This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 5; Psalm 6; Isaiah 1:21–31; 1 Thessalonians 2:1–12; Luke 20:9–18

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 13 (“A Song of Praise,” BCP, p. 90); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93)

God comes courting. How the faithful city has become a whore… — Isaiah 1:21. One of Scripture’s most powerful metaphors for our relationship with God is that of faithful wife to loving husband. The marital theme has coursed through our readings over the past few months, and is especially concentrated in Hosea, the Song of Songs, and Revelation. It’s one of the most beautiful “through-lines” of the biblical narrative, and it climaxes when John exclaims, in Revelation 21:2: “And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” 

Yahweh created the people of Israel to embody that relationship. “Love the Lord your God…” and “Love your neighbor…” are not, therefore, the cold and calculated terms of a legal contract. The commandments to love God and neighbor outline the contours of intimacy—intimacy between humans and their Divine Lover. Right worship and right relationships “marry” us to God. Idolatry, cruelty, and neglect violate that relationship. 

Sadly, Israel resists Yahweh’s gracious overtures to take her as his radiant bride. She does so by pursuing false gods (the “oaks” and the “gardens” of verses 29 and 30 refer to Canaanite fertility cults) and by practicing injustice: “She that was full of justice, righteousness lodged in her—but now murderers!” (Isaiah 1:21). 

Nonetheless, Yahweh pursues this faithless bride. And he pledges to prevail: “I will restore your judges as at the first,” and make her once again “the city of righteousness, the faithful city” (Isaiah 1:26). 

The wonderful promise of Advent is that the Lord indeed draws near to take his bride to himself—he will clear false gods from our lives, and he will convict us of ways in which we have wronged our neighbor. God draws near that he may dwell with us and beautify us—and through us, the world he will one day make new. 

God’s vineyard. An owner of a vineyard employs tenants to tend it, Jesus tells his audience in the Parable of the wicked Tenants. When the owner sends a servant to collect his profits, the tenants beat the servant, and he returns empty-handed to the owner. Another emissary suffers the same fate, so the owner sends his son, thinking the tenants will respect the son. Wrong—the tenants kill the son, thinking that by this action they will somehow take possession of the vineyard.   , This parable about God entrusting a vineyard to tenants (the Greek is “workers of the earth,” more organically translated “farmers”) conjures up the traditional Old Testament theme of Israel as God’s own vineyard—a colony of life and blessing for the world (Isaiah 5:1–2; 27:2–6). The return the master seeks is the fruit of their joint venture as they “work the earth” on his behalf. The tenants delude themselves into thinking that they can make wine from God’s vineyard without the God of the vineyard. Such a bad choice. 

In the parable before us, the saddest thing about Jesus’s contemporaries is how wrongly they interpret his mission. The Divine Vintner will not be frustrated, however. The death of God’s Son will instead prove to be the founding (Jesus changes the metaphor!) of a new building: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone” (Luke 20:17). Luke’s traveling companion Paul will develop this metaphor in terms of a symbolic house, composed of both Jews and Gentiles—a totally new residence for God’s presence (Ephesians 2:11-22). In terms of Jesus’s vineyard metaphor, the grafting of  Gentiles into an existing root-stock (with Jesus as the foundation of a true Israel) will produce a new variety, a superior wine.  

God’s heart. So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us — 1 Thessalonians 2:8. Paul immerses himself in the Gentile community to which he brings “the gospel of God” (1 Thessalonians 2:8). Paul is entranced by the notion of God building a dwelling place for himself made up of Jews and Gentiles. This idea is at the core of his passion to take the gospel, in all its tenderness and truth, to the Gentiles. The Thessalonians, the former idolators (see 1:9), observe the contours of Christ’s incarnation (and therefore of God’s heart) in Paul’s exemplary lifestyle among them. They see his labors to support himself, his nursing care for them, and his loving fatherly demeanor.

What a gift we can be to each other during this Advent season, carrying forward the model Paul has given us! We can speak good news to one another, pray fervently for one another, be there for one another!

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+