“Interpreting and Vineyards”
Isaiah 5:1-7 Luke 12:49-56
On this Sunday morning…several millennia…several thousand years…after Isaiah’s promise of destruction of the vineyard…how would we say the vineyard is doing?
On this Sunday morning…when we’re all comfortable inside God’s house…how are we interpreting how well the vineyard is doing? How are we understanding and interpreting God’s Word?
The Christian Church…God’s vineyard…not just we United Methodists…is facing a challenge…some would say crisis. It’s the challenge of just how its members look at the world…how God’s people look at God’s creation. The issue is as new as today…and as old as the time of the prophesy from Isaiah. It is this question: Is there any meaning to life outside of myself and the meaning I give to it? Many in our culture…some would say our entire culture…have come to the conclusion that there is not. It’s all about me. My only interest is what’s in it for me?
Signs of the impact of this conclusion are all around us. Like the ancients we recognize them. A culture where lying and stealing are the norm will struggle to survive. So…we give lip service and say they should not be allowed…should not be taking place…then we choose leaders who do the same. But it’s not just the politicians. The fact is that a little lying at the right time and right place along with some stealing in some form appear to help many of us meet our needs. So…we end up with a whole society that says one thing and does another.
For two centuries a Christian ethic has dominated the United States of America. That is, we have obeyed the laws of the land because we believed that they fairly represented the laws of the Creator and Savior. We had an allegiance to something outside of ourselves. So…we obeyed the laws even when no one was looking…and even when it was not convenient. We were an unusually law-abiding people…and people from other countries still comment on that fact.
So much of that is rapidly changing. Many have lost the idea that there is a God outside of themselves to whom they owe obedience. So…increasingly we obey the laws of the land selectively. We obey only those that we think will directly benefit us individually and those we are forced to obey. But…we have a hard time seeing a personal benefit in most laws…so we are becoming increasingly lawless. There is not enough force in the entire world to make a nation of people obey if they do not want to obey.
Who will care for the vineyard if all are motivated to care for only themselves…obey only the laws that enable and enrich them?
Too many of us cannot see…or choose not to see…that we are enjoying the benefits of our ancestors’ choices and that the way we are choosing will destroy those very benefits for ourselves and those who follow. We think we can gain more comfort…pleasure…and security by serving ourselves first and often only ourselves…at all costs.
There once was a dog…a very happy dog. He had a large bone in his mouth. As he walked over the bridge the dog saw his reflection in the water. He saw the reflection of the bone, also. The dog decided he would grab the bone that the other dog had in his mouth. He opened his mouth…lunged for the other dog. All the dog got was wet…and his bone sunk to the bottom of the stream. How many bones does one dog need?
The fact is that the comfort…pleasure…and security we now enjoy are the result of persons who…in obedience to God…voluntarily limited their self-interests…in the interest of others…in the interest of the vineyard.
The challenge to the church is that this self-serving kind of thinking is creeping in among us as well. Studies have shown that Christian teenagers are almost as likely to cheat as are non-Christians. More than half of them think that there are no absolute moral standards. Divorces among evangelicals…those most loudly proclaiming God…now exceed the national norm.
What has happened? We are slowly losing our grip on the idea that there is a Creator whose character is absolutely consistent and who has created human beings in His image…to be and to live in His image. We are losing the idea that this Creator has built into his universe certain spiritual principles that are as unchangeable as any of the natural principles taught in a science class.
How has this happened? We are losing the idea of the authority of God and of the Bible…and community…one vineyard…under God. In the end…there are only two ways of knowing. Either we learn from experience…or we have information given to us that is outside our personal experience. We can never discover God entirely from our own experience. When we look only to our own experience we discover only ourselves. If God wants to be known by us He will have to reveal Himself to us. He has done this in many ways…and the Bible is the most common.
For example…the Old Testament contains the stories of the origins of monotheism as a most important doctrine. Christianity, Judaism and Islam all go back to that single source…Abraham. The same is true of many other doctrines. We can’t explain them in any other way than through God’s revelation.
The Church will not survive…much less thrive…if we allow the authority of the Bible to be taken away from us…not by some political force…but from our own turning away. Why is greed wrong? Why is self-indulgence wrong? Why is it wrong to make up our own moral code? Why is it wrong to deprive the poor of justice? There is only one answer. They are wrong because the one Creator of the universe…the Creator of the vineyard…says so. They are wrong because that is not the way He acts…and… because He did not make us to act in those same wrong ways.
All of the comfortable and useful arguments we might want to make will fall short. Why shouldn’t I grab all I can? The commercials tell me I owe it to myself…and after all…life is short. You only go around once…and then the lights go out. Why shouldn’t I lie? It pays off better than the truth does most of the time. To be sure….it makes life a little more challenging because you have to remember which lie you told to which person…but then nobody said life was easy.
And…as for the helpless…well…we will take care of them…as long as it’s on my schedule and doesn’t take many of my resources. That seems to be the way it’s really working out.
In the end…unless the authority for moral behavior lies beyond ourselves…wrong will quickly become right….and right will become wrong…as is happening in many sectors of our society.
We know where that moral authority is…and many of us say it has become a central part of us. Has it!
It’s that still small voice that we hear from time to time.
It’s like lie dots. You all know about lie dots… I’m sure. They’re on the foreheads of children…just under the hair that falls down. They light up when the child tells a lie. Only a mother can see the light. When I asked the mother that told me about them whether they work she said when she thinks one of her children is telling a lie…she looks that child in the eyes…asks the child to lift their hair so mother can see the lie dot…and mom just says “Hmmmm!” I asked her how she knows it works. “When the story is changed so that it becomes more believable, it’s working,” she said.
It is up to us…the Church…you and me…to reaffirm and strengthen our commitment to the authority of God’s revelation. If we compromise on this issue we will have lost our reason to exist.
The moral authority that is contained in God’s word is the moral authority by which we should all live and interact with others…how life in the vineyard should be. If we are…mom will never see the lie-dots.
Isaiah spoke of a vineyard that is God’s people. In what shape do you see the vineyard? God has worked hard to create it and show us how to nurture it.
How will you interpret what you see? Where will you find the words to be your guide?
Are the grapes sweet…with unconditional love…generosity…and forgiveness?
Or, are the grapes wild with bitterness… greed… prejudice and anger?
Are we interpreting the signs and God’s Word in order to…give hope…promise salvation…show us grace…and offer forgiveness…or to support our own personal or political agenda…the agenda that lights up those lie dots?