Everyone likes a good song. Isaiah, like any preacher, needs to get the people’s attention. So he sings a song. Perhaps it is festival time and crowds are milling about, enjoying the harvest wine and songs.  

Isaiah’s song is a parable about a much-loved friend who owns a vineyard (vs 1,7a). The vineyard owner (the Lord Almighty) values his vineyard (his people) greatly and goes to great trouble to ensure their security, fruitfulness, growth and development. But when he comes to taste the grape, he spits it out. It is bitter and useless (vs 1,2). The owner is so disheartened that he consigns the vineyard back to waste ground, reversing all the measures he took earlier. 

Isaiah’s song shows us a God who is both delighted and disappointed (v 7). He delights in us as his people, and he lavishes care on us. Nothing is too much trouble. He is disappointed when we pay him back with a world of bloodshed and the cries of the poor. He is looking for good fruit, which – in this context – is a people who will live the life of righteousness and treat all people fairly (v 7).   

Give thanks for ways in which God has blessed and nurtured you in your life. Name those who have been God’s means of discipling you.

Isaiah the folk singer starts up a love song which quickly takes on a blues feel. He moves from Cliff Richard to Leonard Cohen and remains in that darker mood without the respite that we have come to expect in his passages of hope. He sings on behalf of a vineyard owner. The effort put into nurturing the vineyard or relationship is unstinting and carries expectations (notice the repeated ‘looked’ in verses 2, 4 and 7). The building of a watchtower and the construction of a winepress indicate that there is a crop needing to be protected and developed. 

Our minds turn to Jesus’ assertion, ‘I am the true vine’.¹ He, too, expects fruit with increasing yields in response to the love he showers on us. Fruit is no optional extra but a necessary consequence of being in Jesus. Here there is nothing to show for all the sustained nurture. The relationship lacks any mutuality. The result? The vineyard is turned back into wasteland. Delight (v 7) turns to disappointment and soon we shall see what this will mean for Jerusalem (vs 26‑30).

What was this expected fruit? Justice and righteousness (v 7), interpreted later by Jesus as sacrificial love for others.² This is about treatment of other people. Bloodshed and cries of distress are the marks of a fruitless people. This could involve actual murders but may equally refer to policies in the nation that effectively killed the vulnerable. Much of the teaching in the New Testament epistles is devoted to how we relate to one another. James, for example, warns against quarrels that are tantamount to murder.³ This is abhorrent to the Lord to the point where he tears things down, allowing a slide into disarray. It is an enormously chilling prospect – God withdrawing from his people.

Start positively by giving thanks for all the expressions of fruitfulness you see in your community of faith. Then also consider where justice and righteousness may be absent.

¹ John 15:1  ² John 15:12  ³ James 4:1–3