Word Live: Sour Grapes
Think about the last piece of fruit you ate. God designed its shape, colour, texture and taste. Thank him for his wonderful work in the smallest things.
Bible passage
Isaiah 5:1–7
The song of the vineyard
5 I will sing for the one I love
a song about his vineyard:
my loved one had a vineyard
on a fertile hillside.
2 He dug it up and cleared it of stones
and planted it with the choicest vines.
He built a watchtower in it
and cut out a winepress as well.
Then he looked for a crop of good grapes,
but it yielded only bad fruit.
3 ‘Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and people of Judah,
judge between me and my vineyard.
4 What more could have been done for my vineyard
than I have done for it?
When I looked for good grapes,
why did it yield only bad?
5 Now I will tell you
what I am going to do to my vineyard:
I will take away its hedge,
and it will be destroyed;
I will break down its wall,
and it will be trampled.
6 I will make it a wasteland,
neither pruned nor cultivated,
and briers and thorns will grow there.
I will command the clouds
not to rain on it.’
7 The vineyard of the Lord Almighty
is the nation of Israel,
and the people of Judah
are the vines he delighted in.
And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed;
for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.
Holy Bible, New International Version® Anglicized, NIV® Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Explore
Throughout the Bible, vines and vineyards symbolise God’s people. God is the gardener who tends, feeds and nurtures his vineyards, hoping they will bring forth good spiritual fruit.
Our reading today sets out the eternal spiritual problem: God has done everything for his people. He has given us a good world to live in, given us laws which are for our flourishing, and protected and provided for us. Yet still we go our own way and produce only the bitter fruit of selfishness, pride and idolatry. Like Israel, we deserve the punishment God describes – destruction, devastation and desolation.
And yet, from our privileged position on the other side of the New Testament, we know that there is a wonderful answer to God’s despairing question, ‘What more could I have done?’. One day, he would send a solution: not a new gardener, not a better method of tending and feeding the vine, but one who would enter into the vine and revitalise it from within. He would be the true vine (John 15) and any branch grafted into him would flourish and bear good fruit.
Author
Jennie Pollock
Respond
Look again at verse 4. Can you hear the pain in God’s voice? Repent of anything you need to. Then thank him that we are no longer subject to the destruction we deserve.
Deeper Bible study
‘Loved with everlasting love, / led by grace that love to know; / … In a love which cannot cease, / I am his and he is mine.’1
It isn’t always easy to appreciate poetic writings when they are translated, but the wonderful creative imagery here is unmistakeable, in any language! We can all picture the gardener, who is deeply loved by the poet and, as we read on, is clearly revealed to be God himself. We see the care and hard work put into developing the vineyard. All the necessary resources are provided so that the vineyard’s purpose of growing wonderful grapes can be fulfilled. A vineyard is not there just to exist but to grow fruit the owner can use to provide food and drink. In spite of the gardener’s best efforts, however, this vineyard only produced bad, useless fruit. Nothing more could be done, so the only way forward was to get rid of the vineyard altogether: good grapes were clearly never going to be grown here!
Sometimes the meaning of poetic pictures is left for readers to work out for themselves, but Isaiah wants to be very sure that the people of Israel understand that he is talking about them. The fruit God asked them for is justice and righteousness, but they have only produced bloodshed and despair. There is a clear challenge here for us. The New Testament leaves no doubt either of the fruit that we are supposed to be growing, or the fact that we can only do that if we remain attached to the vine – revealed as Jesus himself – who can continuously provide us with the nourishment needed for us to bear fruit. Staying attached to the vine is essential but it is not enough. Is my worship more about providing myself with the experience that I crave or is it about providing fruit for others to benefit from? Do I care as much as God does about justice and righteousness?
Lord, thank you for working so hard to support our growth. Help us to fulfil your expectations and produce the fruit you are looking for from us.
1 George Wade Robertson, 1838–77, poet and hymn-writer
Author
Mary Evans
