August 17, 2025 Reflection

There is no getting around the fact that both of our Scripture readings this morning are difficult. In Isaiah, God is both heart-broken and angry. In Luke, it sounds like Jesus is picking up from where Isaiah leaves off. Where God is threatening drought and destruction, Jesus promises fire. However, while both are spelling out consequences, the reasons for those consequences are radically different. God’s response is to the unfaithfulness of the people. Jesus’ is warning about what happens when people ARE faithful. It’s hard to know which way to turn.

Let’s work our way through both the passages; first to understand, and then to find a good word. The Isaiah passage is actually quite beautiful poetry. God speaks as a lover, admiring the beloved. “Let me sing for my beloved, my love-song concerning his vineyard:” But the lover-God-farmer becomes disenchanted with the beloved-the vineyard. In spite of all the efforts of God, the farmer, the vineyard delivers not sweet and succulent grapes but ‘wild grapes’. First the lover is flummoxed,

“What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes.” And then angry, promising not so much to single-handedly destroy the vineyard but to leave it to its own devices: to remove the hedge around it, break down its wall, refrain from pruning or hoeing or watering it. It will be trampled by animals and overrun with weeds. And then God breaks the metaphor and gets explicit about who he is referring to: ‘For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his planting.” And the farmer is God: “[H]e expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry.”

So the cause of God’s melt down isn’t that the people didn’t worship God, but that they did not live out their worship by following God’s commandments to offer compassion and justice, particularly to the most marginalized. It’s not for God’s own sake that God is angry, but for God’s people and more broadly for God’s creation.

Sometimes people will say that when things go wrong, when crops fail and famines strike, when diseases break out, that God is somehow punishing the unfaithful, in some way ‘smiting’ the sinner. But notice here that all God does is let go – God-the farmer ceases to act for good or ill.

Just lets the fence fall apart, the animals and weeds take over, and the rain stop. And indeed, bad things start to happen. The consequences roll out.

When I think of the state of our world now, I wonder if the same thing is happening. One of God’s gift to humanity was and is free will. God does not coerce us into anything, only cajoles and lures. Some say God can only do what love can do. So in the beginning God, in Genesis, commands us to offer stewardship over creation, and then, leaves it to us. And now glaciers are melting, and forests are burning, and oceans are rising, and species are dying, and children are starving…

The fences are down, the animals, most of them on two legs, are trampling creation, the toxic economies are choking out life. Just one example: “Talks to finalize the world’s first treaty on plastic pollution in Geneva, Switzerland collapsed in failure Friday as countries remained bitterly divided how to tackle the crisis….The summit [was] attended by delegates from more than 180 countries, ….More than 100 [of those] had called for legally binding caps on plastic production. Many also demanded action to tackle toxic chemicals in plastics….But powerful oil and gas producing countries such as Saudi Arabia and Russia along with the US pushed back strongly, [blocking the resolutions] …“By missing yet another deadline to confront the escalating plastic pollution crisis,

states are putting the health of people and the planet at risk,” ….Only a tiny fraction of plastic is recycled, less than 10% globally, the rest ends up incinerated, in landfill, or choking the world’s rivers and oceans, ….As plastic degrades, it breaks down into microplastics, tiny pieces no bigger than 5 millimeters. These  are found everywhere: the air we breathe, the water we drink, in our noses, brains, even testicles…Plastics aren’t just a health and environmental issue; they are also a huge climate problem. [but]…Many petro-chemical producing nations and companies see plastics as vital to their economies and bottom lines, …[and] Some campaigners blamed fossil fuel lobbying for the talks’ failure. “The vast majority of governments want a strong agreement, yet a handful of bad actors were allowed to use the process to drive such ambition into the ground,” said Graham Forbes, global plastics campaign lead for Greenpeace USA. https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/15/climate/global-plastics-treaty-pollution-failure-un

In the meantime, while industry and government leaders dither, plastic particles are being found even in placentas, blood and human breast milk. No wonder God reaches a breaking point. So much of our environmental and health crises are not because God is punishing anybody, but because we have ignored God’s request to exercise good stewardship of creation,

and God’s ongoing plea that we seek righteousness, justice and compassion for all God’s people. When our land and our bodies are poisoned because of our poor stewardship, it’s not God we have to blame.

