“Frustration” based on Psalm 80:1-2 and 8-19, Isaiah 5:1-7

Photo by John McGarvey found on flickr

In our texts today, God is frustrated. In both texts, the same metaphor is used. God is like a vineyard owner who did everything right. God picked good land, dug it and cleared it, planted it with good vines that had been carefully selected and nurtured, protected it with a wall and even a watchtower, and waited the required years before it would yield grapes. In the meantime the wine vats were prepared. The vine grew and was massive.

But the grapes never came.

Isaiah makes the metaphor transparent. God expected JUSTICE but saw bloodshed. God planted for right-living but instead got domination.

So, the story is that God carefully selected people to share a new vision of love in the world, brought the people to the promised land, nurtured and protected them, and watched to see how the vision of justice and equity would play out. It didn’t.

I’m told, actually, it played out quite well for 400 years or so, and maybe that shouldn’t be trivialized. 400 years is a decent amount of time and archeologists who dig in ancient Israel find that for those years the houses were all the same sizes. Which means there wasn’t an accumulation of wealth nor of poverty and that seems to fit the prescribed vision of God pretty well.

It is important for me to hold on to those 400 years – the ones before kingship – as well as to remember that in a lot of societies over the course of history, societies have been capable of mutual care and concern. There have been a lot of ways humans have organized themselves where resources are justly distrusted, where many voices are heard and listened to, where the needs of the whole are prioritized over the desires of the powerful.

What I can’t figure out is why all societies aren’t like that. Because, truly, that’s better for everyone. The Intersectional Justice Book Club has invited us to read “Unrig the Game: What Women of Color Can Teach Everyone About Winning” by Vanessa Priya Daniel. I’ve been reading it and I thought she summed things up well when she said, “So much of the fracture of humanity is about our seeming inability to upgrade away from two bugs in the original factory settings of our species: greed and dominance.” (Page 59) She also has some great suggestions on how to respond 😉

When I read the Bible, when I look at Christianity history, and when I look around today, I see that. I see greed and dominance in a variety of formats and formulations. And I see God and God’s people pushing back to say “this isn’t right.” We aren’t supposed to live in a world of hierarchies – we’re all made in God’s image. We aren’t supposed to live in a world obsessed with the “now” at the cost of the future – killing creation is killing a sacred gift. We aren’t supposed to live in a world where justice applies to some and not all, where food is accessible by some and not all, where care and support are given to some but not all.

It isn’t supposed to be this way. And it hasn’t always been this way. But heavens, Biblical history isn’t particularly short and these greed and domination problems are PERSISTENT. But it doesn’t have to be this way, it hasn’t always been this way, and it is possible to do it differently.

Which makes even more sense of God being frustrated, because God had set up the people to do it differently. And they had. And then they stopped.

Which isn’t the best news. That even when a just society exists, it can stop being one. Darn.

But, let’s be clear, that’s not our issue right now. Our issue is that we’ve lived in various formations of societies with greed and domination taking precedence for millennia now and at the moment every single bit of progress is slipping away. Compassion wasn’t exactly having an easy time of it at any point in our lives in this society but what was able to be done in the name of compassion is being destroyed systematically.

Our question is: what know. Bishop Julius Trimble, who is the General Secretary of the General Board of Church and Society of The United Methodist Church wrote an email this week that included these words:

This is our season for agitation, sustained resistance and disciplined hope. The kind of hope and witness born of our Wesleyan heritage and Christian Discipleship. Our Bible and our Book of Discipline give witness that the divine imprint of human dignity and sacred worth originates with God and cannot be taken away by the stroke of a pen or promulgation of any theological or ideological thesis of superiority and isolation.

The Love Ethic that is so central to the teachings of Jesus and marching orders for the church cannot be free of radical resistance to the oppression of peoples with expectation of quiet acquiescence.

…This is a time to be counted in the work of bold resistance to all who make adversaries of our neighbors. Join us to do more, speak up more, give more and continue to push for social justice no matter how hard the barrier.

This is a time to love boldly, serve joyfully and lead courageously.

In the words of a bold American Academic, Brené Brown, “Courage is contagious.”1

My question, then, is what we can do together to keep ourselves focused on God’s dreams for a just society, to support each other in the work of the resistance, and keep ourselves fueled and aflame. Or, to say that more simply – how do we do this and not burn out?

The really good news here is that those particular questions are the ones that a faith community are particularly suited to answer!!! We are people who gather together. Who dream together. Who listen to God’s dreams in scriptures and sing them in hymns and pray them together and seek even to live them together. We are people who slow down and try to hear God in nature and in silence and in each other and in those struggling and in EVERYTHING else. But the key is we are people who encourage each other to slow down and listen.

We are people who PRACTICE the kindom of God. Right? We share – “our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service and our witness.” We share what we have in trust that when we all give what we can do together is even more powerful than what any of us could do apart. We engage in shared decision making. Which, let’s be honest, can be slow and annoying. BUT it gets us to better decisions than any other model. We INTENTIONALLY invert hierarchies, pay attention to power, and refuse to accept society’s definitions that suggest some people don’t matter. We practice TRUST – in God and each other. We, sometimes despite ourselves, work together to maintain hope, because we know hope matters.

Most of all, we’re in it together. We have shared wisdom, shared resources, shared resilience. When one of us is overwhelmed, others can step up. When one of us needs rest, others can provide it.

I often think of the wonder that is the fact that choir can hold a note of music indefinitely. No singer can do that, but together, a group of people can. I don’t think there are any organizations better poised to respond to this moment than justice-seeking faith communities and while times ARE hard, I am so grateful to be with you in this. I need to be a part of a community that practices the kindom’s values and you give me hope.

Because one of these days, those vines that God so carefully planted ARE going to bear fruit and it will be beautiful. And until then, we keep each other going. Thanks be to God who gave us each other. Amen

1 Email entitled “If The Foundations Are Destroyed What Can The Righteous Do?“ Psalm 11:3-4 sent on August 14, 2025

August 17, 2025

Rev. Sara E. Baron 
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady 
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305 
Pronouns: she/her/hers 
http://fumcschenectady.org/ 
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady