Daily Worship

Good Gardeners

February 23, 2013 0 0

Isaiah 5:1-7

​The Song of the Vineyard

I will sing for the one I love

a song about his vineyard:

My loved one had a vineyard

on a fertile hillside.

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.

 

“Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and people of Judah,

judge between me and my vineyard.

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?

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.

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.”

 

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. 

​Every parable teaches a spiritual truth, because the parable itself is true – not necessarily historically, but true as a picture of life, or true as a principle of life and the universe. So it is that a parable about a vineyard, which the prophet uses to rebuke the people of Jerusalem for their social injustice, is also a truth about us and the world.

Gardener God,

your world, our home, is a vineyard 

a place of fruitfulness and plenty;

we are your servants, 

also called to faithfulness and responsible living

that we might produce the good fruit that you intend.

O God, what a mess we have made of the world, your vineyard:

our folly and greed and neglect have combined 

to produce a spoiled planet.

Remake us in your image to be good gardeners;

help us by your grace today to begin to live responsibly,

to care for each other, to care for the earth,

to conserve and enhance it in wisdom

and so to glorify your name. Amen.   

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written by Tony Bryer