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Text: Isaiah 65:1–9
Liturgical Date: Pentecost 2, Proper 7 C
Calendar Date: June 22, 2025
Preacher: Rev. Dr. Christopher D. Jackson
Location: Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in Door County, 316 W Main St, Forestville, WI 54213, 920-856-6420
Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church serves Sturgeon Bay and other communities around Northeast Wisconsin.
The following transcript was produced with the assistance of AI. It does not match the sermon as preached word for word.
TRANSCRIPT
Today we are taking up the theme of God’s purifying patience. A few years ago, our summer youth mission trip took us to Greeley, Colorado. As many of you know, we do a pretty good job with these mission trips. We always take a nice large group of youth between ourselves and our sister congregation, St. John’s at Rankin. We found ourselves working in a pretty big food pantry there. One of the ways that food pantry obtains food for those who can use it is by taking refused shipments of produce. Sometimes a shipment of produce shows up to a grocery store, and they say, “We won’t take it. We can’t put this on our shelves.”
The Onion Metaphor
One of those refused shipments was several pallets full of onions. It seems like perhaps the onions had gotten caught in a rainstorm or something like that. A great deal of them were rotten, and our job was to sift through those rotten onions to find any that were good. When you started taking these big 40-pound bags and putting them in the work area and slicing them open, you’d take one look and say, “There’s nothing that can be preserved here.” They’d take that big bag and throw it in the cast-off pile. But we’d say, “Wait, wait, wait. This is why we’re here.”
So we would sift through those onions, and I’d show them, “Okay, look at this onion here. See how you squeeze it? It’s all mushy, and juice comes out of it. That onion is too far gone. Throw it out.” That was probably the majority of onions—probably nine out of ten were that way. But every tenth onion or so, you’d come across one that looked pretty bad on the outside. There was rot and mold on the outside; it didn’t look like it could be saved. But I’d say, “Now look at this. Squeeze it. You can tell there’s a firmness on the inside.” I’d peel back the layers of that rotten onion husk, and inside was a gleaming, brilliant white onion, firm and good for food. I said, “That’s why we’re here: to find that one onion out of ten that’s good for food.” We’d repackage those and give them to others so they could feed themselves and the people they love.
God’s Patience in Scripture
It’s really just another way of describing what God does. In our Old Testament lesson, we heard God say, “Thus says the Lord, as the new wine is found in the cluster and they say, ‘Do not destroy it, for there’s a blessing in it,’ so I will do for my servants’ sake and not destroy them all. I will bring forth offspring from Jacob and from Judah possessors of my mountains; my chosen shall possess it, and my servants shall dwell there.” God was saying, you know how when you gather grapes, sometimes you get a large cluster, and you can smell the new wine, the fermentation, but you don’t throw that all away. You don’t destroy the whole cluster because there’s still blessing in there—good grapes.
That answers the question posed earlier in Isaiah that we just read: Why doesn’t God just destroy the whole people? Why is He showing patience? The answer is this: God is showing patience because He wants to purify His people and bring forth His holy people from among all the rot and filth in Israel. That’s the same today, mind you, as it was in the time of Isaiah.
Israel’s Rebellion
What was going on in Israel? God said, “I spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious people who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices.” God is saying, “My people, who I led to the valley of the shadow of death, out of that Nile River Valley, through the Red Sea, and I led them as a shepherd into the good pastures and still waters of the promised land. Yet, even though I led them in these paths of righteousness, they have gone their own way. They’re walking their own path.” Instead of following the law, which I had given—a law that, if followed, would give them life, abundance, and blessing—they’re following their own devices, their own conjurings, their own ideas.
Examples of Disobedience
God in Isaiah gives firm examples of how they’re following their own ways: sacrificing in gardens, making offerings on bricks. God had commanded them to worship the one true God: “You shall have no other gods before me.” To ensure pure worship, God appointed the tabernacle, and eventually the temple, as the one true place of worship. But the people were going to secret gardens instead of the Holy Hill, Mount Zion. There’s a bit of a contrast God is giving here. In the Mediterranean world, gardens were often planted in low spots. If you look up on the hills, there’s often no vegetation; there’s no topsoil, it’s hot, and no moisture collects there. So, you plant gardens in crevices and low points and valleys. They weren’t worshiping on Mount Zion, where legitimate worship of the one true God was happening, but in secret valleys and crevices, worshiping false gods in illicit worship.
God had commanded that any altar built to Him should be made of unhewn stones, using materials He provided for authentic sacrifices. He even said, “You’re not supposed to make cut blocks out of stone to make an altar to me.” But what were they offering sacrifices on? Man-made bricks. You can’t get more man-made than that. As they followed their own ways, they devised their own worship to gods and goddesses of their own imaginations, the false gods and goddesses of the surrounding peoples.
