October 5, 2008

When I was pretty young, I had two children. From the moment they entered my life, I was changed forever.  In creating them and nurturing them, I became a better version of myself.  My capacity to love grew exponentially.  My compassion and willingness to sacrifice my own desires for the sake of another overflowed.  I didn’t care about sleep or free time or going to concerts, or even new shoes.  The morning I put a tiny little dress on my tiny little daughter and took her home, everything in me shifted. 

My world turned again when we brought home her less tiny brother.  Having Whitney and Ash in the house changed my focus, my center, my way of being in the world.  My driving concern became their safety and well-being.  Every decision was influenced by their existence.  Things I never, ever considered now had answers.  If the house caught on fire, I had an evacuation plan.  Suddenly, I knew the difference between soccer cleats and baseball cleats.  I even cared.  After working all week, I stood shivering in the sleet watching a 6-year old run in muck around a goal.  I sliced up oranges and bought Little Debbie cakes for the darlings’ half-time snack.  My life turned into never-ending “teachable moments.”  I constantly evaluated, what does this child need now.  What will benefit that one in the moment and later on?  This level of care, this long term devotion was not easy.  Vigilance and energy flowed out.  Tough decisions and compromises were negotiated.  Raising responsible, kind, confident, well adjusted human beings is exhausting work.  So many lessons must be passed down; so much balance must be maintained.

Yes, you are a beloved child of God.  Yes, I cherish you.  No, you cannot eat 3 popsicles and stay up until 10:00.  Yes, you can take violin lessons, even though you only played the flute we bought twice.  Yes, you can join the traveling all stars.  Yes, the team can sleep over.  No, I’m not driving you to Albemarle for a play date.  Yes, I love you, but you are not the center of the universe.  Yes, you have to share your toys even though his dad doesn’t make him.  Yes, you have to finish your book report.  No, I’m not writing the end for you. I t’s 9:00, why are you telling me about this science project now?  No, I don’t have a pickle and a 20 volt battery in the house.  What’s our family motto?  That’s right, “Prior preparation and planning prevents poor performance!”  Sweetheart, I don’t know why you didn’t get invited to the party.  Not everybody likes us in this world and that hurts, but it’s true and we just have to accept it.  If you can think of a reason you might irritate her, and it if is something you can change and want to change, then work on it.  Otherwise, concentrate on the friends that like you just the way you are. 

So many lessons, so much balance to navigate.  When do we encourage, when do we rein in?  When is full expression liberating and wholesome and when is it annoying and disruptive to others.  “Listen you, after church we’re going to do this and this and this that you enjoy, but for this one hour and 15 minutes, you are going to sit in the pew and quietly amuse yourself!  If you can watch Ninja turtles without going to the bathroom, you can sit through a church service.  We’re a family.  I do things for you.  You do things for me, and this is my thing. I  want to worship in peace and so do the other 300 people around me, so cool your jets!”  Where are the battles we wage, which ditch do we die in, where do we extend grace?  Years and years of important determinations go into raising the beings we bring into this world.

For me, I know my children will be my greatest legacy.  They will be my best and most profound achievement.  In small and larger ways, they will impact the world and make it better than it was before.  I will have other successes and there will be other venues and roles that define me, but creating life, raising my children well, setting them free, offering them to the world, this is the heart of my heart.  And, I must say, I have been exceedingly blessed in this endeavor.  For the intense focus and energy I put into their formation, I have been rewarded with so many moments of exhilarating joy and gratitude, appreciation, love and respect.  There were trials and disagreements in the process, but, at every stage, there was mutual affection and respect.  So, all the worry and sacrifice was absolutely worth the effort.

I cannot imagine the pain and the heartache if the relationship between the parent and child was something less than this.  I can’t imagine the frustration and soul despair of putting your very best into the protection and well-being of a life you created only to be ignored and rejected.  This must be the saddest reality to endure.  To organize an environment whose sole purpose is to nurture and draw out the very best in one entrusted to your care, to love and cherish and guide this charge through the pitfalls of this world, only to be forgotten or dismissed must be a hellish experience.  Worry and anxiety over their wellbeing, doubt over what was left undone, or was said, hurt around their lack of feeling, all these negative emotions must wear one down.  It hurts my heart to contemplate that depth of pain.

