Isaiah 55:1-9
In their heart of hearts, the
Israelites knew that they had crossed the line once again. How many times can you anger your God before
the Holy One disinherits you and drops you like a hot rock?
So many times, so many times over the
centuries they had turned away. So many
times, so many times they had grumbled and complained. “We don’t have bread. We don’t have food. We don’t have water. The work is too hard. Life is way too difficult. We don’t want to go that way. We don’t need you, Yahweh/God.”
Surely God had turned a heavenly back
on them for good this time. History
tells us that, once again, the Israelites had been defeated. The military might of the Babylonian Empire
had overrun them. The tiny fledgling
nation had been conquered.
But worse than that, the Temple in
Jerusalem – the House of God - was in ruins.
It was little more than a pile of rubble. But perhaps the worst of all, as a community,
they had been divided and dispersed. In
the Babylonian way of gaining the upper hand, the brightest and best among them
had been deported, shuffled off to the very backwaters of the Empire. As a people, they were broken.
At first, in despair and hopelessness, they
had simply hung their harps on the willow branches by the edge of the streams
and wept. After all, how can you sing a
song to God in a foreign land? They
grieved for this God who had punished them and subsequently seemingly vanished
– given up on them in their iniquity, cast them out in their faithlessness.
However, over time, this older
generation of mourners died off, and the ones who remained adjusted to the new
life and set down roots there in Babylon, outside of the Promised Land. They ran businesses. They farmed.
They married and had children. They found themselves, for once, feeling
rather safe in this fertile land, and many of them had become quite successful
and wealthy. There was a chicken in
every pot, and all the children had IPads.
One would think that, for once, things
had turned out for the better for the Israelites. However, that was not so, at
least according to the prophets, like Isaiah.
These human mouthpieces of God never stopped speaking.
Oh, there were words of anger, to be
sure, but prophets like Isaiah also brought words of comfort to a people who
deep down inside knew that their lives were empty and in the end deeply flawed
and in need of healing, of salvation.
In the verses we just read, Isaiah’s
beautiful poetry was like a love song meant to woo the Israelites, meant to
bring them to their senses and most of all meant to bring them home, bring them
home so they could get
back to the work of rebuilding their Temple and restoring their lives once
again in relationship with God.
And in the deep darkness that many no
longer realized they still walked in, the words of the prophet glimmered and
shimmered. The light of a deep hope that was grounded in a reconnection with
God flickered in their midst. “Come,
come everyone, come to me. Here is water
if you are thirsty.”
A pastor once delivered a children’s
message about hospitality and welcome. She began with a question to the
youngsters gathered around her: “What is the first thing your parents say when
someone comes to visit?”
She was anticipating answers like,
“Welcome!” Or, “It is so good to see you.” Or, “Won’t you come in?” However,
one little boy spoke right up and replied. “Can I fix you a drink?
But isn’t that the way it always is? That is part of the ritual of forging community. As one blogger wrote: “It takes your relationship to another level. Any child
knows that when you share a candy bar with the new kid on the block, it is
instant friendship. (And if you are offered food or a drink), even if you
decline – no, thank you, I’m on a diet - you may have a persistent host who
says, “Are you sure? How about a cup of coffee or one of these little coca-
colas? I bought them just for you.” Really, I’m fine. “Not even a glass of
water?”
“Come on, everyone who thirsts, come to
the waters,” says God to the exiled Israelites through the prophet Isaiah. “Have a drink. Come, buy wine and milk – and it will cost
you nothing.”
“Why?
Why?” the Israelites surely asked themselves. “Why would God be offering the very best to
us – water in the desert, a banquet table laden with such abundance – all you
can eat and drink – and even more remarkable – all for free? Why?
Surely we do not deserve this.”
Though the Israelites had forgotten
their purpose, though the ephemeral things in life, the things that in the end
really do not matter, had distracted them for too long (“Why do you spend your
money on that which does not satisfy?
Why spend your wages and still be hungry?” asks the prophet), God still reached
out a holy hand to them. God will
forgive them, Isaiah proclaims, if they will come home. But why? The question still lingered in
their minds –as perhaps it does in ours as well.
“My thoughts,” said God in reply, “Are
not like yours, and my ways are different from yours. “For as the sky soars high above earth,
so
the way I work surpasses the way you work,
and the way I think is beyond the
way you think……Come, come to me, and you will have life.” Come home!
