Isaiah 5:1-7
Luke 12:49-56

A New Hampshire teenager was making some moves on the basketball court, and decided to drive hard and go for a dunk. As he flew through the air, he caught two of his teeth on the basketball net.
Ouch.
           
The kid was no LeBron James, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t make money from basketball. In fact, the young man sued the company that made the basketball net, claiming they should pay for his dental work. They settled out of court for $50,000.
You might call this lawsuit frivolous, but it’s part of a disturbing trend. People are suing companies for everything these days, from defective toilet seats to hard-to-open pickle jars, and the cost of doing business is skyrocketing.  
           
Today, companies are responding to the threat of lawsuits by slapping common-sense warnings on their products. These messages seem like no-brainers … but you can’t be too careful. You might say that frivolous lawsuits have given birth to a new cultural phenomenon: the wacky warning label.
For example:

A label on a baby stroller warns: “Remove child before folding.”
A flushable toilet brush warns: “Do not use for personal hygiene.”
A household iron warns users: “Never iron clothes while they are being worn.”
A cartridge for a laser printer says: “Do not eat toner.”
A 13-inch wheel on a wheelbarrow warns: “Not intended for highway use.”
A dishwasher carries this warning: “Do not allow children to play in the dishwasher.”
           
The fifth chapter of Isaiah begins with a warning label, but there is nothing wacky about it. Well, maybe it is a bit wacky. It’s a warning in the form of a love-song, sung by the prophet Isaiah — a song that tells of God and God’s vineyard.

“My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill,” sings Isaiah. “He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines.” God built a watchtower in it, and hewed out a wine vat. God “expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes” (Isaiah 5:1-2). God did everything possible to prepare the vineyard for a crop of good grapes, but it produced only bad fruit (NIV).

God was unhappy with this outcome, so he brought a legal case to the people of Judah. “Judge between me and my vineyard,” God said. “What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?” (vv. 3-4).
           
God followed all the proper vineyard procedures, but still got bad fruit. So God asked the people of Judah to settle the case and determine who is to blame. Are the wild grapes the fault of God, or the fault of the vineyard? Are they the fault of the manufacturer, or the fault of the customer?
           
Well, if a child plays in a dishwasher, we have to blame the customer, not the dishwasher-maker.
           
If a woman steps on a 12-inch rack for compact disks and falls, we have to blame her for not obeying the warning label that was prominently placed on the CD rack: “Do not use as a ladder.”

In the case of the bad fruit in Isaiah, the same is true: The fault lies with the vineyard.

God is fed up with the wild grapes that have taken over the vineyard, so God issues this warning: “And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge … break down its wall … make it a waste … [and] also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it” (vv. 5-6).

This warning label couldn’t be any clearer: Producing bad fruit can result in injury, dismemberment or death. Wild grapes will be trampled down, returned to dust. God is issuing a caution that is as obvious as the sticker on a popular manufactured fireplace log: “Caution — Risk of Fire.”
           
By now, you’ve probably figured out that this passage of Scripture has nothing to do with vineyards, and everything to do with the behavior of the people of Israel. “For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel,” concludes Isaiah, “and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting; he expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry!” (v. 7). Although the people of Israel and Judah were planted and watered properly, they turned into bad fruit. Instead of practicing justice and righteousness, they fell into violence and dishonesty. Instead of growing into the good people God intended them to be, they turned into wild and unruly creatures. They became like the man in a New Yorker cartoon, talking with a friend in a coffee shop. “I’ve tried a lot of life strategies,” he says, “and being completely self-serving works best for me.”
           
You might say that the people of Israel and Judah misused the abilities and opportunities that God gave them. They were like an electric drill, made for woodworking, that carried the warning, “This product not intended for use as a dental drill.”

• God made them for justice, but they practiced injustice.
• God made them to be fruitful, but they were barren.
• God made them for righteousness, but they practiced wickedness.
• God made them to serve others, but they preferred to do things that were self serving (5:11).
• God made them for good, but they practiced evil (5:20).
• God made them for truth, but they uttered falsehoods.
• God made them to dwell in light, but they preferred to live in darkness.
           
