Readings for today: Isaiah 5-8
The Song of the Vineyard in Isaiah is a powerful metaphor depicting the relationship between God and His people. It describes all the ways God provided for His people. All the ways God blessed His people. All the ways God worked to establish His people in the Promised Land. But the people turned their backs on God. Instead of yielding a harvest of righteousness and justice and peace, they pursued unrighteousness, injustice, and violence. They oppressed the poor. They exploited the powerless. They refused to care for the less fortunate in their midst. It’s a recurrent theme not only in the Book of Isaiah but throughout the prophetic literature. Over and over again, God asks His people to judge between Him and His vineyard. Who is in the right? Who is in the wrong? What shall be done?
Over the years, I have found the Song of the Vineyard doesn’t just apply to the relationship between God and Israel. It applies to me. It applies to our nation. It applies to all of humanity. I think about my own life and the kind of fruit I am yielding. Is it the kind of fruit that brings glory to God? Is it good fruit that blesses others? Am I seeking the righteousness and the kingdom of God first in my life? These are questions I ask myself almost every single day of my life and they are worth pondering. Then I try to turn my gaze outward. Towards the church I love and serve. Towards the nation I love and live in. Towards the world where I so often travel. Am I leading the church I serve in such a way that we will produce good fruit together? Are we seeking the righteousness and the kingdom of God first as a community? Is our presence in Parker a blessing to the town? Am I engaging our local, state, and national leaders? Am I seeking to do all I can to influence them so they will pursue righteousness and God’s kingdom first? Am I advocating for those who have no voice? The poor and powerless? Those who often get left out or left behind? When I travel abroad, am I helping to create systems that are sustainable, reproducible, righteous, and just? Am I doing all I can to help those I love and serve and train seek God’s kingdom above their own? How am I leveraging my influence to change lives and villages in some of the most remote places on earth?
The Song is worth reading again with these questions in mind. As you read, ask the Holy Spirit to show you the good fruit you are bearing as well as the bad fruit. Ask Him to bring to mind those areas of your life where God wants to affirm you and those areas of your life where you need to confess and ask His forgiveness. Ask Him to give you the wisdom to continue to till the soil of your heart so that you might bear even more good fruit in the future.
“I will sing about the one I love, a song about my loved one’s vineyard: The one I love had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He broke up the soil, cleared it of stones, and planted it with the finest vines. He built a tower in the middle of it and even dug out a winepress there. He expected it to yield good grapes, but it yielded worthless grapes. So now, residents of Jerusalem and men of Judah, please judge between me and my vineyard. What more could I have done for my vineyard than I did? Why, when I expected a yield of good grapes, did it yield worthless grapes? Now I will tell you what I am about to do to my vineyard: I will remove its hedge, and it will be consumed; I will tear down its wall, and it will be trampled. I will make it a wasteland. It will not be pruned or weeded; thorns and briers will grow up. I will also give orders to the clouds that rain should not fall on it. For the vineyard of the Lord of Armies is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah, the plant he delighted in. He expected justice but saw injustice; he expected righteousness but heard cries of despair.” (Isaiah 5:1-7 CSB)
Readings for tomorrow: Isaiah 9-12