Wild Grapes

Isaiah 5:1-7:
Let me sing for my beloved
my love song concerning his vineyard:
My beloved had a vineyard
on a very fertile hill.
He 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.

And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem
and men of Judah,
judge between me and my vineyard.

What 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?

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 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.

For 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!

There is much talk of fruit in the bible. It makes sense; communities in biblical times were largely agricultural. There is a very easy correlation in planting and harvesting crops to growth and health. The consistent result is always fruit…or the lack thereof. Good fruit = everything is healthy; everything is as it should be. Lack of fruit, or bad fruit = something is wrong; things are not as they should be.

The poetry of this passage in Isaiah is disturbing. God reveals His heart in a way that seems to communicate confusion and frustration over His people’s condition:
What more is there to do with my vineyard that I haven’t already done? I’ve chosen the most fertile soil; I dug it myself, cleared it of stones and planted the best breed of plants. I built a watchtower in the middle of it to watch over and care for it; I’ve built and prepared the vat in anticipation of the great harvest, and only wild grapes. Wild Grapes!! What am I supposed to do with wild grapes??

So, what’s so bad about wild grapes?

I decided to Google the term and came across the Chateau Z vineyard in Lynchburg, Virginia. You can tell from their website that these guys are passionate about wine making and breeds of grapes and cross-breeding grapes. Very interesting stuff. Here is what they had to say about wild grapes:
Here are the wild grapes currently in the collection at Chateau Z. All are very resistant to disease and insects, but they are not wine or table grapes by any stretch of the imagination. These grapes can develop high sugar contents but it is always accompanied by high acid levels, often 5-10 times higher than cultivated grapes. A big goal that has always been in the mind of American breeders is to get the great disease and insect resistance and lose the acid and (often) strange flavors.

I immediately recognized these grapes. My entire childhood my grandmother lived in the same house until she died. Every spring we would wait for the trellis in the backyard where her porch swing hung to blossom in the thickest, green grape vines. We would wait and wait, every now and then plucking a fat, purple grape and popping it into our mouths only to screw up our faces in a sour pucker and quickly spit it back out. This would continue throughout the summer until we realized that they would never become sweet. I realize now that for however good these grapes looked, they were wild grapes; they were worthless. By the end of summer the grapes would produce only high levels of frustration as they were smashed by shoes and bare feet and tracked in through the back door, staining the linoleum. The first time I heard my grandmother swear was when she one day went out in her socks and stepped on one of these herself.

Strong, resilient, resistant to disease and insects…acidic, sour, worthless. Wild grapes.

So what am I to do? I’ll tear down the protective hedge and wall that kept the wild beasts out, they will move in and feast and trample the vines. I’ll command the sun and rain to not bother with shining and watering. I will stop caring for it myself, it will become a barren wasteland overgrown with weeds and thistles; I will move on.

What was the fruit, the good grapes that God was looking for?
I looked for justice, but found only bloodshed.
I looked for righteousness, but heard only an outcry.

Justice and righteousness.

This is a common theme throughout Isaiah, God is looking for justice and righteousness. God is not merely looking for resilience, for longevity, for resistance to evil, God is looking for His people to produce something.

Listen to what He says through Isaiah in chapter 1. After going on for a while about being sick of their religious practices that feign holiness, He says starting in verse 16:

Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your deeds from
before my eyes;
cease to do evil,
learn to do good;
seek justice,
correct oppression;
bring justice to the fatherless (the orphan),
plead the widow’s cause.

Keeping ourselves pure and undefiled from the world, from evil, is only one part of what God is looking for. When we stop here we become acidic, sour, maybe strong and resilient, but utterly useless. Learning to do good, seeking justice, correcting oppression, bringing justice to orphans and pleading the widow’s cause are all very tangible things that require us to DO something.

So how do we know when we are doing enough?

