Justice (Isaiah 5)

 A few months ago I told you about the plants I planted in my little backyard, next to our fence. I started with the soil, turning it, working it. I attached chicken wire to the fence, so that the star jasmine I was planting would have something to climb as they grew. Then I planted, and watered, and waited.

Almost every day, I've been going out and checking on those plants. I got really excited when I noticed the first shoot reaching and attaching itself to the wire. And then I watched it grow up, twisting itself around, reaching 2, 3, 4 feet off the ground…And I began looking forward to next spring, when those white, sweet-smelling, five-petaled star jasmine flowers appear.

I began to feel an emotional attachment to these plants. They were my babies.

So you can imagine my distress when I went out one day and made a startling discovery: some of the vines had been broken - snapped and separated from the main plant. And when I looked down at the soil, I saw paw prints.

So I bought a low fence, stuck it in the ground, to keep the dogs out of the soil and away from the plants. And now the vines are growing again, up the wire…and I still have hopes that all will be well, and the flowers will appear…

This experience has helped me better understand the emotion in today’s scripture reading from the 5th chapter of Isaiah. 

Isaiah 5 starts with a poetic love-song between a man and his vineyard. 

The speaker here seems to be God, and the keeper of the vineyard is God’s beloved… but then, identities shift a bit, and God becomes the keeper of the vineyard. 

And if this is a love song (as it says), who are the two lovers? God and the keeper of the vineyard? The vineyard grower and his vines? Both?

It’s like a dream, isn’t it? In dreams, identities shift around. … I know in my dreams, I could be interacting with a person in one moment, but then, in the next moment, I’ve become that person...

Oh! It just occurred to me… Perhaps Isaiah 5 describes an actual dream that the prophet Isaiah had…

Anyway, it is clear that the keeper of the vineyard loved his vineyard. He had high, high hopes for his vineyard. Like me with the plants I planted, he couldn’t wait to see his vineyard reach its full potential, producing beautiful, delicious grapes good for eating, or good for making wine.

Reading a little further, the identities shift around once again, and suddenly, we are God’s garden. All of us. We are the garden God works so hard to grow and nurture. And just that little bit of joy I experience in seeing my garden grow - multiply that by a thousand, and that’s how much joy God experiences by watching us grow and reach our full potential. God watches over us, the same way I watch over my jasmine plants. God’s heart is invested in us. We are God’s beloved.

And it is clear that God loves diversity in God’s garden. Grapes come in many different colors, just like people do. And to make the best wine, you incorporate different combinations of grapes grown in different locations. Some of you know a lot more about wine than I do, but it is clear that if there was only one type of grape, capable of making only one type of wine, the world would be a lot more boring.

The same is true for people. Is it a stretch to think of our congregation as a unique, one-of-a-kind wine? Because the combination of diverse people that we have here isn’t replicated exactly anywhere else on earth.

And yet, we are in partnership with other congregations, in our region, in our denomination, which are all unique in their own ways - not to mention the other congregations and denominations in the body of Christ that exist all around the world. 

Each of us, unique. Each of us, part of the body of Christ. Each of us, adding to the beautiful diversity of the church….

Not long after I planted our star jasmine at home, Ginger decided that there needed to be a little more diversity. She planted a different type of climbing plant - one with red flowers - so that there would be a beautiful color contrast with the white flowers of the star jasmine. 

I’m sure this will work out. In the wild, plants tend to embrace diversity. And this diversity actually helps the plants and trees grow.

We see this on farms. Most farms plant huge fields of a single crop. The advantage for the farmer is that a single crop reduces costs; but this type of farming isn't really sustainable in the long term. 

It increases the danger of a widespread crop failure. Plus, it deprives the soil of the benefits that come with growing a diverse population of plants. It's easier for the soil to have its nutrients naturally replenished when there is a diversity of plants. This reduces the need for fertilizer, which is good, because most fertilizer is made of synthetic chemicals that are bad for the environment and natural ecology. 

So even among plants, diversity is good. It’s not only beautiful, but it helps the plants thrive and grow. Diversity contributes to healthy communities... of plants… and people.

