even if you lose it
it will find you
From the Thanksgiving-ings, to the holiday office, in quotation-marks parties, to the shorter days and even shorter tempers, to the over-stimulated children and even more over-blown expectations, we’re about to go through it.
Before you start to feel too sorry for yourself, though, remember for many folks the excess of the holidays only point to days gone by. There are many of us who would love to have our calendar be a little more crowded.
You see? None of us are going to escape. We’re all about to go through it. The days ahead are going to nick us all up.
But, for all that, it isn’t really all that, that’s going to make the days ahead so hard.
No, the biggest challenge is going to be the person who stars back at you from the mirror each morning. We are the ones who make the holidays so hard!
And one of the reasons, if not the primary reason, is a piece of advice we received; to grow big and strong.
Now I know it’s a little provocative to throw shade at a conventional piece of wisdom. Which just shows how deep the problem goes.
The real problem with the advice to grow big and strong is that, if you’re anything like me you swallowed it hook, link and sinker…
Because for as reasonable as the advice that advice to grow big and strong sounds, it turns out to be as wrong as it wicked where it matters most…
Let’s just begin with the plain wrong-ness of it.
For instance, if you’re going to be big and strong to survive the days ahead, you’re going to need to show up to every party, and looking just so, too. You will also need to get everyone on your list, exactly what they want. And, you should have it wrapped, and on time. Plus, you will also to have to prepare the perfect home-cooked meal everyone is looking forward to!
We could add a thousand items to that list, too. Couldn’t we? But I hope you’re getting the picture: there’s no earthly way any of us can do it all!
And trying to is a sure-fire recipe to ruining everything!
You know what I mean? Those years you tell yourself, “this year will be different. Perfect. I’ll be prepared. And the family will get along, too.” But, the harder you try to make it happen, the further away it all gets from you!
Trying to be big enough and strong enough to make it through the holidays is a perfect way to spend the holidays in the vineyard Isaiah describes; trampled down, laid to waste, overgrown and all dried-up.
…That’s all that’s being described in the the first half of Isaiah today, too.
When we hear about the devastation that’s visited upon the vineyard, we tend to see it as God’s punishment. And it is, in a way. But it’s not God’s active punishment. It’s God’s passiveness that’s so punishing.
The devastation that havocs the vineyard isn’t a result of God’s punishment; it’s a result of what happens when God’s care is withdrawn.
And we do that to ourselves over and over again whenever we try to be big and strong enough to make it on our own.
We don’t need God to punish us. Do we? We do it to ourselves with all our over-blown attempts to be big and strong enough to make it on our own.
…Growing big and strong sounds well and good. Until you glimpse the impossibility of it. The faithlessness of it. The wickedness hiding behind it…
The goal of growing big and strong is so we won’t be small and weak. Isn’t it?
We don’t want to need saving. We don’t want need God…
It wasn’t the big and strong Jesus blessed that day on the mount. Was it? It was the grieving. The poor in spirit. The meek. The small and weak!
God’s kingdom is an upside-down kind of kingdom. A kingdom where the last are first! Where those who were never big and strong enough to do it on their own, are given places of honor!
In a world that tells us we must be big and strong enough to make it on our own, God comes for those who can’t!
God comes for the small and weak! For those who have been cut down to size! For those whose lives have been over-run! For this whose souls are all dried-up! For those whose plans for the future have been trampled down!
We all running scared. Afraid if our lives get to be too small or too weak God will abandon us. That we’ll be god-forsaken. But in today’s scripture, Isaiah tells us those are exactly the times and the places God draws nearest to us!
…In the second half of today’s scripture we skip ahead about 6 chapters, and find ourselves back in the vineyard! Only now, all that’s left is an over-grown wasteland. Nothing’s growing, except the weeds. The soil’s all dried-up, and the trees have all been cut down to size.
But then, instead of declaring the place condemned, god-forsaken, Isaiah declares God is as work there! Digging things up! Planting new life. And planting new life from the last place you’d expect; the stump of Jesse!”
Now, we all know Jesse is King David’s daddy, so we tend to focus on that. But I don’t want you to miss the forrest from the trees. Or rather, the stump from the trees!
You see? I’m no master gardener, but even I know a stump is no place to plant anything. A stump is what’s left AFTER what was planted has either been cut down or died.
But, from that place of death, God makes new life blossom!
Being big and strong is im-possible and un-faithful. It leads to a dead-end every time.
Now, if that’s where you’ve come from this morning, be aware that for God dead-ends are very fertile hills! They are the places of death, God transforms into the ground zero of new life! Like Calvary! It used to be called skull hill. The place where death happened. But, in Jesus, it’s become Calvary! The place where new life springs up!
Choice lumber in kingdom of God is cut-down, burnt-out stumps!
Which is Good News for those of us here. Isn’t it?
Sure, we can put on a show. Getting here each week like we have it together. But we’ve all spent time in the those barren vineyards Isaiah describes. Haven’t we? We know what it’s like to be cut-down and burnt-out.
Hard as that is, though, we make it worse on ourselves, too. Don’t we?
We make it harder on ourselves by those times when we find ourselves in those dried-up, over-grown places; instead of letting God bring new life, we try and make it on our own. Tell ourselves and everyone around us we’re big enough and strong enough to make it on our own.
And for all our effort, all we have to show is a poor a harvest of sour grapes like the one Isaiah described…
Now, if that’s what you have to offer this morning. If you’re here lugging around sour grapes, bring them to the table of the Lord. Because while we can’t make anything out of that, God can! In fact, it’s all God needs to make new life!
God doesn’t need you to be big and strong enough before God can get to work! Quite the opposite, really! It’s the over-grown, barren places where God gets to work!
And what God does is send Jesus.
Jesus is not just the Good Shepherd, you know! He is also the good gardener! Remember that first Easter, when Mary mistook Jesus for the gardener? Well, that wasn’t exactly a mistake! Jesus really was gardening! It’s what he does!
And where was Jesus gardening that day? A cemetery! Those are the places Jesus does his best gardening! In barren places! Cemeteries! Dead-ends! Over-grown vineyards of life!
It’s what Jesus is doing even now! As these words get into your ears and then the soil of your spirit, God sends the Holy Spirit to plant Jesus into these words!
As these words deliver Jesus to you, Jesus gets to work, digging in the dried-up soil of you spirit, with his cross-shaped spade!
Jesus doesn’t need for you to get your vineyard in order before he’ll get to work! He comes, finds the most burnt-out, cut-down stump he can, and plants his new life!
In a world that tells us we must grow big and strong, Jesus promises to give everything to those who have nothing to offer! To those who have nothing more to offer than a poor harvest of sour grapes!
If that’s all you have to offer this morning, it’s more than enough for God!
…In the days ahead, you’re about to go through it. And the temptation to be big and strong will loom large. But, you already know what sort of a harvest that’ll produce. Don’t you
So, instead; when you feel the demands stack-up, when you feel the grief being to bear down, don’t try and make it through on your own.
Instead, know that you are on the very fertile hill of calvary! Look to Jesus and his harvest of righteousness, peace, joy and new life!
A shoot shall spring up! And not just from the stump of Jesse. But also from the stump of your death!
A shoot shall spring up from the stump of that moment you throw up your hands up in the face everything the days ahead are going to throw at you!
A shoot shall spring up from the stump of that moment your best laid plans are laid to waste!
A shoot shall bring up from the stump of (say congregant’s names).
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