Daily Devotional • December 8
A Reading from Isaiah 5:1-7
1 I will sing for my beloved
my love song concerning his vineyard:
My beloved had a vineyard
on a very fertile hill.
2 He dug it and cleared it of stones
and planted it with choice vines;
he built a watchtower in the midst of it
and hewed out a wine vat in it;
he expected it to yield grapes,
but it yielded rotten grapes.
3 And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem
and people of Judah,
judge between me
and my vineyard.
4 What more was there to do for my vineyard
that I have not done in it?
When I expected it to yield grapes,
why did it yield rotten grapes?
5 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 wasteland;
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.
7 For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts
is the house of Israel,
and the people of Judah
are his cherished garden;
he expected justice
but saw bloodshed;
righteousness
but heard a cry!
Meditation
According to our passage in Isaiah, God planted his vineyard on “a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it and hewed out a wine vat in it.” In other words, he invested a lot in his people. He created humans. He preserved Noah’s life. He chose Abraham. He saved his people at the Exodus and gave them the law. He anointed a line of kings and sent prophets to keep them in his ways, but still his vineyard produced rotten grapes: bloodshed instead of justice.
God sounds flabbergasted, “What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it?” He promises to orchestrate judgment, but he is still a jealous God, longing for his people. At the end of the passage there is a glimmer of hope. As verse 7 proclaims, the house of Israel, the people of Judah are his vineyard; they are his cherished garden, currently. God has not given up on them. Through all their faults and flaws, he has not abandoned them.
Those of us who are Gentiles have been grafted into the vine of God’s people. Jesus is the True Vine, and he has made a way for all followers of Christ, to abide in him, to be connected to the Father and produce the fruit of the Spirit instead of rotten grapes. In John 15, Jesus proclaims that he cleanses and loves us. In fact, the fruit he charges us to bear is love which comes only from abiding in him. Let these words of grace fall upon our ears as honeycombs upon our tongues. May we abide in him today and produce works of love as branches in his vineyard.
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Melissa Amber Patton is a Pittsburgh native, a writer, and an M.Div. student at Trinity Anglican Seminary. She is currently the music leader at Mosaic Anglican Church in Imperial, Pennsylvania and is pursuing ordination with the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh.
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Daily Devotional Cycle of Prayer
Today we pray for:
St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church, Tucson, Arizona
Province of the Episcopal Church of Sudan
