The Fourth Monday After Pentecost: A plant, a vineyard dressed

Lessons: Psalm 80; 1 Samuel 1:1-20; Acts 1:1-14; Luke 20:9-19.

On one of the roads home is a new vineyard under development.  It has been interesting to watch its slow progress over the last two years.  Unlike the other crops farmed around here which have a quick season of fruit, not so with a vineyard.  There is so much planning, so much structure.  Each step is followed, the rows to lay out, the framing made of pressure treated lumber and wire, the young plants patiently planted and pruned and trained to run on the wire, constant attention to weeds.  Still this vineyard appears to not bear much fruit but perhaps soon it will.  They are cultivating more space as they wait.

One of the Biblical images for Israel that runs right through scripture is that of a vineyard.  With this near by vineyard in mind, one can see the application.  At the heart of this image for Israel is the notion of God patiently working.  Immediate fruitfulness is less important than long term fruitfulness. Vineyards in the making take time.  Pruning and shaping are a way of life for God as a vine dresser. Yet fruitfulness is fully anticipated.   It will not do for a vineyard to run wild.  When this is done the fruit is less full, harder to see and collect. Its purpose, harvest, gets lost.

Psalm 80 is just such a portrait.  The vineyard has run amuck, wild on the hillside.  I think of kudzu on our highways.  Wild things live there and the fruitfulness of the landscape is lost.  Psalm 80 can refer to many periods in biblical Israel's life.  So many prophets come to say, "now is the time to trim, prune, restore fruitfulness."  Thus this psalm repeats this phrase of dependency on God, the vinedresser.  

Restore us, O God of hosts; show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved. Psalm 80

This psalm and this image of the vineyard and vineyard owner was known to Jesus' audience in the Temple area after his entry into Jerusalem.  When he speaks of the owner sending for his share of the produce, their imaginations do not need much informing. The rejection of the messengers sound like the prophet's they long have heard.  The son coming reverberates, Messiah.  The notion of killing the one sent to redress, shape, trim, judge, collect fruitfulness, seems impossible.  

So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.' When they heard this, they said, 'Heaven forbid!' Luke 20: 15-16

To lose the vineyard all together would so defeat the plan, purpose, and nurture of this people. Matthew, Mark and Luke use this parable in the same placement so it must have been used by Jesus in this way, an announcement of God's judgment based on God's desire for their/our fruitfulness as a community. 

I can only apply this parable this way.  I see its historical context, to call Israel to task.

Then I see myself as one who has inherited the status of one who is part of the new Israel or the ongoing Israel, one plant trying to be trained to the support system.  I need to allow myself to be trimmed to fruitfulness in my daily life by study and prayer and hope and shaping actions of care.  Yet I am part of some larger vineyard together seeking to be fruitful as we pray, "Restore us, O God of hosts; show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved." (Psalm 80)

We are yet part of a more sweeping vineyard, perhaps a town, a state, a nation... Each plant, each row, each hillside needs trimming and care. Differing fruit may be anticipated. Each must produce its fruit for the correct tenant and hand it off to the owner. The owner, ultimately God, will discern worth. Does our fruitfulness arrive to this owner or is it highjacked on the way? I see the vision and then the metaphor runs out. 

So daily I rise in this chosen vineyard in rural North Carolina and I attend my prayer. "Restore us, O God of hosts; show the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved." (Psalm 80)

I do wait.  I trust I will see what I need to let be trimmed.  My trimmed plant helps the vineyard prosper.