In a way, that is what God is saying to
us right about now on our Lenten journey.
Come home! You are half way
there, and the way is dark. But finish
the journey. Go the distance. Get to the cross.
Keep praying. Keep reflecting. Keep looking deep into your own heart for the
remainder of these 40 days. Do not stop
now. Go even unto death, for that is part
of the journey too. Come home.
I find it fascinating that this passage
of hope and abundance and joy pops up in our lectionary in the very middle of
the somber season of Lent. When some of
us are sacrificing chocolate, God offers us Ghiradelli truffles.
When I was in seminary, a small group
of us on occasion would spend a weekend at a Benedictine monastery in upstate
New York. The brothers at St. Anselm’s were
a conservative community. They did not
speak at meals. Though male guests could
join them, women had to eat elsewhere. We
could sit on stone benches around the periphery of the chapel but could not
join fully in worship. We could
listen. We could sing, but we could not
take communion – even if we had been Catholic.
However, one spring we were at the
monastery in the middle of Lent – and were amazed to find that for that
particular weekend deep in the season of repentance and sacrifice, all of these
restrictions were lifted. Communion was
open to us, and we were invited to dine with the brothers. As we sat with them over supper, they were drinking
wine and talking up a storm. I remember one
of them (Brother Peter, it was) got up from the table after the dessert that
they generally never had and started playing jazz piano (with his sister who
was a nun, no less) as entertainment.
For a monastery, it was blow-out party
in the middle of Lent, the season of sacrifice.
However, I cannot help but wonder if the monks had this soiree – this scheduled
break from the rules and routine - so that they could see beyond the darkness
of the season to the light that would come in the end. I cannot help but wonder if their partying
was not a visceral reminder of the banquet that awaited them come Easter – the
memory of it designed to get them through the even darker days ahead.
These verses in Isaiah remind me of
that experience. In the darkest days of
our journey, maybe we like the Israelites (and even like the monks), need to
see the light. Maybe we too need to see
what it is that we are journeying toward.
Maybe we too need to be reminded of the goodness and abundance, the loving
and forgiving nature of God, so that we have something to carry with us the
rest of the way through the awful events of Holy Week and beyond to the joy of Easter.
As I read in one article this past week,
“Lent tends to be a solemn season of introspection,
remorse, and repentance but right smack in the middle of it we find ourselves
confronted by this passage from Isaiah, bursting at the seams with joy and
abundance. An all you can eat buffet, if you will, filled with the kind of
stuff that is so good for you, you needn’t worry about eating too much.
And not only will the food be good but so
will the company – friends, family, even those we sorely miss. There will also
be people from other nations, banging on the doors to get in and the doors will
be opened and there will be plenty of room and there will be plenty of food and
there will be plenty of space for the chicken dance and, by the end of the
night, everyone, from the four corners of creation will stand in a circle
singing...
“That’s
what grace looks like!” Isaiah tells us. That’s what’s in store for the Hebrew
exiles thirsting for home. That’s what’s in store for those on a journey called
Lent. That’s the destination. That’s what the cross was and is ultimately
about...getting us to that banquet.”
“You are so close,” the prophet seems
to be saying. “Do not be distracted
now.” And whatever you do, do not be
like the young man who found a five-dollar bill on the
street and who "from that time on never lifted his eyes when walking. In
the course of years he accumulated 29,516 buttons, 54,172 pins, 12 cents, a
bent back and a miserly disposition."
Do not be distracted for the remainder
of your Lenten journey, your focus being pulled this way and that by whatever
it is in your life that in the end really does not matter and will never really
assuage your hunger anyway – a damaging relationship, a warped view of success.
Do not be distracted, and remember
where you are going – and what awaits you when you get there – living water,
food aplenty, all you can eat, all the forgiveness you need, all the love you
long for, all the new life you desire. Keep
your eye on the prize, so to speak – and trust, always trust, that the journey
is worth it.
“Come.
Come home!” the prophet whispers to us.
You are half way there, and the rest of the way will be dark. But go the distance. Get to the cross. Keep praying.
Keep reflecting. Keep looking
deep into your own heart.
Do not give up now. Go even unto death, for that is part of the
journey too - because when you get there – when you get to Easter – you will
find that it is as the ancient prophet said:
It is an all you can eat buffet.
It is free. And you are home.
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