That’s just it, we cannot do enough! This is where the children of Israel got it so wrong over and over again. Jesus came and taught not a new holiness and righteousness, but brought clarity to the holiness and righteousness that God was truly looking for; holiness and righteousness that grows like ripe, delicious, hearty fruit on a well tended vine. And the root of that vine is Jesus Himself. When we find our base in Him, when we have our beginning and growth and sustenance in Him, then we take on His health and not our own. We begin to bear the kind of fruit that is pleasing to God as the natural product of who we are in Him. He begins to direct our lives and we stop worrying about doing, and what should I be doing, and how much should I be doing; and instead I am open to His leading each and every moment of each and every day. Doing then becomes a part of my life, not because I am seeking action, but instead because I am open to His leading and doing just becomes the natural and regular overflow of who I am. This is where God’s Kingdom comes and His will is done, in us, His chosen Kingdom instruments.

We are His Kingdom agents, cooperating with all that He is looking to accomplish in this world. Not wild and useless grapes, but ripe and delicious cultivated grapes of great value and worth and use.

The interesting thing about this vineyard is that it is the grape who decides; will I be wild, or will I plug into the vine and allow Him to define who I am?

God had(?) a dream

Isaiah 2:2-5:

It shall come to pass in the latter days

that the mountain of the house of the

LORD

shall be established as the highest of the

mountains,

and shall be lifted up above the hills;

and all the nations shall flow to it,

and many peoples shall come, and

say:

"Come, let us go up to the mountain of

the LORD,

to the house of the God of Jacob,

that he may teach us his ways

and that we may walk in his paths."

For out of Zion shall go the law,

and the word of the LORD from

Jerusalem.

He shall judge between the nations,

and shall decide disputes for many

peoples;

and they shall decide disputes for many

peoples;

and they shall beat their swords into

plowshares,

and their spears into pruning hooks;

nation shall not lift up sword against

nation,

neither shall they learn war anymore.

O house of Jacob,

come, let us walk

in the light of the LORD.

I think many in the church today have convinced themselves that God has given up.

The story, as some see it, goes something like this (in outline form):

I. The beginning.

A. God creates everything.

B. Man rebels against God.

C. Things get worse and worse until God gives up and decides to kill everyone.

II. The second beginning.

A. God starts over with Noah.

B. Things get worse and worse until God gives up and decides to scatter everyone.

III. The third beginning.

A. God starts over with Abraham.

B. God forms a nation to show everyone how they're supposed to live.

C. The nation rebels against God.

i. God gives them another chance.

a. The nation rebels against God.

1. God gives them another chance.

ia. The nation rebels against God.

1a. God gives them another chance.

1ia. (repeat many times over...)

D. Things get worse and worse until God gives up and decides to divorce his people.

IV. The fourth beginning.

A. God starts over with Jesus.

B. Jesus presents the Kingdom of God.

C. People kill Jesus.

D. People rejected Jesus' presentation of the Kingdom of God so God gives up and

decides to withdraw His Kingdom idea until a later time.

V. The fifth beginning.

A. God starts preparing everyone for the end of the world.

B. Things will only get worse and worse because God has once and for all given up and

now we will destroy ourselves to a certain point and then God will finish the job

Himself. There will be fire. There will be flood. There will be disease. There will be

war. And oh yes, there will be blood, rivers of it, an ocean of it, and then it will all be

done.

VI. The sixth beginning.

A. God starts all over again with a comparably few, now perfect souls who couldn't rebel

against Him even if they wanted too, because now, everything is perfect. God is tired

of the mess we have made of things over and over again, and this time, we simply

won't be able to...

But what if God has never given up? What if God's dream of Isaiah 5 is still very much alive in His heart? What if this has been His dream from the beginning and throughout all time? What if God is ever patient in His love and in His plan for us to participate with Him in this dream? What if this is exactly what Jesus was talking about when He taught His disciples (and us) to pray, "Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in the heavens."

What if when we settle for the idea that God has given up and is looking forward to the destruction of all things, we settle for hell on earth?

Paul said in Romans 8:19-24,

"For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved."

So which should our prayer be:

1. "God, please keep me pure and holy from this evil world until the end so I can one day live in Your Kingdom."

or...

2. "Father, Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth just as it is in the heavens; and please start with me. Give me Your strength, wisdom and courage, to follow Your guidance and live with Your overflowing love to be salt and light in this world as an agent of Your great Kingdom, longing to see the whole of Your creative goodness restored to Your beautiful vision."

