Our Response To God's Love And Grace

 

 Sunday October 4th 2020 (18th Sunday after Pentecost)

In our OT Scripture, there is a beautiful picture of a person the prophet Isaiah calls “the beloved”. Isaiah tells us that the beloved owned a vineyard on a fertile land. He worked hard on it: he dug the ground, cleared it of stones, built a watchtower in the middle for protection. The beloved really cared for his tree. He even sang to it! Any of you ever sang or talked to your plant? Apparently, it’s helpful to do so! I didn’t know! Google it to find out! Then in the story, after the beloved had done all that hard work caring for the tree, using every possible method to ensure a great harvest, the tree did not produce good grapes as he expected! It produced wild grapes instead! What a disappointment! The beloved was not happy. In this scenario the prophet Isaiah is painting a picture of God’s message to the people of Judah as if God was telling them: “I expected the best from you! I cared about you so much. What happened to you? I expected justice but saw bloodshed, I expected righteousness but heard a cry!” What happened? This message is very relevant to us as well, not only because of where we find ourselves in life, but also, because of what Jesus told us in John 15 that, He is the true grapevine, and that His Father is the gardener. Jesus added that we are the branches and have been already pruned and purified by His message. Jesus warned us though, that we should remain in Him because a branch cannot produce fruit if it is separated from the vine! That’s what happened in Isaiah’s story. So, to us, the message is: The church is the new Israel, listen: without Christ, no lasting progress, no fruits of God’s Kingdom can be observed because nutrition from true life has been cut off.

Isaiah’s story of the beloved reminded me of God’s unconditional love towards us. God has cared about us even before we existed. Ps 139 says: I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made! I was not hidden from you when I was made in secret… You saw me before I was born, every day of my life is recorded in your book. Think of that day when you were born: You were like that plant that the beloved cared for. What’s amazing is that God’s unconditional love extended to us even when we were still wondering away in our sinful ways! All your life, God made sure there were people and occasions in your life to teach you about Him and guide you… friends, family, preachers so that you can be fed by Christ, and remain deeply in Christ [solidly grafted on the vine.]

God’s message to the people of Judah was to respond to God’s grace and love. If we are not grafted solidly on the vine, we can’t produce fruit from God’s Kingdom: not a good response! If we refuse to cooperate with God’s grace and refuse to respond to God’s love, then we end up with what the prophet Isaiah called wild grapes, and in his story, the beloved was not happy about wild grapes. That’s why we need to seek union with Christ! If you are grafted on the Vine, you will be nourished by Christ, your response will show good grapes/fruits worthy of God.

A few days ago, I wrote to a friend of mine reminiscing about the days we lived that led to the Genocide of 1994 in my “soon to be” former country. We talked about how we saw much ugliness with which, people were treating each other, even believers were tempted to join in. They couldn’t discern that it was the enemy (Satan) that was planting evil seeds and of course, the entire country experienced hatred and death! People were starting to produce wild grapes without knowing it. Our Father in Heaven whom Jesus says is the gardener, grieves deeply about situations like these because he desires none to perish.

Beloved, brothers and Sister, as the new Israel, we are called to remain in Christ. We have to respond to God’s grace, God’s unconditional love. We have to cooperate… through our daily walk with God, be our reading Scripture, or Morning and Evening Prayer, or Holy Communion. Continue to seek union with Christ.

Amen.