Transcription of the Video: A Well-Watered Garden

In the imagery of the Bible, Israel was God's vineyard planted on a fertile hillside. He had worked hard to prepare a place for her and planted her there, expecting a rich harvest of fruit for him. Jesus would use the same image for his followers, for us. But there was another lesson God wanted his people then and now to learn from that vineyard. And it was not so much about producing fruit as it was about caring for the vineyard itself. Come. Let's go see what God wanted to teach his people in a beautiful vineyard on a fertile hillside.

Isaiah (5) wrote, "My beloved planted a vineyard on a fertile hillside." And later in the passage, it's called God's gan. Well, you've come to a gan. About a quarter of the way up this fertile hillside, when you're seeing a gan, the walls of which were probably in the same spot, many of the same stones when Joshua got here. It's unreal to stand here. The soil is incredibly rocky, but it's got unbelievable push in it. It grows things here that it's just amazing how beautiful.

Now, on a gan like this, there are three crops that you would expect to find - three plants that are carefully cultivated. The first is fig trees. I don't see a fig tree here. I think there's one quite a ways up. That takes a lot of work. You don't see many of them anymore today. In biblical times, they were probably more common. 

In the imagery of the Bible, the fig tree is the leader tree - the big tree. So, when Jesus curses the fig tree, clearly, they would have understood that's directed at the leadership of God's community. 

The second plant is the olive tree. And I don't know that I've seen olive trees more loaded with, you could say, baby olives (the flowers of the olive) than these are. It's going to be a blessed year. Look at it. It's just as rich and fertile as you can imagine. 

And the other plant, then, is the grapevine. And there's a grapevine here that's been pruned already this year. Look at that beautiful ancient plant. This is the old stump coming here and, then, the vine coming off the old stump and, then these beautiful branches. I would guess there are some baby grapes in there as well. Sure, look. It's just loaded with grapes. And they've trimmed away what they don't want in order to get better grapes but maybe not so many of them.

In the biblical image, Jesus is the vine. We are the branches. And I would say the stump, that you might immediately say, "Well, that's God." And the answer is "No." In Jesus' teaching in John, God is the farmer. God is the husbandman. So, I would say this old stump is Israel. And out of Israel came Jesus. And then, he produced branches, and we have the privilege-- I have the privilege at least-- of being grafted into that. 

If you look down, look at the beauty of how this is cared for. It's just carefully tilled and each tree protected, each vine held up. There's a lot of love and care that goes into this. 

But I think the thing that impresses me the most in terms of the effort this takes are these walls. Look at them. The small one here behind you, notice how it looks like every stone has its place. I mean, there is some serious effort. And look at the big one way up. Look at how amazing that wall is with its big stones, little stones, grapevines hanging over, an olive tree hanging over that wall. Every stone was carefully put there. And the reason is not simply to get some of the stones out of the soil, but because that's the wall that holds the topsoil up there. 

And so, that farmer up above, that family that owns that gan up above, that garden up above, that wall is absolutely critical. Because if that soil goes, it's tough to get it back, and they may never get it back. And the hillside on the other side is a good example of what I mean by that. And here, our topsoil or the topsoil of this gan is held up by the wall we can't see below us - with the same idea.

Now, in the book of Isaiah, a gan like this where we stand, belonging to one family from there back to there where we came in, that gan represents part of God's community. Let's say a family, an extended family, or even a tribe. And God's entire people (the Hebrew people in the Hebrew Bible) is this whole hillside. So, all of God's families belong to a fertile hillside. And each individual family you could look at as a single gan. Each community is a single gan. Each village is a single gan. And that's how God's people are described.

Now, when a farmer works this, a farmer cannot cause plants to grow. A farmer cannot make olives come out on the tree. A farmer cannot make grapes come on the vine. What the farmer does is to create absolutely the best soil that the farmer can. So, your job is to build this wall, to care for this wall, and to tend this wall so the soil is cared for. And that way, when the stock is planted, when the grapevine is trimmed, when the olive tree is trimmed, if the soil is appropriate and God blesses it with rain, it produces.

I remember sitting under a grapevine with an old Arab farmer once with a group of students. It was a hot day, and there were these luscious purple grapes hanging down. We all wanted them, but felt a little guilty taking them, because he didn't have very many. And then, the Arab farmer came and sat with us. And he was so proud and pleased that we were in his vineyard. So, he picked a few of those bunches and passed them around. It was like 10% of his harvest he was willing to give away. 

And I could tell he wanted to say something to me, and finally, he squeezed a grape and out came those pits, and he took those pits in his hand, and he said to me, "I count seed in grape. Only the God count grape in seed."

And I thought, "That's exactly right." What we do as farmers, in a sense, is to tend the soil to make this gan absolutely the most rich and fertile soil we possibly can. Now, think about how hard a job that is. We're here on a nice, cool day. But put yourself here in the summer where the weather is 100 degrees, and we're here in the sun slowly tending this wall - picking stones, tapping them in with a hammer, carefully assembling this wall for one reason. And that is we know if that wall goes and our topsoil runs off in the next rain storm, our gan is gone. 

So, our mission is to create the soil. Now, I'd like to draw out of that example a couple of things. That's exactly the mission of the people of God in the vineyard he's placed us. Each one of you as families, in a sense, or as church communities or extended families are a gan. You can't produce faith in your kids. You can't make them believe. What you can do is create absolutely the best possible soil where faith can grow.

