TURN TO GOD
Isaiah 5:1-7; Luke 12:49-59
Betty Berghaus
August 19, 2007
Jennifer worked hard in college in order to pursue her goal to go to medical school. She watched roommates go out to party night after night, but she stayed in to study. She went to bed earlier than any of her friends, as she tried to keep her body and mind in good shape. But no matter how hard she tried, she did not do well on tests. She realized early in her junior year that she would not make the grade for medical school.
Dan & Jane raised their children with values. They attended church almost every Sunday, and had a Bible study of their own on Saturdays when they were all together. They disciplined their children, mostly with times out or restrictions, when they misbehaved. And so they were devastated when their son was arrested and put in prison for repeated drunk driving offenses.
Isaiah’s story of the vineyard is similar. The vinekeeper did all the things necessary for a vine to grow well. He dug and cleared and planted and hewed. He put up a watchtower so that he could stay there and protect the vineyards from predators. By all predictions, the vineyard should have yielded healthy, tasty grapes. But, despite all the hard work, the vineyard yielded wild grapes. Wild grapes are not tasty, or even edible, and can even be poisonous or stinky at times. How could a vineyard that was tended with such love and care yield such awful grapes?
That was God’s question to Israel. The chosen people had followed the gods of the people around them. They had ignored God’s commandments. They did not care for the widows or orphans or anyone but their own interests. And so the prophet Isaiah reflected God’s disgust in their errant behavior. God was pretty angry! If Israel were the vineyard, God would remove the protective hedge so that predators could reach the vines or trample them down. The vinekeeper would no longer tend it, and it would become overgrown, a waste. Just as the vinekeeper expected more from the vine, God expected more from Israel. God “expected justice, but saw bloodshed; [God expected] righteousness, but heard a cry!” (Isaiah 5:7)
The God who created us must be like us in many ways, and surely God must get frustrated with our behavior. Through the prophets, especially in the earlier chapters of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, in the time before the exile, God called the prophets to rail against behavior that did not reflect God’s ways. Yes, our ways of living can disgust God!
But many folks dismiss the judgments of the Old Testament as an outmoded view of God. They prefer to look to the New Testament, and the loving acts of Jesus, who healed the sick, and befriended those no one else would touch. Jesus was so loving that he gave himself for us, to die and to rise in order to save us from the ravages of sin and death. We think the God of the New Testament is more loving and kind than the Old Testament God.
Yet the one eternal God is the same God throughout all ages. Our New Testament passage today reminds us that Jesus too could get disgusted with the behavior of people. Chapters 11 to 13 of the Gospel of Luke give a series of warnings to God’s people about various dangers – Jesus warns religious leaders that they are hypocritical, proclaiming righteousness but acting in disregard to the people’s true needs. He warns the people not to be greedy or to find false security in the things of the world. He warns of an urgency to return to God’s ways, to be diligent in faith. And he warns of conflict between people, even within the body of the church. And in chapter 13, he calls for repentance – or else. And this is not an “I will send you to your room” “or else,” this is serious. “No, I tell you,” says Jesus (13:5); but unless you repent, you will all perish…”
If we view only these passages, it all seems so hopeless. Our world has turned away from God. We have gone bad, like the vineyard that yielded only useless, vile, wild grapes. There seems to be little hope for us.
But fortunately as Christians we know the whole story, and we know that in Christ there is always hope. Even in this passage we can find glimmers of Christ’s hope.
Jesus began by saying “I came to bring fire to the earth…” Remember that John the Baptist said that one more powerful than him would come, one who would “baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Luke 3:16). Fire can be destructive, but it can also be used to purify, just as the burning coal prepared Isaiah’s mouth to proclaim God’s word to the people. Jesus then referred to another baptism. But he had already been baptized by John, he did not need to be baptized again. He referred here probably to his death, and the stress he felt might have been like that of the prophets, who could hardly hold their tongues from wanting to correct God’s errant people. Jeremiah said, “Within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot” (Jeremiah 20:9). Jesus perhaps felt a stress to get on with the actions that would redeem the world.
Then Jesus said such an odd thing. Jesus, whom we know as the Prince of Peace, asked, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No,” he said,” I tell you, but rather division!” And he went on to describe the division of families. Most commentators think that he was talking about the division caused by some believing and others not ready to follow the gospel Jesus proclaimed and brought to bear. Households would be divided, with some believing and others still holding on to other beliefs. In our area, we can perhaps compare this to the divisions caused, like in my household, when one family member goes to Carolina, and another to Duke! My daughter even offered at one point to get me a bumper sticker that said, “A house divided: Carolina/Duke (or Duke/Carolina!). But we also know families that are divided in their church attendance, with one spouse attending, and the other not attending, or going elsewhere. And there are always struggles to get kids, once they are a bit older, to attend church. So we can understand a house divided over beliefs. This may have been the division of which Jesus spoke. As the world struggled to embrace this new gospel, there would be divisions before complete peace would be possible.
