A Love Song?

Let’s do what we are so prone to do, let’s Christianize the text. Let’s substitute the house of Israel and the people of Judah with the church, you and me. Now let’s revisit the love song about us. God planted us in very fertile ground, dug up the ground, picked the rocks, planted choice vines-you and me-built a watchtower in the midst and hewed out a wine vat. Then God waited for the fruit. But oh no, we didn’t produce good fruit (=righteousness and justice); we produced sour, useless fruit (=bloodshed and oppression). The result of this bad harvest? God will obliterate the vineyard and let it lay fallow. Oh my! Not the kind of love song we like, is it? This is a side of God we don’t like to think about. Nonetheless.

What I like about this text is the future verbs Isaiah uses to describe God’s punishment. It hasn’t happened yet. There is hope. We yet may be able to save the vineyard. We have time to leave our buildings and do justice and righteousness in our communities. And we in the ELCIC are taking baby steps in this direction, being in mission for others.

We hear you, Lord. Give us a bit more time as we turn from ourselves toward others. Amen. — DAB