A Sad Song from Isaiah

Come let me tell you a story of my beloved and his Garden.  He had a garden on a fertile hill.  With love he dug it up, with hope he cleared it of stones and with gentle expectation he planted the best flowers and vegetables he could find.  With joy he built a gazebo where he could sit in the shade to watch over his garden, and in anticipation he placed a great table in the midst of it where he could process the bountiful harvest. 

Bring in the harvest!  Bring in the fruit!

Praise God with our voices, with cymbal and lute!

We are God's garden!  We are God's vine!

Our words and our actions are of God a sign!

He expected his garden to yield abundant, lush and healthy flowers, fruits and vegetables; but instead, it yielded only rot and ferment.  For many, many years, he tilled the soil, moved about the plants, increased the fertilizer, adjusted the moisture.  But still it yielded only rot and ferment. 

Bring in the harvest!  Bring in the fruit!
Praise God with our voices, with cymbal and lute!
We are God's garden!  We are God's vine!
Our words and our actions are of God a sign!

And so the gardener says, "You who are listening to me, you people in the pews, you be the judges between me and my garden.  What more is there for me to do than I haven't already done?  When I expected it to yield healthy fruit, why did it yield only rot and ferment?" 

Bring in the harvest!  Bring in the fruit!

Praise God with our voices, with cymbal and lute!

We are God's garden!  We are God's vine!

Our words and our actions are of God a sign!

"And I'll tell you what I'm going to do.  I will remove the hedge and let my garden go back to the earth;  I will break down the walls and let it be trampled by wild animals.  It will go fallow and will no longer be pruned or hoed.  It will grow over with weeds and thorns.  I will even command that the clouds not rain upon it."

Bring in the harvest!  Bring in the fruit!

Praise God with our voices, with cymbal and lute!

We are God's garden!  We are God's vine!

Our words and our actions are of God a sign!

The Garden of God is the People of God, and you are God's pleasant planting;  God expected justice, but saw only inequity; God expected compassion, but heard only greed.

Bring in the harvest!  Bring in the fruit!

Praise God with our voices, with cymbal and lute!

We are God's garden!  We are God's vine!

Our words and our actions are of God a sign!

We are the garden of God and we need to be honest with ourselves as we look at the world we have created.  Are we worthy fruit that God is pleased to harvest that bring justice, compassion and beauty to the world?  Or do our words and actions only produce inequity, greed and decay?

Bring in the harvest!  Bring in the fruit!

Praise God with our voices, with cymbal and lute!

We are God's garden!  We are God's vine!

Our words and our actions are of God a sign!