Grant Us True Repentance
Proper 15
Isaiah 5:1-7
The Old
Testament reading for today, as it was last week, is from Isaiah. I mentioned last Sunday that the Book
of Isaiah was written by at least three different authors. This passage is from what is often
called First Isaiah, written by the 8th century BC prophet, Isaiah
of Jerusalem.
The language in
Isaiah is rich and the poetry beautiful.
This passage conveys a powerful image.
God is grieved, deeply
angered by the behavior of God’s people.
God is profoundly affected, deeply disappointed by the failure of the
people of God to live as a just and righteous society.
The passage can
be tricky to follow. Voice and
perspective change in the midst of the passage. It starts out in the prophet’s voice. “Let me sing for my beloved my
love-song concerning his vineyard.”
It’s not clear at first who
the prophet’s beloved is. Who is
the owner of the vineyard? But
later the voice changes to the voice of the owner of the vineyard and it
becomes clear that the vineyard owner is God and the vineyard represents God’s
people, the people of Israel and Judah.
God has poured
love and care into the planting and nurturing of the vineyard. But it becomes clear. The owner is God. The vineyard is God’s people… Israel and Judah. He pours love and care into the
vineyard. “What more was there to
do for my vineyard that I have not done in it?” God asks.
And, yet, when
God looks upon the vineyard he “expected justice, but saw bloodshed.” He expected “righteousness, but heard a
cry.” God’s desire was for God’s
people to live fruitfully in justice and righteousness. But, despite God’s care, the people in
God’s vineyard produced only wildness, bloodshed, a cry.
What really
strikes me in this passage is how deeply God is affected by the peoples’
failure. God FEELS the peoples’
failure. God’s grief and anger are
passionate. This is not the God we
often picture sitting benignly on some distant throne. This is not a God with a passive, vaguely benevolent
indifference to his peoples’ sins.
This passage in
Isaiah ends with God destroying the vineyard.
“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. 6 I
will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and it shall be overgrown
with briers and thorns; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain
upon it.”
The end is the
peoples’ destruction.
What does this
mean for us? For our failure to
live righteously, to “do right by one another” to embody social justice in our
society?
The idea that
God feels our failure deeply, grieves our indifference to righteousness and
justice reminded me of the language in our Ash Wednesday service. We only use the special liturgy for Ash
Wednesday once a year, of course.
And because it’s a Wednesday many of you aren’t able to come. That’s too bad. It’s a powerful service. I’m thinking in particularly of the
Litany of Penitence where we acknowledge how deeply we fall short of God’s
hopes for us.
In one of its
intercessions we pray for God’s mercy because we “have been deaf to God’s call
to serve, as Christ served us.
We have not been true to the mind of Christ. We have grieved God’s Holy Spirit.” We have grieved God’s Holy Spirit.
God grieves our
failure to live in righteousness.
In the Litany of
Penitence, we also acknowledge “our self-indulgent appetites and ways, and our
exploitation of other people;” “our blindness to human need and suffering, and
our indifference to injustice and cruelty.”
Surely God is
angry at our indifference to social justice and the needs of others.
So how does our
story end?
At the
conclusion of the Litany of Penitence, the priest says these words:
“Almighty God,
the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who desires not the death of sinners, but
rather that they may turn from their wickedness and live… has given power to pardon and absolve.”
God does not
desire the death or destruction of us sinners. Rather that we may turn back to God and live, pardoned and
renewed.
In the context
of that assurance of God’s desire to pardon and absolve, we all pray: Grant
us true repentance.
And that’s the
crux of it all. God, grant us true
repentance. Give us the will and
the ability to repent. Help us
repent so that we may know God’s pardon and absolution. The journey back to God begins with our
repentance. Grant us true
repentance.
I don’t want to
leave you with the impression that in the Old Testament the story ends with the
destruction of God’s people and only in the New Testament does God offer
forgiveness and reconciliation.
That is not the case. The
whole point of the prophetic witness in the Old Testament was to call the
people to repentance. The whole
point of the prophets—Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amox, Micah—preaching destruction was
to turn the people back to God.
God desires repentance and renewal.
We affirm that
in our Eucharistic Prayers. For
example, in Prayer D, which we are using now at 10:00: “When our disobedience took us far from you, you did not
abandon us to the power of death.
In your mercy you came to our help, so that in seeking you we might find
you. Again and again you called us
into covenant with you, and through the prophets you taught us to hope for
salvation.”
Again and again
and again, you called us back, and through the prophets you taught us to
hope. God’s desire is always that
sinners turn from their wickedness and live.
Isaiah reminds
us how deeply God grieves our failures to live with righteousness and
justice. If only we cared just a
fraction as deeply about our failures as God does. Maybe then we would repent.
Grant us true
repentance. That is the prayer we
need to pray. Grant us true
repentance.
