Come and Eat

Sermon based on Isaiah 55:1-9

"Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price."

One of the big highlights of three years of seminary is the night during your senior year when the Episcopal Church’s Pension Fund representatives arrive to give their seminar on all the ins and outs on of the pension fund. Now the seminar is about as boring as watching paint dry, but what the seminarians show up for-- is not learning how to calculate the pension or the listening to the benefits you will get thirty years down the road, but what seminarians show up for is the free party afterwards. Now you have to remember that seminary life isn’t all that different than college life- there are a lot of people walking around with not a whole lot of money- so a free party is a big deal- what little money seminarians have is often spent on six packs and books.

Remember most seminarians have had to leave full time employment to go to school and in the Episcopal Church many of the seminaries are located in urban areas where the cost of living is astronomical. Places like Washington DC, Berkeley California, and New York City.

The apartment I lived in in seminary outside of DC was three times more expensive than the apartment I had lived in in Pennsylvania.

Seminarians essentially for three years subsist on cafeteria food and things like ramen noodles and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. So when someone shows up offering free meal that is of some quality-- red wine and beer and beef tenderloin and salmon – then seminarians are going to show up and show up in droves.

[I think Chrishelle’s biggest seminary disappointment was that she had to stay home that evening because Alexis was sick.]

So is there ever such a thing as a free- quality lunch? Is anything in life ever free? Does anything ever come without some sort of strings attached?

Even in the story I just told you, we still had to go to sit through the boring as sin pension fund seminar before we were able to feast on the tenderloin and wine.

The prophet Isaiah though holds out a different vision to the people of Israel that there is in fact a free and quality lunch. Listen again to what he tells the people of Israel - This is from Peterson’s paraphrase - the Message

Hey there- (our translation started with “Ho” - a word that means sit up and pay attention)

“Hey there! All who are thirsty, come to the water! Are you penniless? Come anyway-buy and eat! Come, buy your drinks, buy wine and milk. Buy without money-everything’s free!”

Ultimately isn't that the call from the lips of God, isn't that the call from the altar behind me? Come and feast-- I have good gifts to share- better than anything that money and bags of gold can buy. Bread that doesn't rot or go moldy –wine that fill our greatest thirsts.

But does God really have something to offer us? Does God feed us week in and week out?

Does God really have something to share with us- other than a wafer that sticks to the roof of our mouth and seems more like cardboard than perhaps the spiritual food it is?

Sometimes doesn't it feel like going through the motions of stand up, sit down, kneel, stand up, sit down, and kneel? The same prayers --week in and week out.

Does God really break into this world and into this church to feed the hungry, to give drink to those whose throats are dry and whose lips are cracked?

Have you ever been sitting there in your pew and listening to the words of Holy Scripture or following along when all of a sudden a word or a phrase grabs you attention or even jumps right off of the page and so speaks to a situation in your life-- Then perhaps God might have offered you gift.

Have you ever been uplifted by the sight of a friend who’s returned to church after a devastating illness, or after a difficult time- could that be a gift from God?

Have you ever felt the weight of guilt lift off your shoulders as you knelt down to pray the prayer of forgiveness? Could that have been a gift from God?

Has the sweet music of a song ever lifted you to the highest of heights- Might that have been a gift from God dropped into your lap?

Has the bread and wine of Holy Communion ever left you with even the slightest, smallest sliver of hope or of joy- Might that, too, be a gift from God?

Sometimes though the gifts don’t rise to the surface- and on those days maybe just maybe we don’t receive gifts but maybe we are the gift that God is offering to someone else.

Several months ago, I overheard the story of how one parishioner was able share the experience of the death of her spouse with someone who had just lost his wife. On that day that woman was a gift that God dropped out of heaven.

Maybe those moments or some like them were just coincidences or maybe they have been gifts from God dropped from heaven into our lives. I choose to believe that those are the gifts of God for the people of God. Food- drink that the world cannot and does not offer.

But, what do you think?  Ultimately it doesn't matter what I think- it matters what you think.

There is only one answer that will feed your soul. AMEN