Labor of Love--October 9, 2023
"Let me sing for my belovedmy love-song concerning his vineyard:My beloved had a vineyardon a very fertile hill.he dug it and cleared it of stones,and planted it with choice vines;he built a watchtower in the midst of it,and hewed out a wine vat in it;he expected it to yield grapes,but it yielded wild grapes.And now, inhabitants of Jerusalemand people of Judah,judge between meand my vineyard.What more was there to do for my vineyardthat I have not done in it?When I expected it to yield grapes,why did it yield wild grapes?" [Isaiah 5:1-4]
Genuine love is always more than a feeling; God's love, doubly so.
Just saying that by itself is a counter-cultural thing to say in our time and place. Ours is a time that talks, sings, and sells the notion of love primarily (if not exclusively!) as an emotion--that love is something you feel toward someone else, and that if you stop feeling it, then clearly you don't love that person anymore. We've successfully reduced the concept of love to something like being "happy" or "hungry": if you feel it, you are it, and if you don't, well, the love is gone. If that isn't how our culture tends to talk about love, I'll eat my hat.
That's not really how love works, of course--not for humans, and most certainly not for God (who doesn't experience "feelings" in the flighty way that humans do, like some celestial adolescent going through mood swings). Genuine love is about the commitment to seek the good of the beloved; you know it by the choices you make for the ones you love, the labor you do for them, and the ways you spend your time and energy for their sake. And maybe most critical of all, love is about the willingness to put the needs and interests of others before your own, even when you don't "feel" like it.
Love-as-feeling will shrivel up like a raisin when the novelty of a new romance wears off or you are exhausted from sleep deprivation from your baby waking you up in the middle of the night. Love that comes from the consistently made choice to do good for your beloved can keep going the distance, because it can continue even when feelings change or when you go through periods when loving the other person is difficult. Anyone who has cared for a child who was going through a mouthy or messy phase knows that, and anyone who has learned to forgive a close friend who let them down knows it, too.
God's kind of love, however, is always about more than a feeling--it is visible, tangible, and real. When the prophet Isaiah offers this clever little parable about Israel and God, recast as a vineyard and the farmer who tends the land, God's love is shown in terms of God's committed labor for the vineyard. The farmer is committed to doing the work needed to make the vines produce--he digs up the stones and weeds, he plants good vines, and builds a watchtower to keep out critters or vandals. And surely, all of those tasks took a goodly amount of time--in Isaiah's day, nobody is bringing in a backhoe or a bulldozer to clear the ground or dig a hole. That's all sweaty, time-consuming labor, and all of it is for the sake of the vineyard--so that the vines will grow and bear good fruit.
In other words, when the prophet Isaiah wants to describe what God's love for the people is like, of all the possible analogies, comparisons, or metaphors he could have chosen, the image that comes to mind is persistent, enduring labor for the sake of God's beloved. It's not a momentary feeling of butterflies in God's stomach. It's not a romantic gesture. It's the long-haul commitment a farmer makes to the land to get it to produce a good crop. It is the day-in, day-out dedication that is more like tending vines, pulling weeds, and digging out stones than a Hallmark greeting card and a box of chocolates. God's love takes the form of persistent dedication and work; God's love endures that way.
That's why the question Isaiah poses here, speaking for God, is so haunting and powerful: "What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done?" God's work for the people of ancient Israel and Judah was complete--God had done all that could have been expected. God had brought them from slavery, led them through the Sea, fed them through the wilderness, brought them to the promised land, and prospered their lives and families as they settled. God had been faithful, dedicated, and persistent.
I don't know that I've really every thought about it that way, but that's how God loves us, too. Every day God continues to keep working for your well-being and mine. I'm not saying that God gets tired out from caring for us, or that God breaks a sweat keeping the planets spinning in their courses, but I mean more than God continues to make the commitment to do good to us and to help us to grow and be what we are meant to be. And that love is always more than just a momentary feeling or emotional experience. When I think about how I know God loves me, it's not merely some mountain-top experience when I felt a certain way, but the fact that I woke up to find my lungs still working and my heart still beating on a planet still spinning around a star that kept shining. God continues every day and every moment to keep working for our good--that's how God's love looks in our day to day lives for a lot of the time.
I wonder--how would it change our perspective if we would see God's action for us not simply in the past (like, "God made me" or "God saved me at the cross") but to see every day as one more glimpse of God's ongoing enduring love for us? I wonder how it might lead us to live this day ahead differently. And I wonder if it might affect the ways we think about our love toward others--maybe as something more than just a feeling in the moment, but the long-haul dedication to do good for others around us.
Today, let's practice love like a farmer's love for the good earth--the lifelong dedication to do good work for the world God loves.
Lord God, help us to receive this day as another sign of your enduring love for us, and to use it as an opportunity to love neighbors around us, too.
May it be so!
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