Jesus told many parables. We have heard many of those parables this summer: the tax collector and the Pharisee, the Laborers in the Vineyard, the Judge and the Widow, the Good Samaritan.

Back in May when trying to select parables to preach, I came across Old Testament parables. I was intrigued, partly because I was unfamiliar with most of them and because I enjoy Old Testament preaching. A few Old Testament parables may be familiar to us, such as the one found in II Samuel chapter 12, when the prophet Nathan convicts King David of his sin. The parable is about two men, a rich one and a poor one. The rich man had many flocks and herds, and the poor man had only one little lamb. A traveler came to be a guest of the rich man. The rich man, instead of taking one of the many lambs from his own multitude of flocks, the rich man took the only lamb of the poor man and prepared it for the guest. Outraged and angered by the parable, King David calls for punishment of the rich man, only to discover from the mouth of the prophet, “You are the man!”

You can find other Old Testament parables in Ezekiel, such as the parable of the Great Eagles or the parable of the Boiling Pot. There are also parabolic fables, which some count as true parables and others do not. Whatever the case, these parables stand to send a word to us.

In front of us this morning, is a parable from the prophet Isaiah, the Song of the Vineyard. Described as “one of the poetic masterpieces of the Old Testament,” the prophet beckons our attention. The words we hear, describe a vineyard and not just any vineyard, but one on a fertile hill. We also discover the devotion God has for the vineyard: digging, planting and clearing… so fruit can grow. After the seeds have been planted, God waits in expectation for the fruit of the harvest.

God waits and God expects. The verb, “expects” may also be translated as “longs for.” I find it fascinating that in the whole Old Testament, this verb “expects or longs for” only occurs three times with God as the subject all three are here in this text all other occurrences use it for the longing of human beings. This is important, because as other prophets claim, Isaiah emphasizes the direct and intimate relationship between God and God’s people. So God waits and God expects.

As you know, we human beings don’t always follow through on our part of the bargin. The expectation was grapes, maybe “bright reds” a type of large grape that is still valued in the Near East today. But instead of large juicy fruit, the vines only produced small, hard, sour grapes.

What began as a love song has now turned into anything but. The vineyard will be devoured, pruned, overgrown from briers and thorns, and dry from the lack of rain. God the one, who planted, and who was attentive, expected justice and righteousness but only saw bloodshed and heard the cries of injustice. The “bloodshed” that concerns the prophet is not the visible murder of people, but the injustice to others…the invisible, very subtle, ways to take advantage of those without resources. God longed for Israel to get it right and only heard the despair of those they trampled. The words of the prophet are not prophesy about what WILL happen rather they are a theology of HISTORY of WHY Israel will find itself in exile.

I can’t tell you how many times this week, I have chuckled and even shed tears at the irony that I would be preaching today. For the pictures that most of us have tried to pry our eyes away from this week, the pictures of the destruction of the Gulf Coast of Mississippi and Louisiana from Hurricane Katrina, are pictures of my home. For 18 years, I called that part of the country home and have always had family there. The memories flood back memories of eating beignets at Café Du Mond in New Orleans which is now under water, of going to High School in the small town of Bay St. Louis which from reports I read on Gulf coast websites has almost been destroyed, of the breathtaking beauty of the Mississippi Gulf Coast and proud spirit of the people. The pictures have been hard to watch. Words can’t even describe my concern, at times my numbness. I found out Wednesday that my mom and grandfather were alive and safe, and was able to talk to friends on Friday. There I sat with electricity, with a kitchen stocked with food while my family and friends were waiting for water and food to arrive while the oppressive heat beat down and the reality of the situation loomed large. I sat there watching pictures of flattened homes, homes of people I know homes of people who are now homeless. I scanned local websites for more information and the picture became only more bleak, friend’s names on list of the missing reports of damage where no camera crew had gotten to yet. I watched in disbelief as I saw the city of New Orleans falling into hell.

In between the pictures, I have heard commentary some of it helpful, some of it not. ” Why didn’t they leave? Didn’t they know what was coming? Couldn’t they go somewhere?”

11.9% of the US population lives in poverty. In Louisiana and Mississippi it is over 18%. These two states have the highest rate of poverty in the nation. Many of the people that didn’t leave couldn’t some didn’t have the money waiting for their government checks to arrive at the beginning of the month. Some people didn’t have a car to drive to Baton Rouge or Memphis. These are people, who didn’t have much before the storm and now some have nothing no house no belongings no job. Not to mention the thousands of others who had something but this morning have nothing but life.

We heard people such as Jesse Jackson speak out against the racism and the socioeconomic reality of this disaster. Someone should have said it long before now. For people who live in the city of New Orleans, the statistics point to the racial divide. Orleans Parish public schools county schools for your translation are only 4% white. Those families with ability to with money and means white or black send their kids to safe, good private schools. 73% of public school students in Jefferson Parish, a parish adjacent to Orleans, quality for federal lunch subside. This is just a glimpse of reality in New Orleans on a good day. I don’t have to spout statistics for you to know that Mississippi is at the bottom of the barrel.

In all the images we have seen this week we have witnessed the reality of living in community both the good and bad.

Last month in the magazine Christian Century there was an article titled “Breathing Together.” In it a pastor describes our culture that lifts up the individual and the yearning we may seek beyond ourselves, when we discover the limitations of our own individuality. When we do seek something more, maybe deeper relationships…many with a Christian leaning look to the church. “The church’s business, after all, has everything to do with relationship, putting people in touch with each other and with God.” Surprisingly even in the gathered group of believers community may be hard to find.

The pastor offered several definitions of community including one coined by the late Henri Nouwen, “Community is the place where the person you least want to live with… always lives.” He took to task some images of the church, “Sharing worship space for an hour on Sunday morning is not the same as belonging to a community where your presence truly matters to others and their presence truly matters to you.” Church the body of Christ, is a community that “breathes together” as did the early church sharing a sense of grace, and breathing together as the people of God. Diversity is to be claimed rather than rejected in community. “Great congregations form where people with dizzying variety of backgrounds and experiences take an interest in the mystery and the mess of each other’s lives.”

Amid those pictures I saw this week I can’t tell you the number of emails or phone calls, or conversations I have had. People like you, actually many of you, sending your prayers. People like you, who have responded with donations to Presbyterian Disaster Relief, or the Red Cross, or the Salvation Army. Many of you that already are thinking of ways to go down and serve in communities that have lost so much.

But the words of the prophet still ring out, God expects justice and righteousness. Notice that this call is not to an individual, but to a community. Just as we read in John gospel, there is a direct relationship between the vine and its branches. The branches are to bear fruit, to love one another to love them when we like them to love when we don’t to support them when they need our help the most and to be there when nobody seems to notice or care. Being part of a community is hard. As we have seen this week, living in the vineyard is difficult and painful. Whether in Iraq as people mourn the loss of thousands of lives, killed by fear and violence. Whether in New Orleans and Mississippi where the poorest of the poor still lives and all struggle to survive. Whether in those places covered by national news or in the places of our own hearts and lives where grief or sickness or anger take hold know that God, longs for expects justice and righteousness, for all God’s people.

This expectation is what living in the vineyard is all about- it is not about US or our desire or refusal to produce fruit- it is about God who is attentive God who hears every cry while being judge to all sin. Living in the vineyard is about being part of a community breathing together grieving together working for justice in a diverse and unjust world. And supporting one another, even those people you would assume not to mingle with. Living in the vineyard means noticing the plight of another BEFORE the next disaster and trying our best to help those affected now.

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