The Jesus we see in this passage was quite passionate in his disgust with the ways people had fallen away from God’s ways. Just as Jesus could have a sense of humor, so the human and divine man could get upset as well. He could not really see why following God rather than the world was not obvious, as obvious as watching the clouds or winds to determine the weather. Clouds from the west would bring much-needed rain from the Mediterranean Sea. But south winds from the Negeb desert would bring scorching heat. Everyone knew this. It was common knowledge, and just plain obvious. To Jesus, so were the commandments of God. Know them, and follow them, live them. Use some common sense, he says, basically. Realize that there are consequences to your actions. In this day and age, for instance, we know that there are high chances of smoking leading to cancer or other diseases. In modern times, Jesus might suggest that we know enough facts about the hazards of smoking that we should not start smoking, or quit if we do smoke! We know too that excess drinking or misuse of drugs can mess up our bodies. So common sense says to do everything we can to avoid or quit those addictions. We need to think to determine what will happen, and, if we desire good results, then we will act according to the good will of God.
Then Jesus tried to put the issue within a context that people would know. As it is becoming more frequent now too, unfortunately, debt was destroying many families in Palestine at that time. If the parties involved took their squabbles to the Roman legal system, the debtor would most likely either be forced into indentured service to the one owed the debt, or the debtor would be thrown into prison until the family could pull together enough money to pay off the debt. This was a system in which the rich kept getting richer and the poor kept getting poorer. Solved in the world’s way, this would lead the debtor to lose every last penny, said Jesus.
These Scriptures seem harsh. We want a loving, forgiving, kind God. And yet God, as the Creator and holy parent, must get frustrated with us at times when we continue to wallow in self-centered or even self-destructive behavior. God must look at us and just shake God’s head at times! If God “disciplines” us, it is for our good, just as a parent desires good for the child. Letting the child run rampant and do whatever the child wants to do is not good parenting, is not true, nurturing love. I saw an old episode of “Full House” the other night in which little Michelle, maybe 2 years old, did not want to go to bed. The men of the household would cater to her every wish as they tried to get her to go to bed, getting water for her, letting her use the bathroom, singing in perfect harmony. Then they would leave, and she would get up and go play. Finally Jesse decided that they had to be firm, they had to be the parents. They put Michelle back in bed, and turned out the light, shut the door, and waited outside the door. Michelle came to the door and begged to be let out. They stood firm. Then little fingers appeared under the doorway, and Michelle managed words that caved the men’s hearts. She said, “Don’t you love me anymore?” And in they rushed, and out went Michelle to play! Left to our own devices, without the love and guidance of our Lord, we too will likely rush out to play, to do those things that please us, and leave behind the ways of God. Sometimes God’s love, like ours as parents, has to be a tough love, one that lets us know what is wrong, and what is right.
There is an answer to all the turmoil of the world’s ways, Jesus said. “Repent, or perish.” This sounds harsh too. But the Greek word for “perish” does not mean just to die, as we interpret it. It can mean “to corrupt” or “to decay.” Continue to live in the world’s wrong ways, he says, and you will decay, you will rot. That is very descriptive. But we can find hope in the word “Repent.” The Greek word (metanoia) indicates a turning from which there is no turning back. It means changing one’s mind, spirit, feelings, opinions, even one’s purpose. Turn to God, it says, and do not turn back to the sin you have been indulging in. Turn to God, and be transformed, changed, into something, or someone, better. It is very simple to say, really, yet very hard to do. In another type of church, this might be when the preacher does an altar call, asking you to come forward and turn your life over to God. We more stoic Presbyterians don’t do such dramatic things very often (though The Book of Order does allow us to do so). And yet this Scripture does give us opportunity to consider that God might not be happy with our behavior and might require change of us. Judgment, at least in the case of God, is not the end. Judgment points us to a new beginning. For after judgment comes redemption. We just have to turn to God. We just have to repent of our sinful ways.
So consider your life. Consider those things that you do that would not please God, whether it is drinking or gambling or abusive behavior, or anger, or jealousy, or neglect of body or spirit. And consider giving those things up, and turning to God with your whole life, mind, body and soul. Just a few chapters earlier in Luke, Jesus said to the lawyer who asked what it meant to inherit eternal life. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” (Luke 10:27).
Just a little later, in the 13th chapter of Luke, Jesus told about a fig tree that was producing no fruit. The owner of the vineyard told the gardener to tear the tree down. But the gardener appealed for more time to nurture the tree, another year, a second chance. God always gives us another chance!
When judgment brings repentance, there is always forgiveness and hope. On these things we can rely. So turn to God. Turn to God, and all will be well.
Thanks be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. Amen.