So, you tend the wall. You seek to enrich the soil so that what you do for your children is provide the environment in which God can bless and produce the increase. So, think about all the little things you might do to create this environment - the things you do with your kids, the faith activities you do, the church participation you have, the values you teach. All of those things create soil in which God can produce olive trees, grape vines, fig trees, and baskets of fruit that won't be - what did we say - [inaudible 00:09:23] (won't be stunted).

There's something else, because notice this vineyard rises and falls together - this collection of gans. Look. I can't even see my wall. I can't see it. I see the neighbor's wall. What do you think would happen here if I'm out in the garden one day - on the gan one day - and I come here? They're predicting a heavy rain, and I notice that there are stones that are slowly falling out of this wall. If we get that heavy rain and water comes down this hill, and some of these stones are missing, it could very well sweep right here, begin to erode this wall and this one and this one and this one. So, what do I do? 

Well, I could give them a call, and say, "Hey, your wall's in trouble." But I think like a community. So, what I do is to pick up some stones and to begin to repair and restore my neighbor's wall for his sake, for my sake, and for your sake in the gan below. 

Now, when my neighbor sees my wall in trouble, he or she does the same thing for my sake, for their sake, and for the sake of those below. So, you begin to get the idea of how a community thinks community and rises and falls together. So, think about your community. If the walls in your community are at risk, the whole community is at risk. What do we do?

The single mom trying to raise three kids, the single dad trying to raise children, they risk their wall. And once that soil starts to erode, there's very little place where faith and God's way can take root. I'm a school teacher. I work with kids every single day that have almost no soil left at all. And it's very difficult to think about how do you help a young person develop faith and trust and belief when there's no soil to take root? 

But because we're western, we have a tendency to think, "Well, that's too bad and I'll pray for them, but that's they're problem." What we don't sometimes acknowledge is that if one wall goes, we're all at risk. If there is a family in your faith community whose soil is eroding, the whole community's at risk. So, we ought to become people who are totally committed to being wall builders, wall restorers, helping one another find the soil, create the environment in which faith can grow.

Listen once to how Isaiah (58) describes it in what I think is another one of those beautiful poems or songs about vineyards. Listen. "If you spend yourself on behalf of the hungry (somebody in need in the community), if you satisfy the needs of the oppressed (somebody who's struggling in the community), then the Lord will guide you always. He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring that never fails. And then," listen to this, "you will be called a repairer of broken walls." 

Our mission as the gan hillside of God, as the garden hillside of God is to be wall builders and wall repairers. So, wherever we see someone in our community whose soil is at risk, we get together and we help them with their wall. And by restoring the conditions that God can use to produce faith, we restore God's hillside in God's community. And I think that's as vital a message to the culture I live in as any that we've walked. 

I think we live in a culture where a lot of walls are in pretty sad condition. I challenge you to think about that with yourself. What are your walls? So, you don't have family devotions together much anymore. And church participation has kind of dwindled a bit, because it's busy all week, and Sunday, it's kind of nice not to have to. And I don't have so much time for the kids, but boy, my job is going great. And my wife and I don't spend very much time together, but we both have our careers. 

You could fill it in, and slowly but surely, we lose the vibrant soil - the gan - that produces grapes and olives, the fruit that God is going to come looking for. I brought a group of teachers here. We talked about this and we had many with tears who said what I said to you - that as a teacher so much of their mission is trying to scrape together enough soil for a few kids to sink in and to begin to grow. 

What if God's community came together and said, "Let's be like a hillside. Are your walls a risk? I'm coming to help. My wall's at risk. Thank you for telling me. Let's fix it." Because we all rise and fall together. And I think that's partly why God chose this image as the image of who he wanted his community to be. And if we could create those faith communities within our homes, within our communities, within our churches, and our ministries where soil is, I think God would be pleased with the result. It would be sort of like God came here and out of this vineyard-- go ahead [offering grapes to everyone from a basket]. 

God calls us to be a fertile hillside, beautiful gans producing good fruit, repairers of broken walls. And may the harvest please the farmer. P.S. I've tried to help you to look at-- or I've tried to look at this story in terms of the wall and the soil so that our children and our grandchildren and the children of our community look like this. 

But do you know what else? I guarantee you-- looking at the beauty of this wall-- I guarantee you that grandpa and grandma, mom and dad spent a lot of time out here teaching the kids how to keep the wall in good shape. And when I stand here in a gan that I think was here when Joshua got here and I look at how long that's lasted, not only was the soil passed on in good shape but so was the skill of keeping the wall in order. 

So, I ask you two questions. If today is the last day God gives you-- it probably isn't, but if it is-- what's the soil like you've left behind? Will it nurture future generations as God intended?

And I also ask you have you left behind trained people who know how to hear the oppressed and the hungry and the broken whose walls are in desperate need of repair? If we would all leave behind folks we've shown, whether there our children or others, what it takes to be a repairer of broken walls, it will go a long way to creating the environment for the godly ways to grow.

So, we're here. Our journey's finished. But God's teaching isn't. And I don't think the lessons are all that different. Hear them. It's just enough. "Hear the cry of those who are in need. Be my presence to them." And think like community. Keep the wall in order. May God look down on your community and mine and may it remind him of this - this hillside.