Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. – Matthew 21:43

Are grapes endemic in Australia?

The first grapevine planting material arrived in Australia with white settlement in 1788. Today grapes are grown commercially in all States and Territories. Grape growing (wine, raisin, and table) is the largest fruit industry in Australia with production in a wide range of environments from temperate to tropical. Wine grape production and wine making is the largest and most predominant of the three viticulture industries.[1]

What is viticulture? Viticulture (from the Latin word for vine) is the science, production, and study of grapes. It deals with the series of events that occur in the vineyard. When the grapes are used for winemaking, it is also known as viniculture. It is a branch of the science of horticulture.[2]

God was a viticulturist.

Chapter 5 of Isaiah is called the Song of the Vineyard or Song of the Unfruitful Vineyard.

The Lord has spoken through the Prophet Isaiah about Israel and Judah. But this time against Israel and Judah. The Lord compared the Israelites as a well-managed vineyard planted in the most fertile land, fenced off from any form of unwelcome intrusion particularly wild animals and anything that may encroach on it. A watchtower stands in guard. The Lord did everything to make the vineyard bear the finest of grapes.

Now God is angered and decides to lay the vineyard to waste, to be trampled down and not to be rained upon. Why? Because it produced wild grapes: In the prophets’ words: He expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry!

Such was the situation of the people of Israel. The kingdom was corrupted by injustice and oppression. The prophet exposes the ills of the society. In verse 8, he speaks about the accumulation of land and properties:

Ah, you who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is room for no one but you, and you are left to live alone in the midst of the land!

In verses 11 and 12, the prophet criticizes their luxurious lifestyle and their disregard of the labour of the Lord:

11Ah, you who rise early in the morning in pursuit of strong drink, who linger in the evening to be inflamed by wine, 12whose feasts consist of lyre and harp, tambourine and flute and wine, but who do not regard the deeds of the Lord, or see the work of his hands!

There is use of deception in order to justify injustice and corruption:

18Ah, you who drag iniquity along with cords of falsehood, who drag sin along as with cart ropes,

There is forced and oppressive labour:

19who say, “Let him make haste, let him speed his work that we may see it; let the plan of the Holy One of Israel hasten to fulfillment, that we may know it!”

Not only a list of social injustices but also decadence and destruction of the moral fibers of society:

20Ah, you who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!

21Ah, you who are wise in your own eyes, and shrewd in your own sight!

22Ah, you who are heroes in drinking wine and valiant at mixing drink,

23who acquit the guilty for a bribe, and deprive the innocent of their rights!

God was furious and angry because this was not the people God set aside. The finest grapes God expected from the vineyard did not come about. Instead, there were wild, sour grapes:

For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting; he expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry! (Isa 5:7)

Do you know what “sour grapes” or “sour graping” means?

Yahoo Answers: Sour grapes come from an old fable about a fox who was unable to find a way to reach some grapes. The fox, denying that he ever desired them, said, “Those grapes are sour anyway.”

Basically, sour grapping is putting something down just because you weren’t able to attain it.

Was it from this biblical passage where “sour grapping” was originally coined? Was God “sour grapping” through the prophet Isaiah?

Was God putting Israel down because God was not able to establish a righteous and faithful people in the Israelites despite all things that God did. And so God says, “They are wild grapes anyway”.

In the New Testament, the image of the vine and vineyard are used several times. In this instance Jesus himself was using this image by way of a parable. The parable of the tenants in the vineyard.

Warning: this should not be taken as a parable to be used against the Jews particularly the multitudes among them. But it was the chief priests and Pharisees whom Jesus was addressing. They were the Jerusalem elite and Temple authorities who were represented as the tenants of the vineyard.

In the parable, a landowner leased the vineyard to the tenants. By the time of harvest, the landowner sends his slaves to take their share of the produce but the tenants kill the slaves. Finally, the landowner sends his son, believing they would listen to him. But the son met the same fate as the slaves.

Going back, we started with God as a viticulturist and God “sour graping” over the “wildness” of the produce of the Israel vineyard. Then we reflected on Jesus prophesying against the chief priests and Pharisees for mismanaging and corrupting the people of God.

We are reminded that we are God’s vineyard. We are expected to bear the fruits of the kingdom, but we have fallen short. We have contributed to the creation of unjust and oppressive structures and social systems. These economic systems have in fact caused the marginalization and sufferings of peoples around the world. These are the wild sour grapes that we have produced as a disobedient people.

In order for us to bear good fruits, we are invited to restore our relationship with God. We are challenged to be instruments of God’s justice and genuine peace in the world so that our fruit-bearing will yield God’s justice and righteousness, reconciliation and peace.

Let us be God’s vineyard in ways that we should be and in ways that we can be, in Christ name.

Amen.

 

[1] Grape Production in Australia, David Oag, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, July 2001; http://www.fao.org/3/a-x6897e/x6897e04.htm (Accessed 4 October 2014).

[2] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viticulture