Tenth Sunday after Pentecost
Isaiah 55 verse 2 reads: Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your earnings for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.
Most of the time I might think of it metaphorically, as a way to discern what is important from what is simply a distraction – but today I am caught by its literal meaning: Hear, everyone who thirsts; come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
Wouldn’t that be nice!
I don’t know about you, but grocery shopping has become a very different experience for me over the last little while.
I used to wander through the produce section and throw things into the cart almost without thinking.
A basket of fresh strawberries. Blueberries – or my favourite Rainier Cherries – maybe a nice piece of cheese or the fancy loaf of bread because it looked particularly good that day.
Now I find myself stopping.
I look at the price and then I look again – that can’t be right can it?
I sometimes pick something up, look at it, and quietly put it back on the shelf.
Not because I don’t want it. Not because it isn’t good. But because I know I can’t buy everything. Suddenly every purchase has become a decision. Every purchase forces me to ask a question.
Is it worth it?
And more often than before the decision is “not today” or maybe just this little one. What used to be run of the mill has now become a treat, something special – the recent inflation has done something rather interesting to us.
It has made us think. It has reminded us that our resources are not unlimited. It has reminded us that every purchase is a choice.
The question that Isaiah then asks becomes particularly poignant:
“Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your earnings for that which does not satisfy?”
Why do I spend my money for that which is not bread – for what does not satisfy?
What is really worth spending our lives on? When we have a bit more disposable income we can be a little looser with what we do – but when things get tighter we have to be more careful we have to prioritize what is really important or we will not have enough.
And Isaiah is talking to people who need to cling to what is really important and let go of frivolous things that could weigh them down. This section of Isaiah is often called the Book of Consolation, and the people Isaiah is speaking to desperately need consolation … comfort oh comfort my people!
Jerusalem has fallen. The Temple has been destroyed. The people have been carried away into exile in Babylon.
They have lived through war. They have lost family members. They have lost their homes. They have lost almost everything that made life feel familiar feel safe
More than anything else, they simply want to go home.
Can you imagine that? Everything you know gone. Everything familiar left behind. Every morning you wake up in a country that isn’t yours, speaking a language that isn’t yours, wondering whether life will ever feel normal again.
They are refugees before we even had a word for refugees.
So what does God say?
God doesn’t begin with an explanation. God doesn’t say, “Here’s why this happened.” God doesn’t even begin by saying, “Soon you’ll be home.” Instead God says something wonderfully simple.
“Come.”
Come to the waters. Come and eat. Come because you are hungry. Come because you are thirsty.
This is beautiful to me.
Before God changes their circumstances, God nourishes them. Before they arrive home, God feeds them for the journey.
That’s still how God works.
Most of us aren’t living in Babylon, even though some are. But if we’re honest, many of us know what exile feels like.
A diagnosis can put you in exile.
The death of someone you love can put you in exile.
Retirement can put you in exile.
A marriage ending can put you in exile.
Children moving away can put you in exile.
Losing a job can put you in exile.
Suddenly the life you knew is gone, and all you want is to go back to the way things were.
Except, of course, you can’t.
And it is to people living with that kind of ache that God says, “Come.”
Not because everything has been fixed. Not because all the answers have appeared. Simply because God refuses to let hungry people travel alone.
Then Isaiah asks that question. Why are you spending yourselves on things that cannot satisfy?
Notice he doesn’t just ask about money.
He asks about our lives.
Money.
Time.
Attention.
Energy.
Compassion.
These are all currencies. We spend them every single day. And just like in the grocery store, every choice means not choosing something else.
Perhaps that’s why I keep coming back to those berries.
Not because they’re important in themselves but they point to a bigger question. Those cherries force me to stop and ask, “Is this where I want to spend my money?” And those cherries encourage me to ask that same question about other aspects of my life?
Is this argument worth my peace?
Is this resentment worth carrying for another year?
Is another hour scrolling through bad news really nourishing me?
Is working one more evening worth missing dinner with my family?
Does this make me more loving? More generous? More joyful?
Or am I spending something precious on something that will never really satisfy?
Then we hear the Gospel. The disciples look out over five thousand people and immediately begin doing the maths. Five loaves. Two fish. Five thousand ++ people.
This isn’t going to work.
They’re not wrong. The numbers don’t add up. So they come up with a perfectly sensible solution. “Send them away.” Isn’t that often our solution too? There’s not enough. Someone else will have to deal with it. Jesus says something extraordinary. “They need not go away. You give them something to eat. ” I almost laugh every time I hear that. Because the disciples must have thought Jesus had completely lost touch with reality. “We have five loaves and two fish!” That’s all. Nothing more. And yet Jesus takes what they have. He blesses it. He breaks it. He gives it away. And somehow everyone eats.
Now, Christians have understood this miracle in different ways. Some see it as a miraculous multiplication of bread. Others suggest that when the disciples stopped hoarding the little they had and offered it to Jesus, everyone else found the courage to do the same. Suddenly food began appearing from cloaks and baskets, and everyone realized there had been enough all along if no one tried to keep it just for themselves.
Personally, I don’t feel the need to choose between those two. Because both tell us exactly the same thing. The Kingdom of God looks completely different from the kingdom of fear.
Fear says, “Hold on tightly.” Grace says, “Share.” Fear says, “There won’t be enough.”
Grace says, “Let’s see what God can do with what we have.”
And isn’t that exactly what Isaiah is trying to teach the exiles?
They can see only what they’ve lost. God invites them to notice what remains. God is still present. God is still generous. God is still setting a table in the wilderness.
Every Sunday we come to this table and do something that makes very little sense if you stop to think about it. We bring almost nothing. A little bread. A little wine.
And somehow, by God’s grace, it becomes enough. Enough to nourish us. Enough to strengthen us. Enough to send us back into a world that still worries about not having enough.
Perhaps that’s the invitation today.
The next time you’re standing in the grocery store wondering whether those berries are worth buying, remember Isaiah. Remember that every purchase asks a question. Is this worth our limited resources
Then ask the bigger question. How am I spending all my resources in all parts of my life?
On what am I spending my attention? My energy? My compassion? What is nourishing me? What is merely filling a space? And what might happen if, instead of clinging to the little I think I have, I placed it in God’s hands?
Because the remarkable thing about the Kingdom of God is this. No one leaves God’s table hungry.
Not because there is no scarcity in the world. There is.
Not because life is always easy. It isn’t.
But because God’s generosity has always been greater than our fear.
And that, I think, is the deepest comfort Isaiah could offer people longing for home in his book of consolation. And perhaps it is still the deepest comfort God offers us today.
Come. The table is ready. There is enough.
Thanks be to God. Amen.