And this is why this morning’s passage from Isaiah always touches me profoundly.  The heart wrenching experience I just described is the reality God whispered into the ear of his prophet.  “Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard.  My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.  He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it which choice vines.”  God is the beloved that Isaiah is speaking about.  The vineyard is our magnificent, bountiful and balanced earth.  The descendants of Abraham, the children of the children that Moses led out of bondage through the desert, the nation lifted above all others to be light to the world are the choice vines.  See how they respond to a good and gracious vintner.  He creates a fertile paradise for the vines.  He constructs boundaries to keep them safe.  He establishes structures to watch over their development and encourage their best growth.

But, they do not grow and flourish in expected ways. Instead of maturing and reaching their potential, they grow wild and sour and so much less than they could be.  They are not useful to the world.  They become contrary to their true nature.  God, the vintner, continues his lament.  “Now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard.  I will remove its hedge and it shall be devoured.  I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down.”  Hear the despair and the utter frustration.  Having done everything, everything to insure bounty and goodness for his people, he has been betrayed.  Giving everything he had to this endeavor, the fruits of his labor are spoiled!  There is nothing else for him to try.  There is no other care he can offer.  So, God is poised to abandon the creation, the great vineyard he established with love.  He is prepared to walk away from all the vines and allow them to perish in their waywardness.  Given all he has to the venture, he sees only constant, eternal failure.

Can you imagine, day after day, year after year, millennium after millennium of disappointment?  How long can the Creator be expected to endure?  He tells Isaiah he is done!  But, like most loving parents, actually greater than, better than all loving parents, God cannot walk away.  The vintner reconsiders.  The vineyard is not destroyed.  Centuries later, a new process is introduced.  Flash forward to hear 30 CE and Jesus, Son of God, revisits the vineyard.  Again, he addresses the issue of choice vines gone bad.  So, is this going to be our dynamic forever?  Are we willing to consign ourselves to the role of rotten fruit, spindly vines?  Do we want for all eternity to perpetuate the dynasty of ingratitude, hardheartedness and wrong headedness?  With all the blessings, all the protection, all the benefits and excellent guidance, all the abiding attention and steadfast devotion from our creator, our primal parent, are we so immature and so feckless that we will inevitably choose to become wild spindly grapes, rather than the premier fruit we were created to be?

Surely not!  Surely we have within us the capacity to be guided and nurtured, formed and cherished.  Surely we can allow ourselves to be protected and nourished and set on the right path for our greatest yield.  Certainly we can recognize true care and devotion and respond accordingly, appropriately, with affection and gratitude.  By all means, somewhere within us there must be a receptive gene that allows us to return love to the one who called us into being.

For all children who were blessed with loving, committed parents, whose greatest desire was your wellbeing, do you call home?  Do you write?  Do you pay attention to their advice?  Do you offer respect and share your joys with them? 

As part of his tender care, God gave us families to raise and look after us.  He gave us earthly families to serve as a tangible, powerful example of how our relationship with him should unfold.  The way to good grapehood, the return to choice vines, lies in following the guidance of the one who cares most for our wellbeing.  The way we reclaim our best nature and reunite with our benevolent vine grower is to recall all his teachable moments.  In all our decisions, in the ordering of our lives, an ever present question should be at the forefront of our minds.  Am I honoring God in this action?  Would his Son use this resource in this way?  Would his Son spend his limited time on earth in this way?  Would his Son use his God-given talent in this endeavor?  Am I honoring my father and my heritage as a choice vine in this decision?  Am I showing gratitude and respect for all the hope, love and care my Creator poured into me? 

Dear friends, this is our charge this morning and for the rest of our lives.  May we continually consider who we are and whose we are and respond with respect and affection.  Amen.  Amen.