            In Luke the focus is on what can happen even when we do try to follow faithfully. Jesus is concerned and frustrated with the division and danger facing his people. There is the division that comes between those who follow in his Way, and those who don’t. And the divisions that can come between people who disagree about HOW to follow in his Way. And, he is on his way to Jerusalem, on his way to the greatest division ever – that between him and the religious and government authorities who want to see him dead. He cries out: “I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed!”

In the United Church we have experienced some of those division. There was a holy outcry when a new children’s curriculum was released, and many of us bear scars from the discussion around the ordination of gays and lesbians.

Jesus is frustrated that his listeners do not see the sign of the times, that the kingdom is coming amongst them. “You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?”

Begin to act as if the kingdom of God is coming among you, begin to act as a people beloved by God and offered the grace of Christ, begin acting like you believe that and indeed, you will be living in the fulfilment of the promise. But the people turn away.

In the United Church we can hum along in a fairly peaceful and benign state, but only if we keep our mouths shut and our heads down. Churches that hang flags in support of the 2+LGBTQ community routinely have them ripped down, their buildings defaced, nasty messages left on the answering machine. Ostensibly sometimes by other Christians. We only need to raise our eyes and look a bit south of us to see the division that can arise when some Christians take their faith, and their interpretation of the faith to be the one and the only faith that has any integrity. You may increasingly be hearing about Christian nationalism, although like me maybe not sure exactly what it entails. I am quoting from an article in in which the author explains what it is specifically meant by the term. “Christian nationalism is a presumption that Christians are America’s first citizens, architects, and guardians and that we have the right to define the nation’s culture and identity. It is a sense of ownership, a proprietary or possessive feeling:

Christians invented America and therefore have the right to stay on top. The most important difference between bad Christian nationalism and good Christian political advocacy is in our heart posture. Are we seeking to advance Christian principles or Christian power? Are we seeking equal justice for all or privileges for our tribe? Are we seeking to love our neighbor with our political witness or show our neighbor who’s boss? (https://www.christianitytoday.com/2023/03/christian-nationalism-ct-white-evangelical-america-religion )

I will let you imagine what white Christian nationalism entails and the dangers that come with that. I mention this not just as illustration of potential divisions, but because we know how insidious the culture creep is between the United States and Canada. And therefore, how very important it is that we remain well informed and alert to the danger and damage this expression of Christian faith can be, the division it can sow.

Within our own denomination and country, even our own little congregation, if we take really seriously what we say we believe, then things could get uncomfortable if not divisive pretty quickly. Let’s watch this skit from the CBC Baroness von Sketch Show. https://www.instagram.com/reel/CxvffTOguCV/

So, what do we do? Where is the good news when there is so much potential for division –

between us and God and between each other? Jesus was stressed, and so are we! We can see in Luke’s day and in ours that following the Jesus Way can result in us being thrust into conflict and division. Sometimes, we have to sit in the discomfort – what IS the fulness of a desire for reconciliation with indigenous peoples? What DO we think and do about the situation in Israel/Palestine? Sometimes we have to sit side by side in the knowledge that we may be far apart in what we believe about…medical assistance in dying, about abortion, about recompense to indigenous peoples, about whether Carney or Poilievre is going to save all the things in all the places, about pipelines and petrochemicals. I wonder about what binds you, the people of Mount Seymour, and what might give witness to some disagreement below the surface. Those are some of the things we’ll think about during the transition process.

Now a colleague who reads my sermons every Saturday night and lets me know if it’s good enough or not, said this one sounds hopeless. I am not without hope. Hopelessness when you think about it is pretty self-indulgent, it lets us off the hook, without having to engage to make a difference. And we can’t afford despair either.

 I do believe that through worship and conversation, through the companionship of each other, and in God, we can and do find our way. Sometimes there are bumps, sometimes disagreement, maybe even tragically division but, but with grace, attentiveness and humility we bumble along making every effort to be faithful, knowing that God accompanies and guides us along the way.

I actually don’t believe that God will magically fix everything – God gave us free will and isn’t going to rescind that gift. But I do believe that God gives us a strength and a capacity beyond our understanding that used in concert with God, can change the world.

In the midst of it all, we stay side by side, in conversation, intentionally grounding those conversations in the grace of Christ and the strength of the Holy Spirit. Staying alert to the signs of the fulfillment of heaven on earth, and seeking to do all we can to cooperate and align with the movement of God. May we share the same confidence that God has in us, and the same grace that Christ has bestowed upon us and together follow the complex Way of Christ.

Amen