They failed to be what they were created to be, and to do what God intended them to do, and the result of their failure is complete and total destruction. This is God’s warning. And it’s not a wacky one at all.
           
So, how are we doing in our attempts to grow into good and healthy people? God has done everything that can be done to help us to be fruitful, but there are daily choices that we must make if we are to be fruitful. Are we paying attention to the issues of justice and righteousness that God considers to be so important to our fruitfulness?
           
A spoof of the Bible has been created in Holland — one that has cut out all the passages that have to do with caring for the poor and practicing sacrificial giving. A sarcastic commentary on this version reads, “Bible passages about money, materialism, poverty, injustice and righteousness are old-fashioned.” So the editors have cut them out, with scissors.
           
It’s a very Hole-ey Bible. One that is literally full of holes.

Our faith is also full of holes if we do not focus on the work of justice and righteousness. The prophets Isaiah, Amos and Micah, along with Jesus himself, were very concerned about fair and just relationships existing among people at every level of society. They became outraged when the rich and powerful took advantage of the poor and powerless — think of Isaiah challenging his people to “defend the orphan, plead for the widow” (1:17), and Jesus turning over the tables in the temple because money changers were turning God’s house into a “den of robbers” (Matthew 21:12-13).  These situations illustrate the truth of our text from Luke’s Gospel, “Did you suppose that I came to bring peace to the world? No, not peace, but division.”  What a strange thing to say!  What kind of warning label is this?
           
 As Fred Craddock points out, “Jesus is the crisis of the world.  Crisis does not mean emergency but that moment or occasion of truth and decision about life.  According to these sayings, God is so acting in the world in Jesus of Nazareth that a crisis is created, that is to say, Jesus is “making a difference,” even within families.  Peace in the sense of status quo is now disrupted. 
           
Justice and righteousness are important now, just as they were important in the time of Isaiah and Jesus. When we are not working for justice and righteousness we are guilty of the seven deadly social sins that Mahatma Gandhi identified: politics without principle, wealth without work, commerce without morality, pleasure without conscience, education without character, science without humanity, and worship without sacrifice.
           
To avoid the fate of the wild grapes, we have to pay attention to issues of materialism, poverty, justice and righteousness. “You shall not steal” is as important now as a warning label as it was when it first appeared in the Ten Commandments, as is the caution “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house” (Exodus 20:15, 17). What do these commandments challenge us to do at work and in our neighborhoods?
           
Moses says that you “shall not deprive a resident alien or an orphan of justice; you shall not take a widow’s garment in pledge” (Deuteronomy 24:17). What does this say about the way we treat immigrants in our country, as well as women and children who are struggling to survive?
           
Jesus spits out the warning, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith” (Matthew 23:23). What does this warning label say to us when we focus more on the good of the church than on the good of the world around us?
           
Yet, we can’t forget the gospel here. God constantly is starting over with us.  God expects us to do what is good and right and just.  We seek short cuts that short circuit.  We can read the weather but not the signs of war and destruction. Hypocrisy is evident when we are resistant to what is seen and what is evident.
           
That said, justice and righteousness are what God expects of us — people who have been created as “God’s pleasant planting” (Isaiah 5:7). God wants us to work for honesty and justice and peace in the world around us, and to be people who are living in harmony with God and with our neighbors. The time of God is now and is so urgent with meaning and importance that common wisdom dictates that all of us attend immediately to our relationships with God.  Attending to one’s relation with God and to a fellow member of the community are often experientially the same.  Jesus joined the love of God and the love of neighbor so as never again to be uncoupled.  This is the secret to being who and what God wants us to be, and avoiding the kind of desolation and destruction that can come from being unfaithful and unfruitful as Isaiah described in telling the story of the vineyard.
           
Right relationships with God and neighbor are the key. Anything else is going to hurt us. That’s a warning label we can live with. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, might, and soul and love your neighbor as yourself.  That is the only warning label we need.