Vineyards in the Word, their prophetic lessons, and this Vineyard of The Lord, the Church – Isaiah 5 and Matthew 21
Isaiah the prophet speaks in the first reading, and he talks of a vineyard going to ruin. He is speaking of the disobedient people of God, and he, the prophet, will be opposed for his message from God. Isaiah is one in a line of messengers whom God sent to straighten out his people, as illuminated in the Gospel parable today, as those many beforehand who went to the vineyard to help it for a needed renewal, but all the messengers are turned away, until even the One the Vineyard Owner sends, this Father Who sends His Only Son, He is even killed as his rejection. That figure is Jesus. Jesus knows His fate; He saw it come even to John the Baptist, His precursor and final prophet-servant. Now the Son comes and is most rejected. Isaiah’s 5th chapter and its tone will go on through to the 53rd chapter, in those haunting words in it: “He was despised and rejected, scorned… marred and tortured beyond recognition.” For what? For coming to turn things around in the Vineyard: He and His Father’s own vineyard. The Parable is explaining Jesus’ Death as by a story. It’s a picture of how the Son will die for His people, as working to renew the vineyard. It’s ironic that Jesus gives the parable in front of a few who will be the ones involved to fulfill the story of a killing of the son.
You heard the Word proclaimed in our ambo: Isaiah speaks God’s word in this 5th chapter, early on in prophecy: ‘Why is it, when I looked for the good crop of grapes, did I only find wild bad ones here? This is My Field, which is meant to have a good yield!’ As could be said to the 2023 Church: ‘I looked for the fruit of The Spirit in you, my church, my vineyard—but have the wild grape bitter taste too often. How is it so?’
An explanation is in order: The bad or maddeningly poor grapes are actually pointing to the result of poor faith or bad morals in the chosen people. Just read Isaiah 5 and see it. Rather than producing justice and righteousness, the people of Israel responded with violence and bloodshed (Isa. 5:7). They broke God’s laws and defiled the land given to them by the Lord. Adonai had established Israel as a model among nations. He desired His people to produce fruit for His glory (note what Jesus says in John 15:8, but they yielded only sin—characterized as wild grapes in Isaiah’s song. The Keeper’s only recourse was to bring judgment on the fruitless vineyard by destroying it (Isaiah 5:5–6).
The Scriptures point out clearly that a decision is made in Heaven by The Lord: He will say—and pass on to this prophet Isaiah to speak as His voice, saying: ‘I will have to –for a time– give this enterprise up, says God the Vineyard Owner. It will be that the hedge walls now will come down, rendering the field defenseless, with its good soil being trafficked and trampled upon—so, the grapes will not be good. The field needs the care of hoeing, plus pruning by the appointed field workers and managers, but instead it shall become an overgrown area of thorns and briers. God gave it up for a time, with this field. I’d like you to hear loud and clear this theme of God gave it up, or them up—to learn a lesson.
It is the same words and expression and image shown in Romans 1-3 in Scripture. God leaves us up to our sinful rebellion, independence, and insistence for our own ways of sins. So God leaves us to bear the result of our choices. It’s a sad thing to have it come to that with God’s flock—that far too many of them will not stay in fidelity to His Ways. The remnant faith people will now really suffer it, for there’s always been the people of fidelity and always will be. Look back from the time of sojourn of Abram, the split of Judah/Israel, the Exodus pilgrimage, the Babylonian exile people, and the lead-up people to Messiah’s time. Now you come to the Son arriving in The Field. He gets crucified.
The secret is that God put that sacrifice of Himself into His plan of salvation. Telling this parable as part of His ministry will later reveal it to be of God’s Plan, that the Messiah, the Only Son of God, by His passion, death and resurrection would lead in the plan to restore us to God. It is quite the baffling story to hear, that God saves through a Cross.
God poured out His Spirit and His Healing Work of the Cross for us New Covenant people for a real added help to fidelity to God. Was it enough for a faith-filled people for all the ages to Christ’ Return, or would there be resisters and rebels to His Word and Authority and Kingdom? The Answer: No. It seems to be not enough. Pride has got in the believers’ way. There have been a people departing from the truth, from the 1st Century to now. “Pride leads to a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18.)
The parable of the vineyard lesson can be seen in what happened in the church of Rome. The epistle of Romans explains how there was trouble in the church. In Romans chapter one the epistle opens by saying of their shaky disciples, that ‘although they knew God now, they did not accord Him glory or thanks, as His due… they became vain in their reasoning…and their minds not in the Light…so they became foolish…so God gave them up to their lusts and lies. God gave them up, like a vineyard stopped in operation.
Usually Italian vineyards are great, even in the Roma part of the country, which are the fields called the Lazio region. Not in this Biblical case. As Romans 1 explains: God had to give up the vineyard, since He saw His people who lived there now succumb by compromise and peril under the influence of Caesar and his realm. God gave them up.
In Romans 1: 3-6, Paul speaks “(I proclaim) The gospel about God’s Son, established in power for the spirit of holiness to come through a risen Lord Jesus Christ… “
in that verse Paul speaks that it is God’s Son they turn from, a high Lord of Heaven Who is Good… then Paul speaks that he was appointed over their fields of Roma, saying:
“Through him (THE LORD), and given to me, comes the grace of apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith here, for the sake of His Name, proclaimed here (Rome) even among all the Gentiles, among whom are you also, who are called to belong to Jesus Christ…”
We know that Paul did reach and convert a good many Romans, and he is saying that he is especially sent to lead them for holiness, but he is finding resistance to the Gospel. So, it comes then in Romans 1, verses 16-19, that he proclaims: “I am not ashamed of the gospel. It is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: for Jew first, and then the Gentile, the Greek, the Roman… (that) The one who is righteous by faith will live!”
