Sunday 17th August 2025

Isaiah 5: 1-7

Psalm 80: 1-2, 8-18 Pentecost 10 2025.

Hebrews 11: 29-12: 2

St. Luke 12: 49-56

“My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.” Isaiah 5: 1b

I don’t normally quote children’s stories in my sermons on 2 successive Sundays, but today is going to be an exception!… Perhaps we are familiar with the Amelia Bedelia children’s series… Amelia is a maid to a wealthy family, the Rogers. Amelia regularly misunderstands figures of speech, and takes everything literally, with wild and comic results. For example, if Amelia is simply told to “draw the curtains, “ she will literally draw a picture of the curtains!… Amelia has to be told to “un-dust the furniture,” or else the furniture will be covered with dust… The Rogers family learns to give very specific instructions to Amelia – simply telling her to “change the bathroom towels” just won’t do…

Part of understanding the Bible well is to recognize what kind of writing we are reading in the Bible – including, figures of speech, and images and metaphors… History in the Bible needs to be treated as history, not as myth… Prophecy is prophecy. Apocalyptic literature – about the end times, and God’s divine rule – needs to be understood as material about the end times, and God’s divine rule – and so forth…

So, when we are confronted with today’s first reading, as the prophet Isaiah prophecies about a “vineyard,” we likely will catch on pretty quickly that Isaiah isn’t trying to teach us how to grow grapes, or how to make wine… Instead, the image of a vineyard is telling us about God; and about God’s people… This is unsurprising, because the entire canon of the Bible is to reveal God’s divine purposes for our lives…

But let’s dig a little deeper: What point is being made in this prophecy about a vineyard, which isn’t really about what we grow and eat at all?… If we come to a hard or confusing part in the Bible, let’s not skip over it… Instead, let’s dig into it deeply…

When we read today’s first reading thoughtfully, we would expect that the vineyard would do very well!… It has been planted on “a very fertile hill.” It has been “cleared of stones;” and the plants are healthy seeds. All the soil conditions for a healthy vineyard have been met…

Yet, clearly something goes very wrong: Twice Isaiah mentions that the grapes become

wild, and are unsuitable. Isaiah 5: 2:

(My beloved)… (we can consider, who might the beloved of God’s people be)…

(My beloved) expected (the vineyard) to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.

Verse 4:

When I expected it to yield grapes,

Why did it yield wild grapes?

Something has gone very wrong with the harvest of the divine vineyard-keeper: All the conditions are there for a good harvest, but the harvest is remarkably unsuitable…

The prophecy leads to a dark result for the unsuitable vineyard. Verse 5 and following:

And now I will tell you

what I will do to my vineyard.

I will remove its hedge,

and it shall be devoured;

I will break down its wall,

and it shall be trampled down.

I will make it a wasteland;

it shall not be pruned or hoed,

and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns…

The end of the vineyard is ominous; it ends in its destruction… The reading closes:

For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts

(There it is – the Creator of the vineyard is God himself – this isn’t really about growing grapes; it’s about our relationship with the Living God)

For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his cherished garden; he expected justice but saw bloodshed;

righteousness, but heard a cry! (v. 7)

God the divine Gardener looks for justice among his people, but sees bloodshed… He looks for righteousness, but instead hears a cry…

Now, as we get to know the Bible better, we might think: Where else is there some teaching about a vineyard, which really is teaching us about God’s reign, and our response to it?… As we get to know the Bible better, we will likely remember Jesus teaching the Parable of the Wicked Tenants. Mark 12: 1-12:

Jesus then began to speak to them in parables: “A man planted a vineyard… At harvest time, (The Creator of the vineyard) sent many (servants to collect some of the produce of the harvest); some of them they beat, others they killed. He sent (his son) last of all, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ “But the tenants said to one

another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ So they took him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard… “hat then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others… (Mark 12: 1, 2, 4-9)

This is clearly a Parable of Jesus about God’s people of the time rejecting God’s ways, and they lose the privilege of being lifelong tenants. The chief priests and teachers of the law and the elders know that Jesus is telling a parable about them:

Then the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders looked for a way to arrest (Jesus) because they knew he had spoken the parable against them. But they were afraid of the crowd; so they left him and went away (v. 12).

The prophecies near the beginning of Isaiah take place some 800 years before Jesus, when the Assyrians are a threat to God’s people. God’s people of the time had the opportunity to live God’s way, so that righteousness could reign in the land, and for God’s justice and divine purposes would be fulfilled in them in covenant love… Yet, Isaiah prophecies a bad end for the unrepentant… This prophecy can be read as the consequences of the rebellion of an ancient people – or perhaps, the message can be viewed as something more…

Jesus telling the Parable of the Wicked Tenants can be read that so many of God’s people of his time were rejecting the Messiah’s message of God’s rule and reign being inaugurated in Jesus. That is a classical reading of the text – or perhaps, the message can be viewed as something more…

The point of reading the contents of the Bible is not just to see how God has been at work in the past… It’s also an opportunity to consider, how is God at work in me, today? And, how is God at work in us, today?…

I respectfully suggest that you and I are meant to be challenged by the ancient illustration of the vineyard: You and I have been given all the conditions to flourish under the gracious umbrella of God’s providence… But – are our hearts soft? Are we turning toward him? Are we praying and working for a righteous kingdom around us, and within us?…

We can’t change the past. But we can choose to live more deeply and more fully, to be all that God desires from us. Christ has paid the full price for our freedom. The Spirit of the Lord dwells in us. May we dedicate our own lives to God’s best, and pursue his desires fervently and steadily; world without end.

Amen.