Along the roads which parallel Lake Seneca in Upstate New York, there are miles and miles of vineyards. It wasn't always so. In the late fifties and sixties farmers raised corn, oats, some hay, Concord grapes, and apples. Most of the farms failed. The area around Penn Yan and Geneva was as poor as any part of the Northeast. Failure was written on the sagging barns and closed store fronts. Montgomery Ward pulled its catalogue store out. Eisenhower College over in Seneca Falls closed. A pall set over the region. Over the next twenty years there were various attempts to make a go of agriculture. The acreage around our friends' house became a Christmas tree farm. That didn't work either. Then a little while ago, some new families began to plant new vineyards Ü not like the vineyards that once upon a time grew bulk grapes for Welches Grape Juice and Taylor Wines.

Rather, here and there were planted more select vines. They were tended and pruned and cultivated. This August my wife and I had dinner along the lake at a restaurant that featured wines from the local specialty wineries up and down the state highway. Our host told us that some of the wines were quite good. He may have been right (I am not a wine drinker) for the New York Times last week ran a special feature on the wines of Upstate New York. I hope the wineries succeed, and that this is not just another boom-and-bust cycle. Too often failure has been the fruit of the soil, the area, and the lives of its inhabitants.

Vineyards, the vine, the growing of grapes are common agricultural images in the Bible. Frequently, they are used to describe the life and faith of the its people. Isaiah used the image of the vine to say that Israel had become a wild vine, yielding the fruits of bloodshed and injustice. Like the old vines along Lake Seneca, Isaiah's wild vines would be torn out and cast away. Israel failed to live up to its covenants and would be punished.

Jesus certainly knew about the hazard of growing grapes and the the image of the vine in Israel's prophetic heritage. In His parable of the wicked tenants, Jesus created a midrash of Isaiah 5: 1-7. He took a known passage and interpreted it with a new twist. In His parable, everyone fails: the landowner and the tenants. But out of failure, there will arise new beginnings and a new community. Within creation and history, there is the redeeming power of God. Like the rhisome of the vine, from history and a people bursts forth the incarnation and a new covenant of love and hope for you and me. Amen.