The Tenacity of God; Sermon on Isaiah 5:1-7

Rev. George Miller
November 17, 2019
Isaiah 5:1-7

While the country is awash in winter, I’ve been working in the yard all week. It’s easy to think about the conditions of our geographic location. More specifically- the tenacity of nature.

That’s something we here in Florida know all too well. We are living in a part of the world in which the wild things grow and grow…and grow.

And no matter what, they seem to survive and thrive.

Florida nature has great tenacity. Tenacity means the ability to grip, to hold on, and to persist.

The crab grass; no matter how much you pull it up or spray, it will grow amongst the cracks of the sidewalk.

Fire ants, no matter how many times you disrupt their hills or sprinkle pesticides on the ground, there they are.

And all these wildflowers, bushes and plants that have the seeds and sticks that cling to your skin and wedge themselves under your clothes.

Where do they come from and how do they get there?

The other day I walked out to the shed and half-way there had the stop because a whole glob of stickily-somethings had latched onto the hairs of my leg.

Wednesday, I went to get the paper and upon sitting down felt a whole bunch of green seedamathigs that had hooked themselves inside the bottom of my pjs.

Florida nature is tenacious…except when you want it to be.

The purple plants purchased at Lowe’s that simply burnt up under the sun. The grapefruit tree in the backyard that never grew beyond 5 feet.

The pink hibiscus that caught my eye in 2016 that was planted in the front flower bed.

It has yet to grow no matter how much it’s been watered, pampered, and surrounded by good soil. I even speak to it, calling it Mr. Pinky.

Nothing worked, so a few weeks ago, I took out the sheers and pruned it back, but I was afraid I cut it back too much, because Mr. Pinky ended up looking like Mr. Twiggy…

Still, I stand by the original claim that nature can be tenacious. The way it grips, holds on, persists.

So is God. God has great tenacity.

For the past few months, we’ve explored how God is the Impossibly Possible God.

This morning, let us talk about the Tenacity of God.

From the very beginning of creation, God has exhibited great determination and phenomenal persistence.

God had to.

With Cain killing Abel. The Hebrews refusing to enter the Promised Land in the height of season. The people demanding a King to lead them and choosing to worship Baal instead.

When the nation split in two leaving only the tribe of Jesse in the southern part of Judah.

Through all these stories we have studied, we have heard again and again how God hears, God wrestles, God wants to bless, but the people continue to be deaf, disengage, and turn away.

And yet, God chooses to hold on. God continues to seek out relationship.

God continues to make covenant after covenant with Noah, with Abraham, with David.

As we learned last week via the prophet Hosea, God even chooses to love.

Even when we don’t love back.

Does this mean that God is foolish?

Is God foolish for having created? Is God foolish to have hope? Is God foolish to hold on?

Is God foolish to love?

We ask this question because once again we are confronted with scripture that features the heartbreak of God.

This time, instead of being portrayed as a parent, God is seen as a vineyard owner.

We see God using the best soil; creating with care; planting with purpose.

We witness God doing all that can possibly be done to bring forth the greatest of grapes. But instead what comes forth is wild.

The NRSV is the gentlest of translations, as other versions call the grapes bitter, rank, worthless, even bad.

What makes the grapes not the best?

Because instead of being justice-led they are bloodshed-based. Instead of living right, they purposely cause the oppressed to cry.

Instead of humbly being beside the Lord; they disregard God’ deeds and words, no matter how simple or clear they were made to be.

As a result, in profound poetic expression, the prophet portrays God as one who is filled with rage, who is filled with disappointment, filled with the sourness of dashed hopes.

God is ready to pull up the weeds. God is ready to get out the bugspray. God is ready to prune everything back beyond any hope of recovery.

You read today’s reading and it’s nearly impossible not to get the sense that God has had enough, God is ready to walk away from it all…

…Yet, if we read further along, we discover that God persists; God holds on. God is tenacious.

As chapter 11 expresses “a shoot shall come up from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.”

Now, I’ll be honest with you- I’ve never fully understood this reading.

As a non-gardener, raised in a suburb, this notion of a shoot shooting out from a stump made no sense.

A stump is a stump. When a tree is cut down, isn’t it dead? What’s left behind is at best something you can sit upon; at worst something you got to mow around.

So, what is this shoot? What is this branch?

I finally learned a few weeks ago.

If you recall, from the beginning of the message, Mr. Pinky was left looking like Mr. Twiggy.

Seriously, the hibiscus was nothing more than a stick jutting out of the ground; sure to be dead forever.

But about 3 days later, a little green bud appeared at the bottom. It began to grow a little.

A few days more, a few more green buds; and soon the buds began to stretch out and take the form of leaves.

And now, about a month later there’s a series of green leaves up and down this branch-like thing, about 30 in all.

This has encouraged me to water it, weed around it, even speak to it, hoping that one day it will bloom again and grow…

The Tenacity of God.

God is tenacious- able to hold on, to persist, and to be deliberate.

How else can we explain God calling Abraham and Sarah, a childless couple, to become the ancestors of many?

How else can we explain the Israelites, a people made up of the disregarded and enslaved as being led through deep waters and parched wastelands?

If God did not have tenacity, how else can we explain that at 2,000 years ago, when only 1 tribe of Israel was left, that in the smallest of towns in one of the southern-most states,

An angel appeared to a maiden named Mary and said “Be not afraid.”?

How else could an angel appear to a simple, ordinary guy like Joseph and say “Do not be scared.”?

And though they lived during difficult times and had to travel great distances, they would give life

to such a root;
to such a branch;
to such a holy seed
that we call Jesus;
Emmanuel;
God with us.

And that their son, born into poverty, homelessness, and hopelessness,

Would not only believe in the Tenacity of God; but that Jesus would embody the Tenacity of God.

Think of how much tenacity Jesus Christ, as the shoot of Jesse, exhibited-

Feeding the hungry when there didn’t appear to be enough.

Walking on water even when the storms were tough.

Bestowing a banquet of good wine upon a community that had run out.

Think of how Jesus embodied the Tenacity of God by teaching the Beatitudes and offering healing to anyone who dared to ask.

The Jesus we are preparing to welcome is one who embodied the Tenacity of God who dared to dream; dared to create; and dared to love.

God’s tenacity is greater than our timidity.

God’s belief in us is greater than our doubts.

God’s deeds are greater than our denials.

God’s love is greater than our hate.

God’s tenacity dares to believe that we have the ability to become good grapes.

God’s tenacity is to keep loving us until that is so. For that, we can say “Amen.”