You may have noticed that Old Testament Lesson and the Gospel Lesson both use the imagery of the vineyard. The vineyard was important because it supplied the grapes used for making wine which was an important staple for the people. Jesus makes good use of the vineyard as an example to show how God works with us. We are like the vineyard, we do nothing, instead we are continually tended to. Whereas, God is the Vinedresser, He is the one who comes to tend us, giving us everything we need. God is the one who gets us ready for planting. He clears our lives of the stumbling stones that get in the way of our coming to faith. He plows us and gets us ready for the planting of His seed of faith. He waters that seed and works it until the fruit of our faith appears. Let us get to our text and see what God says.
Our text begins with the beloved speaking. We read beginning at verse one, “1Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. 2He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes” (v.1-2).
These first two verses reveal to us that the prophet is singing to the Lord, concerning the Lord, and at the same time expressing the thoughts of the Lord. He says, “My beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill.” The Lord did not take any old vineyard, rather He searched and found the choicest of vineyards, one that was just right.
After finding the choicest vineyard He put a lot of work into His vineyard. He dug and cleared the land of any stones that might hamper the vines from growing to their full potential. And he planted His vineyard with the choicest of vines. Just any old vine would not do. His had to be the best.
Next, in order to assure the protection of His vines against anything that might happen to them, He built a watchtower to overlook His vineyard. In the next verse we will find that He also built a hedge, and a wall around His vineyard in order to protect the good grapes He was growing. His vineyard became somewhat of a fortified city.
Finally He built a winepress in His vineyard. The winepress shows with what confidence He did all His work. He did not plan to labor in vain, rather He labored with a confident expectation of harvesting good grapes in which to make good wine.
Continuing on in our text we have the Lord speaking picking up at verse three, “3And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. 4What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? 5And 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. 6I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and briers and thorns shall grow up; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it” (v. 3-6).
Evidently the vineyard did not fulfill the Lord’s expectations. So the Lord comes to ask for the people to be the judge between He and His vineyard. Did the Lord do everything He could for the vineyard or was there more that He could have done? Was it the Vinedresser’s fault, or was it the vineyards fault that it did not bear good grapes?
The Lord asks, “what more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it?” As a good Vinedresser He knows that He has done everything that could do for His vineyard. All that He did was laid out in verses one and two.
Because He has done all that He believes He could do for the vineyard and because He believes the vineyard is at fault, He decides what He will do to the vineyard. He will judge His vineyard. He says that he will take away the hedge and break down the wall. This action is tantamount to saying that He will destroy the vineyard. With no hedge and no wall the vineyard will be subject to any and all invasions. People, animals, anything and anyone can come in and trample the vineyard.
But there is more. He will not prune the vineyard, and He will command the rain not to water it. He will give the vineyard its own way. It can grow wherever it wants to grow, if it can grow, because He will also stop the rain from watering it. As we can see, this is a pretty harsh judgement on the vineyard.
We go to the last verse of our text for the interpretation. We read verse seven, “7For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting; and he looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, an outcry!” (v.7).
Isaiah tells us that the vineyard is the house of Israel. God chose the children of Israel from all the other nations of the earth, not because they were special, but simply because He chose them. He cleared their lives of stumbling stones. He wiped out the nations in the promised land for them. He did this many times during their lineage as His people. He did everything He could, everything imaginable for His people. He called them back to repentance time and time again. He saved them time and time again.
The vineyard owner is the Lord. He is the perfect Vinedresser. He knew when to cultivate, when to plow, when to sow, when to reap. He knew when to guide them to Egypt, when to deliver them from slavery, when to bring them into the promised land. God, on His part did everything as He knew to do and He did His part perfectly.
The Lord built the vineyard. He did everything He could for it. And yet, the vineyard grew only sour, wild grapes. It is as if the vines had a mind of their own. The fruit did not produce as expected, rather it rebelled against the Vinedresser to become sour and wild.
Our text has an obvious connection to the children of Israel. Today we are living in New Testament times, and by faith in Jesus, we are the new children of Israel. So, we might ask ourselves, how are we doing compared to the children of Israel of the Old Testament? Does this text speak to us? Can, or should we compared ourselves to the vineyard?
