God's Shattering Brings Good News

Proper 15, Year C
Isaiah 5: 1 – 7; Psalm 80:1-2, 8-18; Hebrews 11: 29 – 12:2; Luke 12: 49 – 56
“God’s Shattering Brings Good News”
The Rev. Linda Campbell

When I moved in to my home, I inherited a dwarf peach tree that looked very healthy. No leaf curl. Brilliant green leaves. Beautiful strong healthy trunk. My family looked forward to the summer peaches with great expectation! When they ripened they were perfectly formed, perfectly golden pink. Organically grown, they had no worms. Birds had not pecked tiny bites in these peaches. But when we bit into them, they were mealy and tasteless. We didn’t give up with the first peach. We kept checking each peach on that tree for the perfect moment of ripeness. When it was perfect, we tried eating it. Not a one of those peaches was good. Still we were not ready to give up. We consulted farm advisers. We followed all their expert advice. The next harvest season, we had great expectations. And as you might guess, the same thing happened. Not one peach worth eating. OK. We do not give up easily. A third year, we devoted attention to these three beautiful dwarf peach trees. After that year, we finally gave up, took out the trees and bricked that area in to use for something else.

Isaiah took this experience that most gardeners have had, at one time or another, and carved a brilliant parable from it – Instead of peach trees or grape vines, God plants a people. He frees them from slavery, nurtures their unfolding sense of themselves as people of God, shares his hopes and dreams with them of hospitality to the stranger, of care for the widowed and orphaned, of land that is distributed fairly and an economics that does not hold people hostage to debt. Everything good and gracious and fine is offered on behalf of this people – a way through the wilderness, manna from heaven to eat and sweet water in the desert to drink and laws to govern themselves by, and prophets to remind them of the ways that lead to life – and yet instead of yielding a rich harvest of justice and mercy, the people are vengeful and bloodthirsty. Instead of honor and integrity and truthfulness, the people harm others and create misery for the poor and destitute.

I almost asked the reader to read this first reading with sobs – which I didn’t do because it would have taken you so by surprise – but I invite you to read Isaiah to yourself sometime this week. Hear God’s passion and love, God's forlornness and disappointment. Share God’s heartbreak.

“What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? These people are my pleasant planting – I expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry! What more was there to do that I have not done?” *from Isaiah 5

My father and I talk on the phone every Saturday. I am incredibly grateful that we can share what is in our hearts. Yesterday, I asked his prayers for my daughter, his granddaughter Ella, who is serving with the Peace Corps in Ecuador, right next door to Peru. We agreed to deepen our prayers for the people in Peru, particularly those who have been affected so horrifically from the earthquake that shook southern Peru a few days ago. My dad said that we in this country cannot really fathom the depths of suffering that wracks so much of the rest of the world – from earthquake to famine to war to grinding poverty. Now, he is of a different branch of the Christian family – Adventists expect that the end of the world is coming sooner rather than later. On this as on many other theological points, we agree to disagree and to simply hold to the core of the gospel, which is the good news of God’s love in Jesus Christ. But yesterday on the phone, he said, “Honey, I don’t believe this world is long to last.” And he said it with such poignancy, such love for this world, such heartbreak over people’s inhumanity to each other; - I could hear the same tenor in his voice, as we read in this portion of Isaiah. Behind that heartbreak, I could also hear the same kind of judgment that would follow as a natural consequence of humanity’s unwillingness to consistently practice kindness and humility and justice – the judgment of destruction, of trampling down, of drought and the infertility of the land.

This morning's passages are difficult to listen to. “And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. I will make it a waste.” I don’t know about you, but I don’t especially like it when Jesus says, “I came to bring fire to the earth and how I wish it were already kindled! Do you think I came to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! They will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother.” It gets really personal. This isn’t just about nations. This is right within the heart of families.

I met with someone from another parish this past week whose marriage was in trouble. Divisions within her own psyche caused by childhood trauma had surfaced and she has spent a lot of time working on healing. As she heals, her prayer life has deepened and become profoundly meaningful. She glows with health. She is emotionally and spiritually changed as the sourness of trauma has turned into the sweetness of health. Change is difficult though – and her partner is threatened by this newfound joy – and uncomfortably challenged by her renewed Christian faith. There is every hope that their marriage will recover and in fact become better – but the truth is that as wounds and conflicts surface – whether they are within us, within our families, or within our church communities – the immediate experience can be one of fire and not of peace, of greater division rather than of greater unity. The ultimate truth however is that this very experience of uncovering what has remained hidden and bringing into the light what has been in darkness, brings tremendous opportunity for real health and vitality – with a hefty price tag of real labor, of persevering hope, and of commitment to love beyond reason.

St. Alban’s is in an Interim time – a times of transition in which much that has been assumed and under cover is being questioned and brought to light – and that is a real source of new life and new opportunities but there is also real labor involved in taking the hopes and dreams of what turns out to be a very diverse community, in which there are some hopes and dreams that clash – that are not easily unified - and finding the place of deeper unity and purpose that will guide the parish and the new rector into the future.

A part of this future involves celebrating what has been brought to light – again, brought to light with a real price tag of labor, and hope and love. This coming Saturday, the Gulf Coast Mission Project will prepare an excellent New Orlean’s style supper, and show a professionally produced video (by our own Jeff Peterson) of what we saw and did in New Orleans. I can testify from seeing New Orleans with my own eyes that truth is shattering. It was gut wrenching to see the devastation that continues in the Lower 9^th Ward where we ran a children’s camp. But while Katrina wrecked havoc, that destruction also uncovered the ugliness of entrenched racism and injustice. And bringing those wounds to the light is the first step towards healing them, particularly when Christians and people of faith become involved in moving systems towards health rather than towards apathy and cynicism.

The prophet Isaiah and our Savior Jesus charge you and me to taste the fruits of our lives, to see what sets our teeth on edge, and what brings satisfaction. By the power of the Holy Spirit, know that it is good news that shatters systems that do not bring life and flourishing – It is good news that Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith does not allow us to remain in the sour grapes mode – but calls us, cajoles us, points us, directs us, leads us, and our families, our churches, our nation, towards health, and fruitfulness, and abundance of life.