A VINEYARD OF JUSTICE

Isaiah 5:1-7

Isaiah 5 (ESV)Let me sing for my beloved

my love song concerning his vineyard:

Isaiah the prophet, long before the exile to Babylon, sings about God and his precious “vineyard,” the people of Israel.

My beloved had a vineyardon a very fertile hill.

2 He dug it and cleared it of stones,and planted it with choice vines;

he built a watchtower in the midst of it,and hewed out a wine vat in it;

and he looked for it to yield grapes,but it yielded wild grapes

7 For the vineyard of the LORD of hostsis the house of Israel,and the men of Judah

are his pleasant planting;and he looked for justice,but behold, bloodshed;

for righteousness,but behold, an outcry!

God condemns Israel because:

• even though God had lovingly nurtured the nation like a prized vineyard

• the people were not producing the “fruit” of justice and righteousness.

But what are justice and righteousness?

Why are they so important?

And what do they have to do with Jesus Christ and New Testament faith?

Psalm 822 “How long will you judge unjustly

and show partiality to the wicked?”

For Israel, as for us, it is natural to ignore the weak and powerless and to attend to the strong and powerful.

Why?

Because the powerful have something to give us; the weak have nothing to offer.

In fact, the weak often frighten us.

They may not speak our language or dress like us or share our middle-class values.

Duck Dynasty’s Jase Roberston was sent out of the Trump International Hotel in New York when an employee assumed he was a homeless man. He laughingly called it a case of “facial profiling.”

People we might “profile”:

The Spanish speaking maid at a hotel.

The homeless family we see at the park.

The single mom with out of control kids.

The African American youth who walks by us in the city.

How would we respond if they came to our church? Would we ignore or embrace?

But God says:

3  “Give justice to the weak and the fatherless;

maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.

4 Rescue the weak and the needy;deliver them from the hand

of the wicked.” (Psalm 82)

Why is God so concerned with our response to the weak?

Because we are them.

God embraces us even though we are weak and powerless.

This is the beginning of the Gospel story; if we don’t start here we cannot comprehend or live the life God intends.

Another vineyard . . .

John 151 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser . . .”

3 “Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.”

4 “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.”

In light of God’s great mercy toward us, the faithful response is to attend to and actively embrace those in need.

Not to do so is to presume upon God’s great mercy and to consider ourselves worthy of it while others are not.

Are we willing to become a people and a church that embraces the weak?