Everyone who thirsts
James Cathcart
August 07, 2023
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Listen to this daily worship
Isaiah 55: 1-5 (NRSVA)
1 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.
2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labour for that which does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.
3 Incline your ear, and come to me;
listen, so that you may live.
I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
my steadfast, sure love for David.
4 See, I made him a witness to the peoples,
a leader and commander for the peoples.
5 See, you shall call nations that you do not know,
and nations that do not know you shall run to you,
because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel,
for he has glorified you.
At the core of our faith is abundance and an invitation to all.
Abundance is certainly an attractive concept in a world deeply acquainted (or rapidly becoming reacquainted) with want and scarcity, delays and restrictions.
But how can we speak into those needs without sounding trite? Many this morning don’t have bread and milk and a holy moly invitation to an open buffet at ‘the waters’ for as much as they want… can ring hollow.
Hunger can divide or unite. And we live in a world where we desperately need to be united in our hunger rather than further divided by it. To be tied together by our shared experience, rather than pitted against each other.
The Bible is not a straightforward manual for life. If it were it probably would have had a bit of hype, a good couple of decades of success, made some bestseller lists. But that would be it. Instead it is this incredible living resource that shows the best and worst of humanity, it spans countless genres to provide both answers and further questions about the puzzle of living and loving. That’s why we’re still reading it. Every day. Because the Bible is illuminated by the Spirit every time we read it. Isaiah 55 is not a syllabus to end world hunger — but it’s a stirring vision of what life simultaneously is, can and should be about. It inspires us to be part of building that kingdom.
In the last hundred years we have made phenomenal leaps in productivity, producing enormous amounts of food to feed millions of people. But sometimes this has been done at the cost of the land itself causing degradation, habitat loss and pollution. So much food is wasted. We must learn how to harvest with the hope of Isaiah 55.
PRAYER:
Teach us to harvest
in a way that trusts the soil to come back
teach us to assume a trajectory of abundance and generosity
to give and to share.
We each respect our own bellies, listening to them, responding to them,
stirred and angered by them
but we should do more to be tuned into the bellies of others
hearing their rumbling and urgently responding
like the family we are called to be.
Amen.
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