When I was a kid growing up in Dallas, our home phone
number was a digit or two off from a local movie theater. Of course
this was back in the days before pre-recorded messages, so after a
while we learned the drill. “I’m sorry, but you’ve got the wrong
number.” Well most of you know my Father Tom. What you might not
know is that Old Tom has a devilish streak to him. So, one time he
happened to be the one answering the call of a confused movie goer.
“What time does the show start tonight?” “8:23,” said Dad without
batting an eye. “What does it cost to get in?” The caller
queried. “Oh, you haven’t heard,” replied Tom. “Everyone gets in
free tonight. Bring your family and call all your friends.” After
that I don’t ever recall fielding any calls for the movie theater.
From that moment on the movie theater got a new telephone number.
Tossing out free invitations can not only get others in
a bind, you can get yourself in a real pickle before you know it
too! I heard the other day about a Walmart in the Rio Grande Valley
that as a way to drum up business invited a well known singer to
come and sign autographs. Before they knew it there almost ten
thousand people in the parking lot and they had to close the
store—so much for creative marketing schemes. When it comes to
giving things away free, there has to be a limit. You’ve got to be
careful. I mean, sooner or later people will think everything is
free and in such a world complete and total chaos can’t be far very
behind at all!
So what are we to make of strange, subversive invitation
that meets us today? “Come, buy your drinks, buy wine, milk. Buy
without money—everything’s free!” What we have is an invitation to
a fabulous party, an exquisite banquet. Of course when we throw a
party or put on a big dinner we think carefully about who we’re
going to invite. After all, the fire marshal has something to say
about how many people you can cram into a ball room and even the
biggest dining room can only hold so many people, only so much good.
You might want the whole world to come, but practical concerns mean
we often have to whittle down our list to family and close friends,
the people we work with and maybe a couple of neighbors, that person
who invited us over last month and with whom good manners say we
should reciprocate.
But to hear Isaiah’s invitation, you’d
think that he or God or both of them have completely lost their
minds. Hey there! All who are thirsty come to the water! Are
you penniless? Come anyway—buy and eat! Not to sound
irreverent or uncaring, but what kind of party is it when those who
thirst, who presumably hunger, who are poor are at the top of the
guest list? And although our stomachs might be growling a bit or
we might be contemplating slipping out right about now to go to the
water fountain, chances are we wouldn’t consider ourselves thirsty,
hungry or poor. So as we contemplate the words of the prophet this
morning, we begin to wonder, “What about us?” When the roll is
called up yonder will our names be read? When all is said and done,
what kind of party is this anyway?
And yet, there is a word here even for
those whose bellies are full and whose bodies are fully hydrated.
Here is a word spoken to a people who had abandoned the God of the
covenant for something else, for the gods of mammon, for a sense of
worldly security, people who as a result were driven into exile.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your
labor for that which does not satisfy? It’s a question that
hounds us and in so doing reveals the deep hunger and profound
thirst that afflicts us all. Now, I have to say that I’m always
troubled by the kind of sentiment I just expressed, that somehow we
can equate our existential plight with that of the nearly one
billion people in our world who suffer from the effects of desperate
poverty—hunger, thirst and disease.
And yet, even in the face of real
hunger and poverty perhaps we can see something of what God’s word
is saying to us today. I read the other day about what often
happens in immigrant farm-worker communities along the border.
Driven by a lack of economic opportunities in places like Oaxaca,
Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua men, women and children travel
hundreds of miles to the U.S. to find work. These immigrants face
overwhelming pressure, first to even survive the treacherous
journey, but then once here, in the temptation to consume more and
more. Many work so that their families, both in the U.S., Mexico
and Central America can have life’s necessities. Yet as a result of
peer pressure, the media, advertising their children want what all
the other boys and girls want—toys, computer games, designer
clothes, fast food, music and much more.
No matter what our station in life,
the question that confronts us today has to do with how we spend our
lives, not only in what we do, but in how we go about it. A well
known modern paraphrase of Isaiah renders it this way. “Why do you
spend your money on junk food, your hard earned cash on cotton
candy?” It boils down to a matter of devotion, that is the manner
in which we devote our lives, our pursuits, our poison if you will.
It was with a great appreciation of this very prophetic tradition
that Jesus declared. “Where your treasure is there your heart will
be also.” So, what is our treasure today? What do we value above
everything else in the world? Is it lots of money in a bank
account, a nice home in a nice neighborhood with people who look
just like us, a secure job, a rock solid marriage, happy, well
adjusted kids? Or what about as a nation, what do we value above
all else—secure borders, greater productivity, a bull market, a
system where the rich get richer and the poor get even poorer,
imposing our ideas and beliefs on other peoples because we think we
have the answer to what ails them?
And I suppose it’s worth saying that
the things we treasure, to which we devote ourselves aren’t
necessarily bad in and of themselves. The problem comes when they
become our only desire, when they become our gods. When we forget
whose hand all good gifts come, we’re in trouble, separated, exiled
from God the giver of all life, so that even our goodness is
tainted, tarnished, jaded. So, whether it’s junk food, cotton candy
or a macrobiotic diet that we think will fill the emptiness in our
lives, without an awareness of God’s presence, what we ultimately
discover is that our lives are still empty, that our ways, our
priorities, our economies are completely at odds with what God wants
for us and for our world.
But as one who grieves for us like a
loving Father, God calls us to return home from our exile, to draw
near to Him that God may have mercy on us all. And yet, even before
we turn our hearts, God, through the death and resurrection of His
Son, Jesus turns to us and to a world broken by sin. What’s more,
through the cross God means to turn our lives, to turn the world
upside down. As the hymn declares, “From the halls of power, to the
fortress tower, not a stone will be left on stone. Let the king
beware for God’s justice tears every tyrant from their
throne. The hungry poor shall weep no more, for the food they can
never earn; there are tables spread, every mouth be fed, for the
world is about to turn.”
God's gift of life is free. The cost
was borne on a cross by God’s only Son, Jesus Christ. The promise
of forgiveness and life is for us today. Today, a table is
prepared, a table with food rich and nourishing, for that which
satisfies and sustains, that gives us life, forgiveness and healing
for a new day. To you and me the Lord says, “come, no matter what
you look like on the outside, no matter what you look like on the
inside, come for now your life is in me.” Amen.
