Scripture: Isaiah 5:1–7; 11:1–10
It is winterizing season in the Sturtevant yard. Probably in yours, too. This was the week that we raked and mulched leaves. We got in the pond one last time to pull out debris, before it gets cold enough to make hypothermia a reality. We cut back the hackberry trees that always find a bit of a stump left to grow a branch from. And we watered the baby grass a couple more times to make sure it got the nutrients it needed before the cold sets in.
While I stood there with the hose, it was perhaps appropriate that I was listening to podcasts about today’s passage. It makes good use of a horticultural metaphor, namely that of a vineyard.
Remember that we are in a series looking at the prophets, who tend to use poetic and metaphoric language to talk about God’s relationship to humanity. Last week, we read an emotional metaphor from Hosea about how God is like a loving but ignored parent of a rebellious teenager. God remembered fondly all of the parental things that he had done for the people, but they thought they knew better and engaged in some pretty risky and destructive behavior. But nonetheless, like the God of the Old Testament consistently does, God still loved the people and could not stop loving them.
In some ways, this week is rinse and repeat from last. Hosea preached and wrote prophetic poetry to the northern tribes, probably just a few years before the Assyrian Empire invaded and exiled the people forever. At about the same time, a prophet named Isaiah was preaching to the southern kingdom of Judah. Clearly, it was a terrifying time to be alive. Their siblings to the north had just been destroyed, and they found themselves in a similar spot just a few miles to the south. Would their destruction be next? If Hosea used a rebellious and unfaithful teenager for his metaphor in the north, Isaiah in the south used a “rebellious” and “unfaithful” vineyard.
According to the metaphor, God took a wild and unkempt land turned it into a beautiful vineyard. There was a fence around it. There was a tower, to watch for fires or enemies. There was a winepress for the grapes. And there were beautifully kept vines, meant to provide the choicest grapes. But the vineyard was equally “unfaithful.” Instead of choice grapes, the text says that it grew wild grapes…some translations call them poison-berries or stink-berries. Not your prime wine grapes. For Isaiah, the metaphor is about God’s commandments of Torah, and the people’s rebellion and unfaithfulness. He uses these twin concepts of mishpat and tzadiquah: justice and righteousness. Foundational commands of God for God’s people. God planted mishpat and tzadiqah. But poison-berries came up instead. We miss the wordplay in English, but verse 7 says:
God expected mishpat (justice)…but saw mispawkh (slaughter, oppression, bloodshed).
God expected tzadiqah (righteousness)…but heard tsahakaw (a cry of distress).
God planted one thing, but something altogether different came up. Like if I planted a deep Kentucky bluegrass, but got a yard full of henbit or crabgrass. Imagine my distress if that happened. Imagine God’s distress when it did. The vineyard owner threw his hands into the air. The vineyard was a total loss. So he took out the hedge and the wall. He let the wild animals come in. He stopped pruning or digging or caring for the vines. If they wanted to be wild, he would let them!
You cannot talk about the language of the prophets without talking about God’s punishment of the people. Inherent in the prophetic sharpness of tongue is the assumption that God’s chosen and protected and cared-for people do not have to stay protected and cared-for. Like the image of a parent who won’t stop loving a rebellious child, but chooses to stop enabling their unhealthy behavior, God in the prophetic imagination is often seen withdrawing the hedge of protection around the people. If they want to live that way…if they want to rebel…if they want to grow stink-berries instead of choice grapes, God will let them. In parenting, we would call it natural discipline or natural consequences. God’s punishment is not really arbitrary or excessive, but the natural consequences of their actions. In the prophetic imagination, God says, “you want to choose slaughter and oppression and bloodshed instead of justice? Go ahead and see where it gets you. You want to choose distress instead of righteousness. Be my guest. You’d rather grow that rotten fruit than the fruit I have planted in you?…” God says, with anger and frustration and heartbreak, “it’s your funeral.” And it was.
And it is. Just like Isaiah’s world, we again live in terrifying times. And just like Isaiah’s world, we turn in our fear to those who would offer slaughter and oppression and bloodshed. There is a whole world crying out because of the lack of justice and righteousness. Wars and rumors of wars. Gun violence. Hate crimes and race violence. Oppressing and dehumanizing the poor. Refusing care for the sick. Again and again, we chose the gods of Empire and their values. Just turn on the news or open the paper or your app, and you’ll find it filled with the poison-berries of mispawkh and tsahakaw!
