“Make A Difference”

“Make A Difference”

Text: Isaiah 5:1-7

© August 19, 2007 by C. Edward Bowen at Crafton United Presbyterian Church.

Some kids down in Texas learned the hard way that their actions have consequences. You see, three years ago, as Christmas was approaching, the father of the three children kept warning them that if they didn’t start behaving themselves and doing what was right, they weren’t going to get any Christmas presents. Now, lots of kids over the years have probably heard their parents say something like that, but this dad was serious. Because finally, after warning his kids over and over again to change their ways, the dad took all their Christmas presents and sold them. He took all their presents and put them up for auction on eBay.[1]

In a sense, we find that same kind of situation being described for us here in this reading that we heard today in the prophet Isaiah. You see, one day while the fall harvest festival was going on, Isaiah appeared on the scene and said, “Hey, everybody, let me sing you a little song I just wrote about a farmer and his vineyard.” And since the fall harvest festival was a time was lots of people sang songs, the people told Isaiah to go right ahead and sing for them.

And in his song, Isaiah told about a man who owned a wonderful piece of land. And on that rich, fertile plot of ground he planted the very best grapevines he could find. And he devoted all the love and energy he had to caring for those grapevines, doing everything possible to keep out the weeds, to keep out the wild animals. But even though that man poured his very life into caring for those grapevines, in the end those vines didn’t produce good grapes. No, instead, those vines yielded rotten, stinking grapes.

And so Isaiah ended his song by saying that since those grapevines had let that man down so terribly despite all that he had done for them, with great regret that man was going to just give up and walk away from those grapevines. He was going to let the weeds go wild and choke them, and let the wild animals wander in and trample on them. Because from then on, as far as that man was concerned, those grapevines were going to have to suffer the consequences. They were going to have to suffer the consequences for not bearing good fruit.

Well, when Isaiah finished his song, he turned to the crowd and said, “You know, my song wasn’t really about a man and his grapevines. No, my song was about God and us. Just like that farmer in my song poured his life into doing everything good he could for those grapevines, don’t you see how much God has done for us? Don’t you see how many blessings God has put into our lives? What more could we ask God to do for us than what God has already done?

“But even though God has blessed us in so many ways, what have we done with those blessings? Just like those grapevines, we’ve taken in all kinds of good things, but we haven’t produced good fruit. No, look at our lives. Look at our society. Look at the kind of world we’ve created. We haven’t produced good fruit. No, we have produced nothing but a bunch of rotten, stinking grapes.

“And so we need to realize that just as those grapevines in my song had to suffer the consequences for what they did, we better prepare ourselves for the fact that some day we’re going to have to suffer the consequences for what we’ve been doing. Because the day is eventually going to come when God is going to say to us, ‘If you don’t want the gifts I’ve tried to give to you, if you’re not going to take those gifts and use them to live the kind of life I expect from you, then I’m going to wash my hands of you. If you don’t want me, then I don’t want you. But if that’s the case, then you just better be prepared to suffer the consequences.’”

As we look at our world today, Isaiah’s words are just meaningful now as they were when he first spoke them 2,700 years ago. Even though God has blessed us and has blessed the whole world in so many ways, what have we done with those blessings? What kind of fruit have we produced?

Right now, of course, lots of families are doing their back-to-school clothes shopping. And it seems that a lot of people are buying up the clothes produced by a company in England called BladeRunner. You see, what makes that line of clothing so popular is that it is stab-proof. That company makes clothes that are lined with Kevlar, which is a fabric that is five times stronger than steel, so that if someone tries to stab you with a knife while you’re at school, you’ll be OK.[2] What kind of fruit have we produced? What kind of world have we created? A world where more and more kids have to worry about being attacked with a knife while they’re sitting in math class.

What kind of fruit have we produced? What kind of world have we created? A world where one out of every seven people on the earth, more than 850 million people, go hungry every day. A world where so many murders take place that we hardly even pay attention anymore when they’re reported on the news. A world where crime and corruption, riots and robberies, have become so commonplace that we take for granted that those sorts of evils are just part of the landscape that we live in.

And so Isaiah says to us, “If that is the world that you’ve created, if that’s the kind of fruit that you’ve produced with the blessings that God has given you, then get ready. Get ready, because the day is going to come when you’re going to have to suffer the consequences for what you’ve done.”

But when we hear Isaiah say that, we want to yell back, “But we’re not the ones out there stabbing people! We’re not the ones out there starving people to death. We’re not the ones who are taking part in crime and corruption, we’re not the ones taking part in robberies and riots. Sure, we admit that those kinds of things go on in our nation, in our society, but we’re not the ones who are doing those things.”

But when we read the Bible, we find that when God judges people, God doesn’t just take a look at individuals and say, “OK, you’ve done good in your life, so I’m going to reward you; but you over there, you’ve done bad, and so I’m going to punish you.” No, when we read the Bible, we find that when God judges people, God also judges us based on what our nation, what our society, is like.

For instance, in the Old Testament prophets like Isaiah would at times wag their fingers at other countries and announce that God was going to punish them because of the sinful things they were doing. Does that mean that every single person in those other countries were doing sinful things? I highly doubt that. But even so, the prophets announced that God’s punishment was going to come upon the whole nation, because as a nation that kind of sinful behavior was allowed to go on.

But the prophets in the Bible didn’t just wag their finger at other countries. They even had the courage to point the finger of blame at themselves and their own country. And at times the prophets announced that God was going to punish the whole nation with a drought or with a famine or by allowing some foreign army to come in and destroy them. Did God send forth those kinds of punishment because every single person in the nation was sinful? Of course not. But God brought about those kinds of punishment on the whole nation because of the sinful kind of behavior that was allowed to go on. God brought about those kinds of punishment on the whole nation as a way of saying, “It’s not enough for you to just follow God’s ways in your own personal life. No, you also have a responsibility to make sure that God’s will is being done in the whole nation, in the whole society.”

The temptation, of course, is for us to just throw up our hands and say, “What can we do? There’s so much that’s wrong in the world around us, what can we do about it?” But one of the things the Bible teaches us is that even when a small group of people get together, if they put their trust in God, there’s no telling what kind of a difference they can make.

When we were on our mission trip to Washington, D.C., earlier this summer, one of the things that struck many of us was when we were told that if a Congressman gets just eight letters about a particular issue or about a particular bill, that’s enough to get a Congressman’s attention. If just eight people get together and decide that something in the nation needs to be changed, that something isn’t right, and they send letters to their Congressman, in many cases those eight letters are enough to cause that Congressman to take some action. In other words, in order to make a difference in the society around us, you don’t necessarily need to huge crowd of people. Sometimes if a relatively few number of people are determined that they’re going to work to change things and make a difference, that’s all it takes.

Right now in our church we’re in the process of forming small groups that we’re calling “Make A Difference” groups. The idea is to bring together gatherings of perhaps 4-10 people in each group to focus on a particular issue that the group members have some passion about, to focus on a particular issue where the group members see some problem in our society where they have a desire to make a difference. And the idea is for the small groups to gather about every other week to learn more about the issue, study what the Bible has to say about the matter, and pray, and then in time see what God is leading them to do to make a difference. And my sincere hope is that you won’t just look at “Make A Difference” flyer in your bulletin and say, “Oh my, that sounds really interesting. I really hope that other people sign up and take part.” No, my sincere hope is that we all might feel led to take part as we’re able.

The world around us is not entirely the way that God wants it to be. But even though we might not be the ones who are out there causing all the problems, if we’re not a part of the solution, then in God’s eyes we’re just as guilty as everyone else. In our world today, in what way is God calling you to make a difference?