We begin in the same place Isaiah did, reminding ourselves that God gives us everything. God is the initiator. God chose us, even before He began creation He chose us. He gave us physical life at conception. He recreated us at our Baptism. He put His name on us. He gave us forgiveness of sins. He made us His own. God gives us everything we need to support our body and life. Take a look at the explanations of the articles of the Apostles’ creed and you can get a list of the many blessings that God gives to us. Very much like God gave the children of Israel everything, so God gives us everything. And very much like the children of Israel, we too often refuse God’s good gifts and blessings.
And yet we say, “how do we refuse God’s good gifts and blessings?” We refuse God’s good gifts and blessings in many and various ways. We refuse what God gives by not being given His gifts, that is by staying away from where He gives His gifts. We refuse God’s gifts by failing to make regular and diligent use of the means of grace, (and by regular and diligent use, God means every opportunity that He gives us to do so), by not reading our Bibles, by not regularly coming to divine service, by not confessing our sins and by staying away from His sacraments, not remembering our baptism and not partaking of the Lord’s Supper. Indeed, how can God pour out His blessings on us when we stay away from the very place He gives out His blessings.
There is more. We refuse God’s gifts by not acknowledging them, that is, by not giving thanks. Whenever we think that there is anything that we have because of something we have done, we forget to give God the glory. When we forget to thank Him and to acknowledge that He is the giver of all, in so doing we refuse what He gives as a gift.
And we refuse God’s gifts by not responding to His giving them, that is, by not giving back to God. When we hear God’s word and neglect to let that word shine forth in our lives, we have refused His Word. When we have the ability to work, a job to work and get a paycheck and refuse to acknowledge that all that comes from God, we are refusing to accept what He has given as a gift. Instead it becomes something we think we have earned or we think we deserve.
Yes, when it comes to producing good fruit in our lives, we are very much like the children of Israel. Very often, more often than not, we fail. We produce sour and wild grapes. Perhaps you know some sour or wild grapes. Perhaps you know someone who thinks they are in control of their own life, who is angry or upset with what they think they do not have in life or are angry and upset because they believe they have not gotten what they believe they deserve. Perhaps you know someone who blames all the bad that happens to them on others or who simply do not want to take any responsibility for themselves or someone who is angry and bitter because life is not going the way they believe it should go. Of course, we always have God’s warning that it is better that we do not have it our way, because our way is the way of sin. Rather, we would do well to always ask for God’s will and way to be done. Yes, our problem is that we are conceived and born in sin and every inclination of our heart is evil all the time. Yes, we are sour grapes.
But there is good news. Even though we fail; even though we do not bear good fruit, the Lord is still there, ready to forgive us and give us another chance.
The Gospel reminds us that God gives, and gives, and gives and He even gives some more. And even when we are negligent in our faith life, He continues to give us everything again. God’s giving does not depend on us. We may refuse God’s gifts time and time again, but He is there, always ready to give to us some more.
God’s greatest gift is His gift of forgiveness. Of course, although this gift may cost us nothing, which is why it is a gift, it cost His Son His very life. Jesus came to do for Israel what she could not do for herself, even as a nation. Jesus came to do for us what we cannot do, even as His people. Jesus lived perfectly, not getting angry or upset because He never got His own way. As a matter of fact, Jesus came, not to get His way, but to give His life according to His Father’s way. He was born with nothing and He never owned anything. Jesus lived perfectly. Jesus obeyed all God’s laws perfectly. Jesus obeyed all God’s commands perfectly. Jesus did all things perfectly and then He took all our sins on Himself, our sins of wanting our own way, our sins of being sour grapes. Jesus paid the price for all our sins with His very life, suffering the eternal death penalty for us in our place. Yes, God has given us everything and done everything for us.
We are like the vineyard, we do nothing, instead we are continually tended to we are continually done to. God is the Vinedresser, He is the one who comes to tend to us, giving us everything we need. God is the one who gets us ready for planting. He clears our lives of the stumbling stones that get in the way of our coming to faith. He plows us and gets us ready for the planting of His seed of faith. He waters that seed and works it until the fruit of our faith appears. God does, God gives and we are done to and we are given to and we say, to God be the glory. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.
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