What the Vineyard Yielded

Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A – Isaiah 5:1-7

What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? —Isaiah 5:4

The alternate OT reading for this Sunday begins as a love song.

Someone who is loved has a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He made special plans. He prepared the soil and cleared away the stones. He planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in the middle of it and hewed out a winepress before there was a single grape to press, all the sort of actions of someone who is sure of a harvest. Everything was in its place.

As the story continues, we learn that the vineyard owner looked for it to yield good grapes. Instead, it yielded wild grapes. My OT commentaries indicate that the Hebrew is closer to stinking things.

The cantor turns to his audience—the “inhabitants of Jerusalem and people of Judah.” He asks them to judge what’s going on. The love song has turned to a courtroom setting. The listeners are the jury. What more could have been done to assure a wonderful harvest?

We can imagine how readily they might reach a verdict. A vineyard that has received that much care, with rot as its result, has nothing to say for itself.

The owner announces what he will do. He will take away its hedge and break down its wall. The vineyard will be devoured and trampled, left to briers and thorns. He will even command the clouds to withhold their rain.

That last line gives him away. A mere farmer cannot command the clouds.

Then the cantor names the vineyard:

For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting.

Those invited to render the verdict discover that they are the ones who stand accused.

Jesus employs the same sort of surprise in the Gospel reading for this Sunday (Matthew 21:33–46). He says to the chief priests and elders, “Listen to another parable.” He describes how a vineyard is planted and fenced. Our Lord tells of a similar winepress and tower. In this story, however, the vineyard is let out to tenants.

At harvest, the owner sends servants to collect his share. The tenants beat some and kill others. Finally, he sends his son, whom they kill in the hope of taking his inheritance. Jesus asks his listeners what the vineyard owner will do to such tenants. Their answer comes readily: he will put those wretches to death and lease the vineyard to tenants who will give him its fruit.

Jesus then speaks of the stone the builders rejected becoming the cornerstone (Matthew 21:42), and of a kingdom given to people who produce its fruit. The chief priests and Pharisees recognize themselves in His parables. Again, the trap has worked.

Isaiah’s people possessed divine promises. YHWH had told David that his house and kingdom would be made sure forever (2 Samuel 7). The Jerusalem singers of psalms proclaimed that YHWH had shown himself a sure defense within Zion’s citadels. Indeed, YHWH had established the city forever (Psalm 48).

The trouble was with the people’s inference. They formulated a straightforward “if-then” scenario: If YHWH had chosen the city—and He clearly had—then YHWH would always keep and protect it.

Earlier, the prophet Amos had spoken about a similar pattern:

You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities. —Amos 3:2

And yet, exemption is not brought about by being divinely known. Being known by YHWH requires rather that our relationship with YHWH bear fruit in the lives of others.

Each of us has his or her own Zion psalms. They may be a nice home or some savings. They might be an excellent reputation that has been carefully managed. None of these are, in themselves, vices. Moreover, most of us may acknowledge that each indeed is a gift. But gifts can be quietly understood as proof that we are the sort of people whom YHWH intends to keep.

At the close of Isaiah’s song, the cantor names the harvest YHWH wanted. YHWH had looked for justice, mishpat, but saw bloodshed, mispach. He looked for righteousness, tsedaqah, and heard a cry, tse’aqah.

My commentaries reveal that the paired Hebrew words sound painfully alike. What grew within the vineyard bore a verbal resemblance to what YHWH wanted, but that resemblance worked only to sharpen the underlying betrayal. Sadly, too, the failed harvest was manifested within a sound. Someone is crying out. We know from Holy Scripture that YHWH hears such cries. He heard Abel’s blood cry forth from the ground. He heard Israel's cries under Pharaoh’s taskmasters. For millennia, YHWH has heard the cries of widow and orphan. Isaiah reminds us that the vineyard is not silent. YHWH is listening.

This Sunday's OT reading stops at verse 7, but Isaiah's point continues.

Ah, you who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is room for no one but you” (5:8).

Houses and fields—to owners, the additional wealth looks like an account of how well they are doing. In Isaiah, however, they become an account of what room, if any, is left for others.

The Isaiah passage leaves us with an uncomfortable question: Whose cry would interrupt our account of how well we are doing?

It is quite possible to tell the story of our blessings truthfully and still leave someone out. We are proud of what we have built and preserved. We speak wistfully about what we hope to pass on. Do we ask what has grown from all we have done that actually benefits our neighbors?

The vineyard’s owner asks for such an accounting. What has all this care produced?

The psalm appointed for this Sunday is the vineyard’s own prayer: “Turn again, O God of hosts … have regard for this vine” (Psalm 80:14). It is the prayer we usually pray, that God will preserve us.

The prayer needs a companion: that God will show us what we are producing.