A text – Psalm 80:7-15
7 Restore us, O God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved.
8 You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it.
9 You cleared the ground for it; it took deep root and filled the land.
10 The mountains were covered with its shade, the mighty cedars with its branches;
11 it sent out its branches to the sea and its shoots to the River.
12 Why then have you broken down its walls, so that all who pass along the way pluck its fruit?
13 The boar from the forest ravages it, and all that move in the field feed on it.
14 Turn again, O God of hosts; look down from heaven and see; have regard for this vine,
15 the stock that your right hand planted and upon the one whom you made strong for yourself.
A reflection:
If this passage from Psalm 80 sounds familiar, it might be reminding you of the vineyard planter from Matthew that we read about on Monday. So much vineyard imagery. Yet here the psalmist is lamenting God’s planted vineyard falling to ruin. The writer reminds God that the vineyard (the people/kingdom of Israel) was God’s idea, God’s pet project. It became a very big vine indeed, covering mountains and cedar trees with its branches and shade. And then, the writer claims, God broke the walls down and humans and beasts have wrecked it. Finally, the psalmist asks God to have regard for the vine that God planted and that God had made strong for God’s own purposes.
If planting and nurturing the children of Israel in a new place, far from Egypt, was God’s project, and God made it possible for them to flourish in God’s new vineyard, the psalmist seems justified in asking God to care for it once again. But what made God turn away and even break down its walls? A little later in the psalm, in verses not part of this passage, the psalmist says that if God restores the vine, the people will no longer turn away from God. So! The people turned from God, and God turned from them? When the people turn from God and God’s purposes for them, neglect of the vineyard is the result. This may have been what Jesus was getting at in his parable in our Gospel for this week. The vineyard tenants have kept the harvest for themselves and forgotten that they owe God everything. God’s gifts have a greater purpose than just to bless the receiver. God’s gifts are meant to bless the whole earth. When the purpose fails, the vineyard breaks down.
So the psalmist laments loss and abandonment and begs God to turn back. Perhaps the psalmist needs to turn back first, repent, and share God’s blessings. If we are in relationship with the God who gives us everything, it is up to us to be willing sharers of those blessings and live into the human-God relationship so that our neighbors and our family and our friends understand the source of the goodness in our lives: the God who loves us. How do we take part in this story? How might we do that this week?
A prayer:
Lord God, thank you for loving us. Thank you for the many blessings you give us every day for which we are thankful. Help us to turn to you each morning in gratitude and share those abundant gifts with others who need them. It will remind us of your bounteous love for us and of our job in the Kingdom you rule. Amen.