The keeper of the vineyard planted his vines, and expected grapes. Good, beautiful, delicious grapes. But what happened? The grapes that grew were puny wild grapes, bitter, practically inedible, and certainly no good for making wine.

So the keeper of the vineyard tears down the vineyard. Rips it out. He’ll try again somewhere else. Not here, because the soil is bad. (Remember what my Aunt Cindi said: “Start with the soil.”) 

Now as we keep reading through Isaiah 5, it turns out that - in this ever- shifting dream - that the vineyard is the nation of Israel; the people of Judah. God planted this nation. (Two nations, actually.) God nurtured it. And God expected justice to be the fruit that arose from the nation. Justice. But instead, God saw the bloodshed of those who had been treated unfairly. 

And God expected righteousness. Righteousness. But instead, God heard the cry of one who has been denied justice and righteousness.

And we know that it is easy for people to give lip service so that it appears they are acting in ways that are just and right. It's easy to give the appearance of doing what is right and just. There's actually a play on words here that demonstrates this. In Hebrew, the justice God expects is mishpat, but the bloodshed God gets is mishpah.

And the righteousness God expects is sedaqa, but the cry God hears is se’aqa.

This wordplay in Hebrew shows how easy it is for a person or a society to turn justice into bloodshed, and righteousness into cries of oppression.

In the rest of Isaiah, chapter 5, the prophet gets more specific regarding how the lack of justice and righteousness has played out. 

First, in verse 8, the prophet condemns those who acquire house after house, field after field, buying up all the real estate, driving up rents and housing prices, until there is no room for anyone else.

Then, in verse 11, the prophet condemns those who feast lavishly and get drunk on wine, but who pay no heed to God’s calls for justice for the poor. 

Then, in verse 18, the prophet condemns those who commit fraud and misrepresent God to the people.

Then, in verse 20, the prophet condemns those who call evil good and good evil, who present darkness as light and light as darkness.

Then, in verse 21, the prophet condemns those who boast in their own wisdom and cleverness, thinking they alone have all the answers. 

And then, in verse 23,  the prophet condemns those who accept bribes from the guilty, and then rob the innocent of their rights.

Oh! a lot of injustice. And it’s all going on in our country today. It’s all happening. Now...

Finally, in verse 25, the prophet says that the anger of the Lord is kindled against the people. Because they have so clearly not produced the fruit God expected. 

God cares deeply about justice, and about what is right. It infuriates God when the poor are taken advantage of, when the poor must bear greater burdens so that the rich can - as Isaiah says - join house to house and field to field and enjoy ever more luxurious feasts. God hates that! God hates it when some live in luxury, while others languish in poverty. Which is why it is sin to deprive the poor and the innocent of what is right and what is just.

This is what is important to God. The basic idea is repeated over and over throughout the entire Bible…. In the gospels, there is a story of Jesus confronting some of the religious leaders - they carefully practice all the rituals of the faith, yet they have neglected justice. And for this, Jesus says to them: “Woe to you!”

This didn’t make Jesus very popular with the religious leaders. And those who preach justice and work for justice today often find resistance as well.

Just this week, a colleague of mine said he can’t preach about justice at his church; he can’t even mention the word “justice.” The leaders in his congregation told him it’s too divisive.

As Oscar Romero said a year and a half before he was assassinated, “All those who preach justice will find themselves up against the stone wall of people who don’t want to change their ways, who don’t want to orient their relationships with others by the ways of justice.”

Justice is the message of the prophets, and justice is the message of Jesus. Those who fail to practice justice are subject to doom and woe.

But to the masses suffering from a lack of justice… to those who are poor and oppressed, and who have had heavy burdens placed upon them by the powerful and the wealthy, this is the good news.

It is the promise that God will not long abide the injustice that exists. God will not long tolerate abuses heaped on the poor. God will not long put up with white supremacy and other forms of oppression.

And God hears the cry of those who suffer, those who are oppressed. And when God hears that cry of suffering, look out! Because God is about to act! to restore justice! to restore what is right! To restore wholeness to this fragmented world!