“I don’t understand it – I treated them all the same, they all got the same shelter, the same water, the same soil. But one dies, and the others are fine.”

Such are the frustrations my wife, Katrie, faces in her role as household gardener. How do you respond to that? It makes no sense, there is no clear reason why such a thing should happen – it just does. Perhaps the poor thing just lost the will to live – I’ve certainly told myself that in the past, when anything green and under my care has died (as just about everything green and under my care has!) Fortunately, Katrie is a much better gardener than I am, being possessed of the necessary patience and care as I am not. (For the record, my gardening responsibilities are purely destructive – by which I mean cutting the grass!)

In Katrie’s angst-filled cry I hear echoes of another gardener’s bafflement:

1-2 I’ll sing a ballad to the one I love, a love ballad about his vineyard: The one I love had a vineyard, a fine, well-placed vineyard.
He hoed the soil and pulled the weeds,
and planted the very best vines.
He built a lookout, built a winepress,
a vineyard to be proud of.
He looked for a vintage yield of grapes,
but for all his pains he got junk grapes.

3-4″Now listen to what I’m telling you,
you who live in Jerusalem and Judah.
What do you think is going on
between me and my vineyard?
Can you think of anything I could have done
to my vineyard that I didn’t do?
When I expected good grapes,
why did I get bitter grapes?

- Isaiah 5:1-4 (Message)

Having hoed, planted, watered, weeded, sheltered and generally nurtured the vines, he expects to be able to enjoy the literal fruit of his labours. The passage details just how expectant he was: he plants, not just any vines, but the “very best vines”; he builds a watchtower, both a place where he can guard over his investment, but also one in which he can sit and enjoy the sight of the vines, his vines; and he builds a winepress, ready to make the finest wine from his “vintage yield of grapes.” Clearly this is a prizewinning “vineyard to be proud of,” one he no doubt can’t help but boast about to everyone he knows.

Imagine, then, his disappointment and anger, when all of the grapes that he has laboured so long over prove to be sour. Picture him hanging his head in shame amongst his neighbours, whose barely concealed sniggers reproach him at every turn. “Can you think of anything I could have done to my vineyard that I didn’t do?” he pleads.

Isaiah’s “ballad”, perhaps first sung at a harvest festival, would have called to mind amongst his listeners many of the joys and frustrations of life on the land. The audience would likely have shared in the vintner’s joy, and sympathised with his anguish, many of them having faced similar circumstances.

Isaiah’s message is not, however, about a literal vineyard:

7Do you get it? The vineyard of God-of-the-Angel-Armies
is the country of Israel.
All the men and women of Judah
are the garden he was so proud of.
He looked for a crop of justice
and saw them murdering each other.
He looked for a harvest of righteousness
and heard only the moans of victims.

- Isaiah 5:7 (Message)

“Do you get it?” It is a mark of the inventiveness of the prophets, that they use parables, stories and, as in this case, songs to deliver truth where it would otherwise not reach. Isaiah does it here through familiar and comforting images, parallels to pictures of everyday life. He drives his point home brutally, however, leaving no room for misunderstanding. God expects justice: he sees bloodshed. God expects righteousness: he hears only cries of distress. This is even worse than no fruit – instead the fruit being borne is the exact opposite of what he sought.

The heart of Isaiah’s message on this occasion, however, lies in the verses in between these two sections:

5-6″Well now, let me tell you
what I’ll do to my vineyard:
I’ll tear down its fence
and let it go to ruin.
I’ll knock down the gate
and let it be trampled.
I’ll turn it into a patch of weeds, untended, uncared for—
thistles and thorns will take over.
I’ll give orders to the clouds:
‘Don’t rain on that vineyard, ever!'”

- Isaiah 5:5-6 (Message)

God will not allow this situation to continue forever. Having had no response to his plaintive appeals regarding his own actions, the vineyard owner makes his decision: root it all all; remove the shelter; leave it to the weeds; withhold the life-bringing water. In other words, leave it to die.

Here’s how Jesus puts it:

6-7Then he told them a story: “A man had an apple tree planted in his front yard. He came to it expecting to find apples, but there weren’t any. He said to his gardener, ‘What’s going on here? For three years now I’ve come to this tree expecting apples and not one apple have I found. Chop it down! Why waste good ground with it any longer?’

8-9″The gardener said, ‘Let’s give it another year. I’ll dig around it and fertilize, and maybe it will produce next year; if it doesn’t, then chop it down.'”

- Luke 13:6-9 (Message)

We are like the vines and the apple tree. We have been given every advantage we need – we have been provided life, love, shelter, food, relationships. If, in spite of these advantages, we bear no fruit, or if we bear bad fruit, we will eventually be chopped down & pulled out. “Why waste good ground with (us) any longer?”

Right now, we are living in a period of grace, such as that granted to the apple tree. Let’s make sure that the fruit we bear is good fruit: justice, righteousness, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Remember, it’s not enough to look like an apple-tree – to be an apple-tree, one must bear apples.