Wild Vines

Trinity Presbyterian Church of Bethesda/United Korean Presbyterian Church
World Communion Sunday 2008; Rev. John An and Rev. David Williams

(preached in English and Korean)

Scripture Lesson: Isaiah 5:1-7

Sometimes a bright idea just doesn’t turn out the way you hoped.

Take, for example, the introduction of kudzu into the United States.

It’s a lovely flowering vine, brought to America in 1876.

It could be used as an ornamental plant.

The blossoms are rich and purple and vibrant.

And it’s really, really easy to grow.

Even I could probably grow it.

It has lush, broad leaves and deep taproots.

For that reason, Americans thought that it could prevent erosion.

So in the 1930s until the mid 1950s, farmers were encouraged to plant it.

Then they noticed something.

It really, really liked to grow.

And it grew a lot.

In it’s native Japan, where it was called kuzu, it had natural predators.

It was also limited by Japanese winters.

But in America’s South, growth conditions were perfect.

There was nothing to stop it.

At the height of a Virginia summer, kudzu vines grow a foot a day.

One.

Foot.

Every Day.

Kudzu now covers over seven million square acres of the South.

It strangles trees.

It smothers fields.

It covers crops.

It’ll overrun houses if you’ll let it.

Where once it was planted, now farmers fight against it.

They spray it and root it out.

It is the most invasive of the wild vines.

If you don’t fight it, starve it, or poison it

It will consume everything around it.

The prophet Isaiah also preached a great deal about wild vines.

Today, we heard his proclamation to the people of Judah.

Isaiah was preaching from Jerusalem, and to Jerusalem.

He had the ears of leaders.

He had the attention and respect of kings.

Many people in that position would have spoken easy platitudes.

They would have insured their position and spoken nothing hard.

But it was the time of the rise of Assyria.

Eight hundred years before Christ

Isaiah saw around him the flaws of his people.

He saw their complacence

He saw how the powerful in Jerusalem celebrated

Even though great threats faced them from the outside.

He saw how the wealthy in Jerusalem helped themselves to riches

Even when the poor scrabbled for a living.

He saw how everyone in Judah was utterly convinced that they could do no wrong.

They were God’s people!

God would protect them.

It didn’t matter how they lived.

It didn’t matter how they acted.

God would protect them.

In the face of that, Isaiah heard God’s challenge to the people and conveyed it.

Today’s passage expresses that challenge.

Isaiah spoke it in terms that all his listeners, rich and poor, would understand.

He spoke of a vineyard owned by a ruler.

That vineyard, though carefully prepared, was overrun with wild vines.

It yielded nothing of worth.

In the face of their injustice and unrighteousness,

Isaiah warned Judah of how land that wouldn’t yield would be treated.

That pleasant planting would be given over to ruin.

It would be an arid waste.

Because what growth there was was bitter and worthless and wild

The garden would be yielded to desolation.

It did not matter that the people were sure they were God’s people.

They had supplanted the harvest of righteousness

With a harvest of bloodshed.

They had supplanted a harvest of justice

With cries of despair and conflict.

Soon, with Assyria’s armies storming down from the north

Much of what Isaiah proclaimed would come to pass.

God would not stand by while his garden was overrun with wild vines.

He would tear down the walls that protected it.

He would make the garden a ruin.

As we each look to our own lives

We have to ask ourselves how deeply our hearts are overgrown.

We are all God’s gracious planting.

It is easy for us to personally assume, like those in Jerusalem, that God is always on our side.

We naturally believe that no matter what we do

God must be on our side.

But, like those whom Isaiah challenged, we have to always think:

Do our lives bear the fruit of God’s goodness?

Each and every one of us is called upon to show God’s grace in all we do.

How deeply do we show our Creator’s care to those around us?

How eagerly do we bear the fruit of righteousness?

How richly do we show God’s justice to the world?

How deeply do we manifest that highest fruit of the Holy Spirit

The self-sacrificing love that Christ showed to all?

Or are we overgrown?

Do our own desires tangle as heavy as kudzu on our souls?

Does our own pride

Pride in our position

Pride in our job

Pride in our spiritual superiority

Pride in our worldly wealth

Blind us to God’s love for others?

Does it try to strangle the good and gracious Gospel planting in us?

It is not the pride of others that should be our concern.

It is our own.

When we ask those questions, we must answer:

Of course it does.

None of us escape that temptation.

None of us.

Not a single person here today.

We all struggle with it.

So hear Isaiah, as Jerusalem heard and repented.

Hear that prophet’s word.

Bear good fruit, and be that pleasant planting.