God also said they sit in tombs and spend the night in secret places, engaging in occult activities, seeking the power of various forces—perhaps the dead, thinking they could use their power for their own desires, or even demonic forces. God had commanded Israel not to eat the flesh of pigs or a series of forbidden animals, likely to keep them distinct as a peculiar people. Over the table, you form bonds with others. As we read a few weeks ago, Peter was scandalized when invited to eat at a Roman’s table, afraid of eating forbidden foods. If he had followed the Old Testament dietary restrictions, he wouldn’t have formed a bond with that Roman commander. But God did a new thing in Christ, saying, “Whatever I have made clean, do not call unclean.” So Peter ate, forming a bond with the Roman centurion, part of God’s work in Christ to make a people from every tribe and nation through faith. All who trust in God for salvation, in the forgiveness won in Christ, are children of Abraham, bound together in unity. But at that time, God wanted a peculiar people, a remnant among the peoples of the earth, so a blessing might be found among them.
God’s Reason for Patience
So the question is raised: If they abandoned the one true God, their source of life, worshiping false gods, engaging in occult activities, and failing to keep their particularity as God’s people, why continue to preserve them? It was His hand that called them forth, guided them, preserved them. Why not use His hand to crush them? The answer: “As the new wine is found in the cluster and they say, ‘Do not destroy it, for there is a blessing in it,’ so I will do for my servants’ sake and not destroy them all.” God was saying, even amidst all this rot and filth, there are good grapes, and among them is blessing—blessing for the whole world. The ultimate good grape was Jesus Christ, who showed faith to the Father in all things, crying out even in His dying breaths, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” He was faithful to the last, a source of blessing to the world.
Christ’s Role in Purification
By His holy, precious life, Jesus kept every command of God to its fullest, loving the Father with heart, soul, strength, and mind, and loving His neighbor as Himself—perhaps even beyond Himself. On the cross, He took the punishment we deserved. We ought to have been crushed, cast aside like bad grapes, but Christ, though good, was crushed upon the cross, taking our punishment. By faith, we receive the blessings He won: forgiveness of sins, righteousness, eternal life. That is why God patiently preserved Israel—to purify them through Christ and purify us, the new Israel.
Implications for the Church
What does this mean for us today? Two things. First, it helps us understand how God deals with His church on earth and our situation as a church. We often talk about the visible and invisible church. The visible church is marked by Word and sacrament, but among it, there will be bad grapes. Jesus said among the wheat, there will be tares—or rather, among the tares, there will be wheat. Among those who gather with God’s holy people to receive His gifts, some hearts are not set on God, following their own devices. Why is God patient with us? For the sake of His elect, chosen before the foundation of the world, to preserve them in faith until Christ returns to sort the goats from the sheep. The invisible church will become visible; those with authentic faith will be seen, and others exposed. This helps us have patience within the church. While we seek to conform our lives to God’s Word, we show forbearance, and the Lord preserves us so His holy people will shine forth.
Implications for Individuals
Second, this helps us understand our situation as individuals. Departing from God’s metaphor in Isaiah, let’s return to the onion. Externally, all of us have a lot of rot on us. Inside, we’ve been renewed, given a heart that cries, “Abba, Father,” a pure, gleaming white core. Yet, the sinful flesh hangs on us. We should fear, love, and trust God above all things, but like the ancient Israelites, we sometimes partake in illicit worship of false DEFINITION: false gods. We do this when we turn a good from God into a little god—idolatry. Maybe we worship the almighty dollar, trusting it above God, or seek man’s approval over living as Christians. Whenever we fail to keep God’s commands and follow our own ways, we trust something else more than God, rendering worship to it.
Modern Idolatry and Christian Distinctiveness
The occult—well, the more things change, the more they stay the same. On social media, influencers promote occult practices: astrology, crystals, and more. Sadly, some Christians fall prey, seeking to manipulate God rather than trust Him. Too often, Christians—including all of us at times—fail to live out our particularity, our distinctiveness as Christians. Instead of letting Christ’s work ring from our lips, we’re quiet, failing to witness. Instead of making it plain we’re Christians trusting in God, we blend into the background or take cues on what is good from the world rather than God’s Word.
God’s Ongoing Purification
Whenever these things happen, we fail to live out our distinctiveness, but praise be to God, He is patient with us, desiring to purify us. This is already at work when we keep in step with the Spirit, using the means He provides: gladly hearing His Word, lifting prayers and praises, receiving His sacraments. The Spirit uses these to purify us, peeling back the rotten layers of the onion until the pure white core becomes evident. This won’t be perfected this side of heaven, but when Christ returns in power and glory, the old sinful flesh will melt away, the rotten layers will be peeled back, and the new man within us, pure and gleaming with God’s glory, a blessing to others, will shine forth.
Conclusion
Praise be to God that He was patient with His people of old. Praise be to God that He is patient with His people today. Praise be to God that He is patient with us. Let us gladly trust in Him and receive His purifying wo