wine of abundant life and goodness.

Then comes the kicker… “but it yielded wild grapes”  not a poor harvest, but a harvest of the completely wrong thing!  A bitter tasting harvest indeed.  And God cries out to the people, “what more could I have done!”  A very valid question. 

“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 saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry!”

Now we cannot say, this is an old testament problem, a problem with Israel, though they are still producing wild grapes and bloodshed instead of righteousness.  It is an all people of God problem, closer to home we read of the news which clearly tells us that we are still producing wild grapes.  Worst still some wild grapes are convinced that they are a real good vintage.  Christians acting in ways that are by no means Christian.  In times like these I can understand Jesus’ outburst in Luke today. “‘I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!

Just verses prior Jesus spoke about how God’s people need not worry about anything.  How we are loved and provided for;

“consider the lilies of the fields.  They do no labour or spin.  Yet, I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like on of these.  If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow thrown in the fire, how much more will he clothe you.”  

 God still provides, God still cares and tends and yearns for a great harvest.  Yet, the people of God still insist on growing their own way…just as in Isaiah, in the parable of the rich fool, in the story of the manager that abuses his position.  Looking at these examples and the news around us, I can relate to Jesus in the gospel today.

“‘I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! ’”

If the people of God, at large, grow wild regardless of the tender loving care, the direction, the scripture, the forgiveness, the love that God has provided.  Is it surprising that there is division in the vineyard?

God has always called for justice, for peace, for compassion, for care and love, especially for the vulnerable.  Yet, in Christ’s name we find that there is persecution, conflict, indifference, hurt and hatred in this God’s vineyard.  In this global vineyard, that spans time and space, God expects good wine, has provided for good wine.  A wine that is used for gladdening of the heart, for the washing of wounds, for celebrating, for hospitality and as a symbol of God’s redeeming blood.  If the people of God were to call out those who put forth wild grapes for not living up to the expectations of God, surely there will be division.  

Christ was incarnate, made flesh, an example of good soil to show how good grapes can grow in the midst of the wild.  How the vineyard can be transformed by God’s love and how loving cultivation can transform even the most overgrown garden into an abundance of good fruit.  However, we don’t always want to change.  The people of God enjoy growing their own way, looking to their own self, prioritizing their own harvest, rather than growing an abundance to share.

Where there are wild grapes and cultivated grapes, or could we even say weed and fruit…gardeners know the weeds must come out or you risk them taking over and effecting the harvest at large. 

“‘I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!”  This sounds unbelievably harsh and it sounds like Jesus is calling down hell fire and brimstone.  Yet, if we look at how the symbol of fire is used in the bible we can see that fire is not always bad, but is always transforming.

The fires of Pentecost brought enlightenment and community.  In exodus, God lead the people of Israel as a pillar of fire through the night.  Fire was used to cleanse and to purify, to lead and to symbolize God’s presence among the people.  “‘I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!”  Fire, good and bad, transforms…and burning the stubble in the fields adds good nutrients back to the earth. 

God’s people are a vineyard full of wild grapes, and there is a possibility that the weeds will take over the garden.  However, we are also reminded that there is good soil out there, people of faith that we can look to for inspiration and help to keep us growing true to God’s purpose.  Hebrews lists a great variety of saints in fact, Paul says ‘Time would fail” if he tried to name them everyone in that great cloud of witnesses.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith,”

We have been given all the tools we need, all the cultivation and guidance we need to bear God’s fruit, but we are also in a garden full of weeds.  Weeds that need to be pulled, pruned, even set a fire, not so that they are destroyed, but so that the soil of the vineyard can use it’s energy bear good fruit.   This will create division and at times even set families at odds.

The goal though is not the division, nor casting out any whom we consider weeds, rather the goal has always been to cultivate the soil so that it can producing what God expects.  The fruits of righteousness, compassion, justice and love.  God has toiled, cultivated, inspired and provided all we need to work along side him to create a fruitful people.  It is up to us to interpret the times and what is needed to help all people, including ourselves be good soil for the seeds of God to bear good fruit and sometimes that is hard and unpleasant work.

“ let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.”

                                               

God’s vineyard will produce in abundance, that has been promised and we all have the opportunity to produce an abundance of fruit.  All of God’s people, through repentance and faith will thrive and grow, but it is an ongoing chore.  Some days are full of sun and rich wines, other days are given to pulling thistles.

Yet we are promised that God has provided all that is needed.  And though at times God and Christ may look around and curse ‘burn it to the ground!’ we know that God continues to sing for his beloved a love song.  We are a part of vineyard of God, the soil into which God lovingly plants his fruit, but we are not the only part of the garden.  God’s vineyard is a whole ecosystem, and to be the most fruitful all parts need to benefit each other.  To weed and to feed as is needed, ourselves and one another, so that the whole vineyard of God can thrive and produce abundantly. So that all the world, all God’s people can drink deep of the rich wine of God’s kingdom come at last. amen