Summer is the gardening season. I love this time of year. Sure there is work to be done. Weeds need to be pulled, plants fertilized and protected from insects and watered when we get a dry spell. But I see results for my efforts. Carrots, tomatoes, peas and onions garnish my table. They taste delicious – much better than anything I can purchase in a supermarket.
The writer of the passage we heard read from Isaiah this morning likens God to a gardener. But in this case, God has a black thumb. Things in his vineyard are not turning out at all as he would like. It must be very discouraging because He did everything right. He dug it, cleared all the stones and planted the best vines he could find. But in the end, all he got from his vineyard was bad fruit. He gave up on his vineyard and let it go back to the wilds.
Should we read from this passage that at worst God is just a poor gardener or at best just a little impatient. We all have bad years when our gardens don’t give us the yields we might expect. Or perhaps we are guilty of poor judgement. I know this year I started planting my garden two weeks earlier than I normally would because we were going to be out of town. We had some cold nights and as a result many of my seeds didn’t germinate. I should have known better and have to chalk it up to making an error in judgement. Perhaps God, like me, just used poor judgement in planting his vines. Better luck next year. Right?
There is one big difference however. God has not misjudged the timing of his planting but sadly the nature of the vineyard he has planted. The writer of Isaiah is not talking about a bunch of grape vines but about the kingdom of Israel. These are his chosen people and he has given them everything. The psalmist reminds us of how God brought his “vine” out of Egypt. He cleared the ground, planted it and sheltered it. God kept his promises and brought the Israelites to the Promised Land. But they did not repay Him with their loyalty and love. Instead they disobeyed him, led sinful lives and worshipped false gods.
Sadly, we are no better today. We get busy with the material things in our lives and too often God’s place is far down the list of our priorities. Still we know our loving God never gives up on us. Certainly He gets very discouraged and frustrated with us as we saw in the Isaiah passage. But He constantly forgives us and seems willing to give us another chance.
Of course there is a fundamental difference between the people of Israel described in Isaiah and us today. Christ Jesus came into the world to atone for our sins and paid their price with his death. We are indeed fortunate that instead of we are justified by our faith. Paul in his letter to the Hebrew’s reminds us that Christ was the author and perfecter of our faith and has freed us so that we someday can sit with Him at God’s heavenly throne. Despite how unworthy we are, God will not pull us from His garden and toss us in his weed pile.
Sounds so simple doesn’t it? Yet following Christ is a little more complicated than that. What we heard from Luke this morning is sometimes called one of the hard sayings of Jesus. On the surface Jesus seems to be talking about divisions amongst Christians rather than unity. He tells us that families will be divided against each other: father against son, mother against daughter. Does that mean he is saying that we Presbyterians, United Church people and Lutherans shouldn’t be having joint summer worship services and sharing fellowship over coffee afterwards?
I don’t think this is what Jesus is saying at all. In the verses immediately before He refers to his Baptism of fire that is yet to come. This refers to his death, which indeed is our emancipation from sin. What we must do to honour this is to walk the walk and not just talk the talk. Christ tells us that if this brings us into conflict with our family members then so be it. Following Jesus has to come ahead of what our families or indeed our peers might think of us.
I can’t speak about Christians in the past, but I’d say for most Christians today this might prove one of His hardest teachings to follow. We live in an age of high peer pressure. Most of us would rather go with the flow and not stand out on any issue especially if it brings ridicule or derision from our friends and colleagues. I know myself that I am uncomfortable talking about God or faith issues with people who are unbelievers for fear of ridicule. Much literature has been written about peer pressure for our young people. Saying no to drugs, alcohol, tobacco and even teen sex is a struggle. Our youth want to feel accepted and to belong. Young people are strongly influenced by the argument “everyone else is doing it.” I can remember as a teenager wanting to go somewhere and my parents saying no. “But everyone else can go,” was my favourite comeback.
I don’t know about you but I get annoyed when I am driving down the highway doing the speed limit and some guy passes me. It makes me want to speed up. If all these other drivers are doing 120 or 130, why shouldn’t I? I haven’t seen a police car anywhere and I probably won’t get caught.
North American culture is obsessed with sex. Go to the local newsstand and pick up any family magazine and read the table of contents. These articles suggest anything goes. Bed hopping mate swapping are cool and totally acceptable. They use terms like “open marriage” and suggest when both partners are agreeable no one gets hurt. Unfortunately Flin Flon is not exempt from this kind of thinking. I can remember my wife telling me that when she worked in an elementary school, young children would come in on Monday and say “I got a new daddy this weekend.” Sadly some of these children had new daddies every weekend. We both heard stories of couples having sexual adventures with people to whom they were not married. We live in the instant on generation. Enjoy the moment and don’t think about the consequences. It is easy to get sucked in and defend one’s actions by saying “but everyone else is doing it.” In Matthew Jesus makes it clear that sex with a partner other than your husband or wife is a sin. It is not acceptable to say that it is okay to mate swap or to have sexual relations with someone other than your husband or wife because “everyone is doing it.” Perhaps this is an extreme example but anytime we go along with the crowd and do something that we know if wrong then we are equally in violation of what Christ has taught us about how we should live.
As a gardener, I know that I must tend by garden in order that it might flourish. The weeds must be pulled lest they choke out my plants. We too as Christians must make sure the weeds of sin don’t choke out the principles of our faith. Going with the flow is the easy route, but Jesus makes it clear that this isn’t the route we are to take. Jesus never said it would be easy to follow him and that in our worldly existence we might find few rewards. Still that doesn’t take away from the responsibility we have as workers in God’s garden in our daily life. We must make sure that the weeds and thorns do not choke out the basics of our faith and commitment to follow Christ. Amen.
