What more?

The song begins with the beautiful lyrics of blessing and provision, but quickly moves to lament with the mournful words, “What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it?” The prophet has become a folk singer, writing a song for his Beloved about a vineyard. The prophet is Isaiah and his parable/song can be found in Isaiah 5:1-7.

The Beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill. He dug it up, cleared it of all stones and planted it with the best of the best when it comes to vines. Even more, He built a watchtower to guard it and a winepress to process its fruit. But, when He looked for a good crop, He discovered only bad fruit. To that reality, the Beloved declares, “What more could I have done?” Judgment follows that lament – the hedges are destroyed, the walls are torn down and it will become a wasteland covered with briars and thorns, imagery that reminds us of Adam’s expulsion from the garden.

In case his listeners miss the point of the song, Isaiah declares that Israel is the vineyard of the Lord and His delightful garden. Yet when He looked for justice, he found bloodshed; when He looked for righteousness, He heard cries of distress.

Fast forward several centuries and Jesus is in the midst of what only can be described as the week when  hell itself was breaking out on earth. It is the final week – holy week as we describe it. Somewhere during the timeline of that week, perhaps even Wednesday, Jesus tells a vineyard story. His story is found in Luke 20:9-19. In His story, there is a vineyard owner who has built a magnificent vineyard.  At harvest time, the owner sends a servant to collect his share of the harvest. The farmers who had rented the beat the servant and sent him away empty handed. He sends another, and yet another only to realize that the farmers have treated those servants much the same. 

Finally the owner decides to send his son. The son is described as the one “whom I love.” The owner thinks “surely they will respect him.” But the farmers decide that since the son is the heir, if they kill him the vineyard will be theirs. They do that, and Jesus ends the story by saying that the owner of the vineyard “will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others.” It was, Jesus said, the fulfillment of Psalm 118’s “the stone the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.” (118:22)

Luke reminds us that “the teachers of the law and the chief priests looked for a way to arrest him immediately, because they knew he had spoken this parable against them.” (20:19) I wonder if they weren’t thinking something like “I’ve heard a story like that before”? 

During holy week, followers of Jesus are confronted with the ultimate “What more could I have done?” lament from God. Holy week is a time for sober thinking about life, about our own engagement in “the vineyard” God has dug out and planted with the best vines, and a dose of honesty that compels us to answer that question with “Nothing, you have done more than I deserve.”

I hope that when God looks at my own life, His song doesn’t become the lament of “What more could I have done?” But for that to be true, He must find justice and righteousness, not bloodshed and distress. For that to be true, I surely must recognize that He is the owner, I’m not. As owner, He has expectations for me the farmer, to use Jesus’ analogy. 

At least “the teachers of the law and chief priests” understood that what Jesus was saying was aimed directly at their own hearts. May we be just that courageous and not cause God to lament over us with “What more could I have done?”