Skip to main content

Isaiah's Vineyard Song


As a parent and a foster parent I have put countless hours into loving and teaching my children to do well.  I have worked tirelessly to keep them safe and happy.  I have stayed up into the wee hours of the night nursing them back to health, crying over their hurts, and worrying about their safety and future.  Despite these efforts, they don't always do well. 

One of my kids was brilliant and quirky.  High School was easy for him and he wanted to be an engineer.  He had the skills and the ability, but I encouraged him to start at a local community college and then transfer to his engineering school of choice.  Partly I was worried about him going into debt, but I also worried about how he would do with the challenge of college without friends or family near.  Since school had been easy for him, he was not ready for a real challenge without support.  I knew he would need help to keep his motivation up during the first year of college.  College is a whole different challenge.  It is harder, and the brilliant find themselves among the average.  Those that lack the drive to push through, find themselves left behind.  He was proud and went straight to his college of choice despite my advice. 

We supported his decision, he was an adult and it was time for him to make his own choices.  He found school brutally difficult.  As we suspected he lacked the drive to do the work on his own because he was used to getting by with minimal effort.  He lacked family or social support and he became lonely and isolated.  As low grades came in he started to have a negative internal dialogue.  After the first semester he left his choice school and enrolled at a community college.  A wise choice in some ways, but his confidence was shot and he no longer believed in himself.  Our words of encouragement fell on deaf ears.  Instead of working on core classes with the intention of transferring, he decided to get a technical degree to work on CNC machines.

Don't get me wrong, this is an honorable degree that he should be proud of, but he sold himself short because life was more difficult than expected.  We still hope he will return to college and follow his dream of becoming an engineer.  I know he can do it!

This week's lectionary reading is from Isaiah 5:1-7 & 11:1-5.  In the first section Isaiah sings a song from God's perspective.  God has cared for the vineyard in every way that He can.  The vineyard is the nation of Israel, the people of God.  God has led them out of Egypt.  He has taught them how to live.  He has built them up.  He has cared for their wounds and supported them.  He has loved them and parented them, but just like with our children, they don't always do well.  Instead of bearing grapes, the vineyard has produced wild grapes.  What is God to do?  The song goes on to point out that normally in such a situation you would destroy the vineyard and start over.  But, in the case of this Vineyard, God loves the people of Israel,  God loves his children.  In chapter 11 we find out that God has another plan. 

Instead of destroying the vineyard, God will wait for a vine that grows good fruit, and that will become the vine that will be lifted up.  From that vine will come great abundance and the people of God will be grafted onto that vine.  This is a prophecy of Jesus and the fruit of the Christ found in his followers. Thank God that his ways are different than ours.  May we remember, as we struggle with our own children's choices, the patience that God had with his people! 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Death Will Lose it's Sting

Our reading from the Narrative Lectionary this week is 1 Corinthians 15:51-57. In these verses, Paul reveals a mystery, that in the end some will be transformed, given a new body, instead of facing death.  In other words death is not one of life's two certain terms.  It seems taxes may be the only guarantee.   "...in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except  death and taxes ." - Benjamin Franklin. Ok, all jokes aside, these verses are difficult to read.  Paul looks forward to a time when death will have no victory, it will have lost its sting.  But today, we are in the middle of a pandemic, surrounded by death.  Many are scared for their lives, or their loved ones, and too many have already been lost.  Death does not seem to have lost its sting at all, it feels as if it is closing in. When I worked in wilderness therapy I remember holding a child who was desperately trying to kill himself.  We cried together as he struggled to end it, and I struggled
Post a Comment
Read more

Fool for Christ

Our reading from the Narrative Lectionary this week is 2 Corinthians 5.  Verse 13 stood out to me. If it seems we are crazy, it is to bring glory to God. - 2 Corinthians 5:13a (NLT) John Wimber, the founder of the Vineyard churches did a famous sermon called "I am a fool for Christ, whose fool are you?".  Reading this week's text reminded me of this wonderful sermon.  Wimber's sermon reminds us that, as christians, we are called to something truly radical.  The christian walk is strange and counter cultural.  Jesus once explained this to his disciples in John 15 "If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. You don't belong to this world, I have chosen you out of it.  That is why the world hates you."   Peter, in a letter to the church, later referred to all of us as strangers just passing through this world.   Do you feel like a stranger?  Do you feel like the world hates you?  Are you a fool for Christ? Here is the thing, you are going t
Post a Comment
Read more

Prayer Part 2 of 4

  This is the second of four weeks the narrative lectionary is focusing on the Lord's Prayer as found in Luke 11:2-4.  This week we are focusing on the second section: "Give us this day our daily bread." At the time and place that Jesus said this, bread was the center of every meal.  To his people, it had a long history of being a symbol for God's provision.  It was often used to refer to any meal or food, and in this case Jesus expands it to represent all of our needs.   A long time ago, in a place that had been ravaged with war, orphanages were overwhelmed with children.  In one of the facilities, the relief workers noted that the children had trouble falling asleep each night.  They struggled with anxiety, wondering if they would have food for the next day.  Their lack of sleep led to more anxiety and a troubling downward spiral of their mental and physical health.  In an effort to meet their needs the workers tried something new one night.  As they tucked each chi
Post a Comment
Read more