Can you tell which I am in favor of? Would you pray with me....?

Beyond bleach

For many years I lived under the heavy burden of the reality of my own sin. I wanted to follow God, I wanted to do what is right, I wanted to not give in to sin, I just didn't know how. And so this subtle shift began in my life; I went from focusing on trying to stop sinning to focusing on punishing myself for my sin.

I remember one afternoon in high school when no one else was at home, I went into my bedroom and shut the door, I pulled off my shirt and took my belt and began to whip myself. It was all I had left. The burden was so great.

I knew that God had forgiven me time and again, I knew that he would continue to forgive me, I just had this picture of Him standing above me with His arms folded and shaking His head saying, "Ok, one more time....but you're really testing my patience here little man!"

Isaiah 1:18, "Come now, let us reason together says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool."

What I have come to realize is a new momentum in my life, a moving toward God and not just halting the downhill slide away from Him. I have come to realize that God is primarily concerned with movement. He pleads with Israel and Judah to return to Him, to stop wandering further and further from Him and simply return. In this he does not talk about the covering over of their transgressions, their sins, but instead a complete and total fresh start. "...though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool." This is the transformation of one thing into another; scarlet to white, crimson to wool. This is so beyond bleach.

This song of David in Psalm 103 sealed a new momentum for me, starting in vs. 8:

The Lord is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in
steadfast love.
He will not always chide,
nor will He keep his anger forever.
He does not deal with us according to
our sins,
nor repay us according to our
iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the
earth,
so great is His steadfast love toward
those who fear Him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far does He remove our
transgressions from us.
As a father shows compassion to his
children,
so the Lord shows compassion to
those who fear Him.
For He knows our frame;
He remembers that we are dust.
He remembers that we are dust.
He remembers that we are dust.
He remembers that we are dust.

Bleaching a blood stain out of a pair of jeans is ok, but the jeans will never be the same. A new pair of jeans, well, the blood was just never there...

This is beyond bleach, this is a brand new life from above.

A new momentum

One thing that I have come to understand in the last few years is that while I can take much personal application from the bible, it was not written to me.

I know, brilliant right! I am a master of the blatantly obvious...

I think this is a way a lot of us read the scriptures today though, "What is God trying to say to me here?" While this is an appropriate question, I think it is out of place, our first question should be, what was God saying...period? Who was He saying it to? When did He say it? What was going on when He said it? When we have a reasonable grasp on these questions I believe we then can begin to ask God, now what do you have here for me also? What do you have here for us?

The basic premise of Isaiah is fairly clearly laid out. The nations of Israel and Judah were not following after God. They had become corrupted with the idolatry and self gratification of the nations surrounding them. The children of Israel were to be set apart from the rest of the world, set apart, holy to the one true and living God. They were falling down on their one primary calling. So God was preparing to unleash the surrounding nations to bring judgment on His own children. I know this sounds harsh, but I genuinely believe this action to be inspired by God's immense love for his sons and daughters. They were on a path to self destruction from which they may never return and this was God's way of leading them to refocus on the life that He had given to them, life with Him. It was who they were intended to be.

And so we enter chapter 1.

Vs. 2, "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord has spoken: 'Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me.'"

Isaiah goes on to speak for the Lord His pain at seeing His children living in such spiritual, moral and physical desolation. People spreading evil and corruption instead of goodness and blessing and light as they were intended to.

He goes on to say in vs. 11-15, "What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations-I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood."

Wow...

It strikes me that even though God commanded all of these forms of worship at one time, He is now saying stop; following the rule, the ritual is not good enough. I would rather you not gather in solemn assembly at all in your current condition than try and look as if everything is alright in your religious expression "on the weekend". So what is God's requirement in this?

