“Heartbreak”
Dear church,
Folk and country music is full of songs about heartbreak, of rejected or unrequited love and the whole claviature of feelings connected to those experiences. Heartbreak is common for teenagers and young adults and is by no means unknown to people in their later years. That’s why so many songs are written about it. I recently heard an interview with Sheryl Crow on the occasion of a new album and found her, as always, refreshingly, transparently human and honest. You don’t need to know all her songs in order to recognize that this theme is prominent in her earlier work and reflective of her own life experiences. The titles speak for themselves. Lines like “Tell me when it’s over,” “I can’t cry anymore,” “Broken record” give it away. And who hasn’t experienced this in some form or seen someone who is seriously, almost tragically lovesick? It’s painful to watch.
Today’s readings are about heartbreak and unrequited love, plain and simple. The person who is being rejected is God himself, his heart broken and lovesick. The vulnerability in this narrative is stunning. We heard it in the poem shared by the prophet Isaiah. The text is a blend of traditional harvest and love songs. The first lines reveal what’s coming: “I will sing for the one I love, a song about his vineyard.” We might place the recital of this poem at a harvest festival in ancient Israel, something akin to Oktoberfest, only with less beer, more wine. The prophet knows his audience and hooks them with this tale of a vineyard owner who does everything by the book. He does the groundwork and clears the soil around the young plants of stones. He finds the best types of grapes, choice vines. Merlot… He builds a watchtower to keep away intruders and grazing animals and a wine press for the expected harvest. He is patient. But as the tale goes, the vineyard only yields bad fruit, year after year, uneatable, unusable, good only for vinegar. Finally, he gives up, and in his disappointment, destroys the whole operation.
Have you ever had a passion project to which you devoted not only resources but your heart and soul because you deeply cared about it and tried to do everything right? I bet you had more success than this vineyard owner but when things didn’t go right or when they fell apart, it bothered you mightily. You wanted to throw in the towel, admit it. I can think of a few people in our congregation to whom this may sound familiar. So, you know how that feels to care deeply and be disappointed.
Why did Isaiah bring up this sad tale while everybody was trying to have a good time? Why did he crash the harvest festival party? (He is not invited to our Gala next Friday, btw.) Well, because he was a prophet and he had a message to the people of Israel. To the listeners who were hooked by the tale of the vineyard owner, he had this to say: “The vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the nation of Israel, and the people of Judah are the vines he delighted in. And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.” Son of a gun! Isaiah softened up the audience until they lowered their defenses, then delivered the blow. “You!” God needs to talk to you!” “You have been on mute!”
“He looked for justice but saw bloodshed…” It’s perhaps prophetic in its own way when we read these words today as many people are critical of the policies and actions of the nation of Israel. That is understandable, and as one wise rabbi has told me, we need to uncouple the Jewish religion from the actions of the state of Israel. It’s a huge, complicated and heartbreaking situation. And it only gets worse when we consider what happened on the flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv recently, an incident that brings back bad memories for us, a pilot almost killed, hundreds of people almost murdered in a commercial aircraft. Bloodshed. Hatred. It could have ended very badly. Thank God for the co-pilot who saved many lives!
What this poem and this story conveys is God’s heartbreak over violence and injustice, including but by no means exclusively in modern Israel, the state. What it conveys is God’s heartbreak over human injustices and violence, including but not exclusively in our own country. The poem tells us that one of the most dangerous things is when people accept injustice as normal and inevitable, when they don’t care anymore. Isaiah says, “We have a God who cares deeply about justice. Never forget that!” The New Testament shares the ultimate divine narrative in the gospel - that God would sacrifice himself for our sake because that’s how deeply God cares about you and about me, about our world, about Israel, about the United States, about the church, about human beings, about all of creation. God is love and therefore God cares with abandon. God is singing with Sheryl Crow, “I can’t cry anymore!” Hopefully, we will care with just a fraction of God’s loving, caring intensity, for we are God’s master project. And the real shocking thing is: he hasn’t given up on humanity. We are his vineyard. And he is hoping for good fruit. “Help us to deliver, O Lord!”
Amen.