Yes, Paul is saying here in the epistle that we can have faith and salvation, and a relationship like Father Abraham had in intimacy with God (which Paul will expound on in Romans 4). Underlying it all is the question: Do we want this righteousness of God?
Romans 1 says that God is watching the vineyard, and He’s seeing this trouble going on. The Bible text goes on: “Yet God has punishment on the idolaters. The wrath of God is indeed being revealed from heaven against every impiety and wickedness of those who suppress the truth by their wickedness. For what can be known about God is evident to them, because God made it evident to them. As a result, they have no excuse… “
Paul is clear with them. Those church of Rome people 20 centuries ago “got it.” People today in the Church Catholic also have plenty of evidence of what God wills, that we can “get it”, but we still do foolish things. Listen now to Romans 1, verse 21: “For although they knew God they did not accord him glory as God or give him thanks. Instead, they became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless minds became darkened. While claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for the likeness of an image of mortal man or of birds or of four-legged animals or of snakes. Therefore, God gave them up over to their impurity through the lusts of their hearts for the mutual degradation of their bodies. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and revered and worshiped the creature rather than the Creator, Who is the One True God and ought to be blessed now and forever (by His faithful), Amen.” You might think: those senseless Roman Catholics of then! We are also to think: those senseless Roman Catholics of the world today—who have so much revelation to show us the Way, the Truth, and the Life in Jesus Christ?! Why do so many stray? God will give a lot of free will and latitude for our foolishness, but we dare not test God that He would “give us up” for a time, too, to learn our lesson!
It is interesting to me that it is in a vineyard place like Roma, Paul’s church of outreach, which has the initial Christian believers now faltering and falling away.
Maybe we can’t really catch on to how sad a look it is to see a vineyard go bad. It’s not something we see in Montgomery County or nearby. I think we see lots of closed malls and shopping areas as empty and useless space now. Maybe that is a comparison, but for Israel or Italy the vineyard is the thing of the story.
A faltering field story or church story of the Romans reminds us of that parable just before in Matthew of a seed that spouts up quickly but then fails in its shallow ground.
Now as we get to Matthew 21’s parable of the vineyard, we see what happens when the fidelity to God drops. The vineyard is open to all sorts of decay and failure. It‘s such a shame to see it occur to a vineyard. I was in Napa Valley in January in admiration of some of America’s greatest vineyards. Four Octobers ago, I was some parishioners and others on an Italian pilgrimage, which included a day stop at a vineyard and winery. It was wonderful. I suppose the Church in fidelity to the Lord is like a well-run vineyard, isn’t it? That is a message of the parable. Heaven will be such a vineyard, too, par excellance. The Bible describes it to have rich wines to drink there in Glory. ‘Remember Isaiah 25 and its message? It proclaims that “On this mountain the LORD of hosts will provide for all peoples A feast of rich food and choice wines, juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines. On this mountain where He will destroy the veil that veils all peoples, and that death web that woven over all nations. We shall live life well and forever. ‘Raise a glass!
But the parable and my connection of it to Romans 1 is about infidelity and its ruinous effect. We must note how God does react in seeing us mess things up so much. The Romans 1 “God gave them up to their sins” theme continues through to Romans 3, highlighting the problem of sin. “God gave them up” is the saddest line in it, and it is the same line in our Isaiah 5 reading that started us out in the Word today. God will make His appeals to us, but if we’re unresponsive or disobedient after a fair enough time, He leave us to our immoral choices and lustful, prideful desires. We will get what we want in our opposing will to God, which ruins the field, God’s vineyard for us. God’s garden of grace with its fruitfulness in the Spirit of Christ has promised the New Covenant believer so much and so high. Oh, the stakes are there, and they are high for what will do about it. Sin entices, but Grace suffices. Sin entices, but Grace suffices. Will you choose fidelity or to be of infidelity to God?
What has happened to some of God’s people of infidelity of the Old Testament can repeat itself, truly, in the New Testament and New Age Of Christ.
Listen to the poor prophet Isaiah announce God’s intentions of giving the people up to their sins. It is like the prophets of today that have to announce the cost of infidelity of God’s flock. The straying people don’t want to hear it. They want to have it “their way.” They try to silence or punish the prophets of truth, like the parable of Christ tells us so.
Where does it leave God, the Vineyard Owner to do. Hear the prophetic Word: “Give the field up, let the wall break down, let it be trampled. Yes, I the Vineyard Owner, will allow it to fall in ruin. The ground will no longer be pruned or hoed, but overgrown with thorns and briers… and I won’t let it rain on the ground there either. Would that My people had known, how the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are His cherished plant. But I will let them go for a time, to rely only on themselves, as what they desire.” Thus says the prophet Isaiah.
I admire the prophets of truth today, who will lead ahead might be the smaller but remnant Church around the bend. Like Isaiah or St. Paul—they are convicted to serve the Lord. God’s Word is what they speak, they are the chosen mouthpiece or model life of the Chief Shepherd Jesus, the Lord of The Church.
Jesus Christ says: This Vineyard is Mine, and you the Church are to tend the fields of the Lord, and I have cherished you, but overall, you need a lesson about the consequences of infidelity. So, take good measure to be My Remnant People, ever faithful to God and my revelation to you for holiness, for there is always renewal to come later to My Field.
I always have my true, remnant, faithful people. I am Your beloved, and you are mine, and the banner over you is My Love. My Song of Songs and music of life keeps going on.