Vs. 16, "Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil,". I think we have really clued into this in our churches today, it's time to stop the backward momentum of sin in our midst. All of my life growing up in the church I have heard about the power of sin to destroy the life of the believer. How their is no room to allow even a little sin to exist because once it takes root it grows and corrupts. I think this is true. The answer presented to me was to simply stop sinning. In fact this was passionately preached, "Wash yourselves! Make yourselves clean! Remove the evil of your deeds! Cease to do evil!" And so I tried, and I tried with all of my heart! I wanted to stop sinning! I tried to stop sinning, I really tried....but I couldn't, and so I decided that I would at least appear to stop sinning. I was surrounded by people who had somehow mastered the art of not sinning (or so I thought), and I was not going to be the only one struggling in the midst of so many who were so holy. It was only later when the divorces and rumors of affairs, and illegitimate children were born, and the drug addictions all started coming out that I began to realize I wasn't the only one trying to 'fake it til I make it'. The other thing I began to realize is the more I was trying to convince others of my own righteousness, the more I had to draw attention away from myself and to other blatant evil doers, homosexuals, baby killers, liberals, and so on.

What I am realizing now is that washing myself, making myself clean, removing evil deeds from my life, ceasing to do evil in and of itself only leads to stagnation. Yes, I may stop, or more likely somewhat slow down the momentum of sin in my life, but now I am going nowhere, now I am doing nothing. I begin to be known for what I am against, not for having a new life from above. It is not what God had in mind for Israel and Judah or for us either. We were never intended to stop living, we were intended to live differently, the way we were created and purposed to live, a life from above. We cannot get stuck on vs. 16, we must keep reading.

Vs. 17...
learn to do good;
seek justice,
correct oppression;
bring justice to the fatherless, (the orphan)
plead the widow's cause.

There must begin a new momentum. When Jesus began His ministry, He began to preach, "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." Repent, change your way of thinking. Cease pursuing your own way of life and follow me to learn a new way of life, my way of life, a life from above. There must be an end to evil and sin in my life, in our midst, and their must be a new momentum that begins to build in a new direction.

A direction of doing good; not just thinking good, holy, righteous, Godly, thoughts, but actually DOING good in our lives.

A direction of seeking justice. That we not stand idly by permitting injustices around us.

A direction of correcting oppression. That we stand for those who cannot stand for themselves.

A direction of bringing justice to the orphan and pleading the widow's cause. Those who are so often times forgotten because we hate to gaze into the eyes of pain. That we live to create community and family with those who have been violently and suddenly stripped of their own.

When we begin a new momentum, we move further and further from evil, not because we are trying to stop its tide outright, but because our lives are becoming so full of His life that there is simply no more room for evil. Swing your fists at the darkness and you will only bloody your knuckles. Move toward the light, and darkness will retreat with no effort at all.

It's time for a new momentum. A momentum of the demonstrated goodness of the Kingdom of God.

A new look at something old

I have been raised in the church my whole life. I've attended Sunday school and participated in kid's christmas plays, my house was filled with bibles and bible story books, I learned all of the stories and grew up with the idea that God really did love me (I wasn't sure if He actually liked me; I was a pretty major screw up most of the time). I used to sit and read my colorful bible story books for hours and it gave me a real love for the stories of the Old and New Testaments. As I grew older I became more and more interested in the reasons behind my faith and so I began to grow more and more fascinated with the writings of the apostles in the New Testament.

One section of the bible I have stayed away from for the most part though are the writings of the prophets in the Old Testament. It wasn't that I didn't try, I mean after all if you're going to be a good Christian you must read straight through the bible once a year (I never actually made it until well after I was married), I would just get hung up when I got to this section.

In the last couple of years I've been going through a major shift in my thinking. It has opened up my faith and relationship with God in ways I never imagined. God has grown in my thoughts, in my views of Him, in His splendor and majesty, in His goodness...He has grown in me. It has been wonderful, it is beyond words.

I've decided lately to go back and take a second look at the prophets and see if this new way of thinking, this larger, grander, more magnificent view of God might affect my understanding of these books. I've always known that these books too are the word of God, they are powerful and reveal His very heart and mind, I just felt as if something were missing in me to be able to see it. I'm thinking I might be ready now.

So I'm starting in the book of Isaiah. My intention is to journal my journey through this book here. It will be a great discipline for me and will help to organize my thinking. Maybe someone will decide to read along and journey with me...I'd welcome your company and your thoughts. Journey's are always better with company.

I'm in no hurry to get through it, and I'm definitely not intending on writing a new commentary of the book, merely journaling my thoughts as things strike me throughout. So...here goes...