August 2025

A Contemplative Exercise for August 2025

The following is a possible framework for the Witnessing of the Word. It can be personalised or altered: its purpose is to serve as an example of how this Saying might be used primarily in the context of a Prayer Group, but it may be used by individuals too. It is not intended to be definitive.  In the context of a group: the periods of silence should be appropriate for your group - probably not less than 5 minutes, or more than 15 minutes.

Saying for the month: ‘A pleasant vineyard … let it make peace with me’ Isaiah 27.2 & 5 (NRSV).  Or, if you are shortening the Saying, ‘A pleasant vineyard … let it make peace’.

To begin the exercise, first spend a short while in relaxation and preparing to be still; you may want to relax your way through your muscles or you may find it helpful to become aware of the sounds around you and then put them aside as you offer this time of prayer to God.

Say this introductory invitation to prayer, then keep a further minute or two of silence:  ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest’ (Matthew 11.28).

Introduction to the first silence - a preparation for listening with the mind:

‘A pleasant vineyard … let it make peace with me’.

Isaiah, the greatest of the prophets raised up by God, calls the people back to their Creator and Deliverer over and over again in 66 chapters of the Bible.  He seeks to impart his vision of God and the glory in store for God’s people if only they will repent from going their own way.  He shares his vision with passion and compassion, desperate to warn them of impending judgement, but also offering the assurance of God’s continuing love and purpose for them.  He tries to show them the way of penitence and restoration.

Isaiah cannot be blamed for not spelling out what’s ahead.  He did!  In Isaiah 6.9, for example, he preaches God’s words ‘to people of unclean lips’ who have rejected his message, are passing the point of no return, condemning themselves out of hand.  Why have they found it so easy to leave the way God had commanded them to walk?

In the Lion handbook to the Bible, we read ‘From the particular - God’s judgement on specific nations - we move on to the universal - his judgement on the whole world and everything in it.  Life will not go on for ever just as it is.  There will come a point when God will step in and end the world as we know it; when the earth will rock on its foundations.  Isaiah was in no doubt about it.  Neither was Jesus (Matthew 24). But God’s  purpose is not just to condemn.  Isaiah 24 on judgement is followed by 3 chapters (25-27) on his glorious salvation’.

Isaiah 26 ends with the Lord coming out to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. Chapter 27 opens with a dramatic and gruesome scene of the Lord with his cruel and great and strong sword punishing Leviathan the fleeing twisting serpent, eventually killing it in the sea. The chaos of this gigantic mythical sea serpent is defeated.

And now follows in chapter 27 a beautiful message of love:

The Lord says
On that day: a pleasant vineyard, sing about it.
I the Lord am its keeper
Every moment I water it
I guard it without wrath
Let it cling to me for protection
Let it make peace with me.

In the Scofield Reference Bible, the expression used instead of ‘pleasant’ is a vineyard of red wine.  In the NIV, the description is of a fruitful vineyard.  However it is translated and interpreted the picture is of abundance.

The message Isaiah longs to get across to the people of God is that no matter how far they have fallen, no matter the obstacles (v4) of thorns and briars they have put up against God’s plan, His desire is to nurture, protect and nourish them to life, fruitfulness and peace.

What a beautiful picture of God’s loving persistence in the face of apathy and disastrously selfish choices leading His people to death not life, disease not health.
This redemptive passage ends thusly in 27.6: ‘in days to come, Jacob shall take root, Israel shall blossom and put forth shoots, and fill the whole world with fruit’.

We take this Saying into our minds, allowing the saying to speak to us: ‘A pleasant vineyard … let it make peace with me’.

A time is now kept for silence of the mind – perhaps between 5 and 15 minutes.  The silence concludes with a short thanksgiving, and/or feel free to repeat the Saying.

The first silence ends with the words: Father, we thank you for the gift of your Word.

Introduction to the second silence - a preparation for listening with the heart:

‘A pleasant vineyard … let it make peace with me’.

As in times long ago, we. God’s people, know that we constantly fall down on our calling and our promises.  We know ourselves.  We know our churches.  We, the people of God, mess up!

But today, during a Holy Communion service, we rejoice as we drink the fruit of the vine (Matthew 26.29) and hear again the familiar words of Jesus: ‘Drink all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant poured out for the forgiveness of sins’.
In the light of Christ, we are blessed in our calling to bear much fruit and become disciples of Jesus. (John 15.8).  Jesus the vine - we the branches (John 15.5).

In our daily lives, does the picture of a pleasant vineyard still attract us?  Many of us have little idea of what a vineyard even looks like, let alone experience of sitting in peace and safety under a vine (1 Kings 4.25).

We find in the Bible that we too are ‘of the many nations who stream to the mountains of the Lord’s house, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths’(Micah 4.3).  We, as well as the people of Judah and Israel, are the vineyard of the Lord of hosts, his pleasant planting (Isaiah 5.7).

In troubled times, we may need reminding that we too have a ‘keeper’ who delights in us, ‘sings about us’ even, ‘waters us’ providing our daily needs, ‘guards us day and night’, ‘has no wrath against us’ and calls us to ‘cling to him for protection’ and ‘make peace’.  What privilege!  What promises!

We shall all sit under our own vines and under our own fig trees and no one shall make us afraid (Micah 4 v4).

Jesus offers us His peace, standing among us and saying ‘peace be with you’ (Luke 24.36). All we have to do is receive it with gratitude.  He, the Saviour of the world, has made peace with us.

In the words of Micah 4.5, we can start again daily with this commitment.  We will walk in the name of our God for ever and ever.  Kept, as in the old chorus, by the power of God:

Day by day,
Come what may,
Kept by the power of God.

Now we take this word into our hearts, as we allow Jesus’ words to speak in us, to let them touch us and let them work more deeply upon our lives.

A time is now kept for silence of the heart – perhaps between 5 and 15 minutes.

The second silence ends with the words: Father, we thank you that your Word is alive and within us.

Introduction to the time of intercession – taking God’s word outwards into the world.

‘A pleasant vineyard … let it make peace with me’.

In a TV drama years ago, I heard words I have never forgotten.  A person in a village in South America said: ‘We are all always afraid’.  This is the lot of so many people all over the world, near and far.  Some are exiled from their homelands and know the pain of the fear that they may never again sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and have no one make them afraid.

We all have times of fear, but most of us have little idea of living in a war zone, with famine and disease stalking us for years on end.  We may however feel very fearful as we age.  We may fear for the future, and such fears may prompt continuous questions: will we run out of money, what should be do if we get really sick or fall or get dementia, should we, could we, move to somewhere nearer to family, what should we do if we have no family, what will the politicians do next to our world?  Fear lurks.

Today we can pray our saying for frightened people everywhere.

Say the name of a person or a group of people, and after a short pause, repeat the saying. For example:

‘Alison and your family … ‘A pleasant vineyard … let it make peace with me’…

As we allow the word to speak through us we might direct Jesus’ word towards those people and situations where there is suffering, hurt and an absence of joy and where abiding in Christ would bring comfort.  Conclude this time of intercession with words of thanksgiving: Father, we thank you that your Word has gone out through us to those for whom we pray.

The Conclusion

Feel free to use the Fellowship Prayer (below) or another closing prayer to conclude your time of contemplative prayer:

Loving Heavenly Father, we thank you for all your unsearchable riches which pour forth from you as light from the sun, in boundless profusion and generosity, whether received, ignored or rejected. And now we offer to you, in so far as we are able, as an emptiness to be filled with your divine fullness, ourselves, our souls and bodies; all that we are, all that we have and all that we do. Amen

You may wish to say the Grace together before departing.