The good news last week was that although God removed the hedge of protection, and stopped cultivating among vines who didn’t want to be cultivated, God never stopped loving the people. The good news this week is similar, but with a caveat. We leave the passage in Isaiah 5 with an abandoned wasteland. Animals running wild among the vines, chewing them down to the stump. The hedgerow uprooted. The tower gone. But a few chapters after Isaiah 5, there is another horticultural metaphor passage that offers a different word:
Isaiah 11.1–10
1 A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
2 The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
3 His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see
or decide by what his ears hear,
4 but with righteousness he shall judge for the poor
and decide with equity for the oppressed of the earth;
he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
5 Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist
and faithfulness the belt around his loins.
6 The wolf shall live with the lamb;
the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
the calf and the lion will feed together,
and a little child shall lead them.
7 The cow and the bear shall graze;
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
8 The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
9 They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
10 On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.
See the connection? From the old, abandoned stump, a shoot has started to grow. From the roots that once were thought dead, a branch is reaching toward the sun. Like my hackberries, even when you think that they are dead and cut to the ground, there is new life bursting forth. And the animals who once fought over the wild grapes are now lying together in peace. I imagine God as the once-exasperated vineyard owner walking through the rows one day. Grieving what could have been. Wishing things had been different. But then, hidden under the dead leaves, he spots a shoot. Maybe the vineyard isn’t hopeless after all?!
This is a pretty big shift between the northern prophetic language to the southern prophets. When Isaiah starts talking about someone from the line of David, and Jesse his father, bringing new life, it is of theological significance. Not only is God present in the refusal to give up on God’s people—the message of Hosea—but now God will be present in a new way. Through a change-agent, who might, just maybe, bring the people back to the commandments of God. Did you notice our old friends again?
Isaiah 5:
God expected mishpat (justice)…but saw mispawkh (slaughter, oppression, bloodshed).
God expected tzadiqah (righteousness)…but heard tsahakaw (a cry of distress).
Isaiah 11:
Tzadiqah (righteousness) in vss. 4 and 5
Mishpat for the oppressed (mishor…equity, uprightness, literally a level place) in vs. 4
Shalom (peace) in vss. 6-9
So who is this change agent? Want to start a fight in a seminary class? Ask that question. A lot of scholars will point to historic southern kings who got it mostly right. There weren’t any in the north, and not many in the south, but specifically Hezekiah and Josiah (who we’ll talk about next week) have a pretty big window of faithfulness to God. Hezekiah was 25 when he became king, and Josiah when he was 8! So the language of child leader makes sense. Of course, if you have read the Gospels, or have ever heard Handel’s Messiah, you know that the Gospel writers saw in Jesus the ultimate fulfillment of these words, and suggested that this child, this shoot of Jesse born in a manger 800 years later, was ultimately who would reign over God’s kingdom.
And without getting into that old seminary fight, I would suggest that it could be both. That Isaiah spoke about a change-agent in that time and space, who reminded the people about God’s commandments. And in the process, pointed to the values of mishpat and tzadiqah and shalom as values that God’s people should be about. That God’s leaders should be about. But that also, the complete fulfillment of that promise came in the person of Jesus. Nobody demonstrated mishpat and tzadiqah and shalom better than he did.
And maybe I am just hedging my bets, but I think what is important here is what all of these change-agents point to:
Isaiah 5:
mishpat (justice)
tzadiqah (righteousness)
Isaiah 11:
tzadiqah (righteousness)
mishpat/mishor (justice and equity)
shalom (peace)
Because maybe, just maybe, as we wander through the abandoned vineyard of our world…as we look around us at the devastation and grieve what could have been, we might see a shoot of promise. We might see the reflection of Jesus still at work in our world.
What about the change-agents in your lives? Who have you seen that demonstrates justice? Righteousness? Peace? This Thanksgiving week, name and thank God for those folks who have made a difference in your lives!
Here in a moment we are going to sing a Christmas song! I know this is a moment of joy for those of you who think we should start singing Christmas carols when Wal-Mart puts out the Christmas trees in September!
Because it is actually not a Christmas song, but an Isaiah song: Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming. It refers to this passage from Isaiah, and helps tie together Isaiah and Jesus.
This season, may we be thankful for Jesus, who taught us how to live. May we be thankful for the people in our lives who have helped bring about transformation. May we be thankful for those moments of hope, when we see in justice and righteousness and peace.
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