You transplanted a vine from Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it. Psalm 80:8

Today’s Scripture Reading (September 12, 2013): Psalm 80

One of the things I liked to do when I was younger was to go out and find wild berries. Back then it seemed that they were everywhere – there were places where berries just grew wild. Today, at least where I live, I have not seen many of those good wild berry picking areas. But it was during this time that I was the closest I would ever be to a hunter/gatherer. For most of us today, all of our hunting and gathering happens in the grocery store. But that is not the same thing. When I go to the grocery store and I want some raspberries, I can just pick up a basket off of the shelf. But that is not the experience in the wild. In the wild, first I have to find the raspberry bushes, and then I have find the berries among the branches, but I also have to find them amidst the various grasses and weeds that are growing all around the bush. It is a bit of a process.

At some point, someone got the great idea of taking the raspberry bushes and placing them together in a garden. The garden provided two things. First, you finally knew where the raspberries were going to be, you didn’t have to go out searching for them. But more than that, in a garden you can also pull up the weeds and grasses so that there is nothing to compete with the berries that you want. In a garden we get to go out and collect the raspberries and the only branches that we have to compete with are raspberry branches.

It is this process that the Psalmist describes for Israel. He reminds his readers that there was a time when they were a vine in a foreign land. They grew up among the weeds and the grasses in Egypt. But God saw them and loved them, and God decided in the fullness of time to take the vine and plant it in a garden. There they were intended to flourish. God set out to remove the weeds and the grasses in this garden; taking away anything that would be in competition with the vine of God. And they did flourish. They grew strong, strong enough that they began to think that planting themselves in the garden was actually their idea. They forgot that there was a gardener - the one who had placed them there.

But the story did not end there - it was never intended to. Israel had originally been planted in order to bring beauty to the world – to change the world. In some ways, Israel had always been intended to be a raspberry plant, because a raspberry plant spread and sprouts where ever it can. And if you are not careful, a raspberry plant will take over a garden – and that was the exact purpose God had for Israel. And so the time came when Israel was taken out of the garden and planted in other gardens, so that those gardens would not be without the influence of the people of God.

And history has shown that God’s plan has worked perfectly. Because the people of God have been removed from their individual gardens and placed in other gardens and their presence has spread and they have been an influence. And whether you are a Jew or a Christian, we need to realize that the spreading of that influence is the highest purpose that God has place inside of us. We are to go and make a difference – making this world a better place to live.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Psalm 81 & 82