August 3, 2014
Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
First Reading: Isaiah 55:1-3
http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/080314.cfm
In an age of obesity, free food sounds like a bad idea. We tend to take food for granted—and free food in our culture tends to be unhealthy. Besides, we can’t even get a little enthusiastic about free drinking water. Certain metaphors lose their flavor over time and Isaiah’s proclamation of a free feast with free water in this Sunday’s first reading is no different. However, that doesn’t mean that it is not worth the effort to track down its original power.
Context
This three-verse reading comes at the beginning of Isaiah 55, a chapter that caps off a much longer section often referred to as “Second Isaiah,” chapters 40–55. This long sixteen-chapter section moves the Book of Isaiah from an era of judgment and vindication to an era of hope, redemption and mercy. Chapter 55 ends this redemptive section with a poetic climax.
“Hey!”
In Hebrew, the reading begins with an interjection, hoy! Unfortunately, this word is hard to translate in a dignifiedly biblical-sounding way so many translations just leave it out. The prophet is trying to get our attention in the same way that a baseball stadium hawker will yell “Hot pretzels!” In English, we don’t use interjections much, but we could translate this word as “Ahoy!,” “Yo!” or Hey!” It launches this concluding chapter with an exhortation to listen up. To me, it sounds like a coach calling his team together to get the final pep talk before the big game starts. When God’s prophet says “Hey!” our ears should perk up.
Hunger and Thirst
For the thirsty, the prophet envisions a time of restoration, a time redemption, a time after the exile when the Jews will be brought back to the Promised Land of Israel and enjoy a special covenant relationship with God. He is not describing mere physical thirst, but the deep, generations-long, thirst for justice, for the fulfillment of God’s promises, for freedom from enemies and overlords. God’s people long for a time of restored peace and covenant love. “Every one who thirsts” (Isa 55:1 RSV) are those who “hunger and thirst for righteousness,” in Jesus’ words (Matt 5:6), both in a personal and corporate sense. While the prophecy speaks to a certain moment in the history of God’s people, it points forward to all the kinds of restoration that God can bring about and ultimately to the greatest restoration of all.
Free Food and Water
To satisfy such a deep hunger and thirst for God and his justice, Isaiah offers an ironic portrait: buy without cost! He suggests that people who have no money should “buy” grain, wine, and milk. (Some translations avoid confusion by not using a word to translate “buying,” but the Hebrew text uses it twice.) It’s a befuddling but beautiful poetic idea, to buy without cost. The only thing I can compare it to is using a coupon to obtain an item for free, but even in that case there is an exchange. The point is that in the time of God’s restoration of his people, our needs will be satisfied by God. His water and his food will reach to the deepest places of our hungry and thirsty hearts and abundantly quench our desires.
What is Bread?
The prophet warns against using one’s wages to buy “that which is not bread” or “that which does not satisfy” (Isa 55:2 RSV). Why would anyone go to the grocery store with money and come back without food? Isaiah is talking about squandering our wealth, whether it be by investing too permanently in the land of exile, Babylon, or by investing ourselves in that which takes us away from God and away from his true purposes for our lives. It is very easy for us to waste time, waste money, waste energy in all sorts of ways that don’t help anyone, even ourselves. Isaiah encourages us to invest ourselves well, to buy the bread that really does satisfy and save ourselves the trouble of investing foolishly in what cannot satisfy.
A Destiny of Delight
For those who work hard, work can become an end in itself. If we lose sight of the goal, we might lose heart or get lost in the woods. Isaiah points us back to the end goal of covenant with God: delight. Isaiah recalls the everlasting covenant with David as the destiny that will re-animate God’s people after the exile. As Christians, we too participate in the fulfillment of God’s promise of God’s promises to David. The prophet’s portrait of what fulfillment looks like demonstrates satisfying delight in wonderfully human terms. Water, grain, bread, wine, and milk all lead us back to an idyllic sounding, peaceful life. Wine and milk especially indicate an agricultural paradise with well-kept, productive vineyards, and the prosperity necessary for a successful dairy farm. He even goes beyond these simple ideas to say that we’ll “eat what is good” and, translated most literally, “let your soul delight in fatness.” Now if that doesn’t get you invigorated about enjoying the eschatological banquet, I don’t know what will!
While Isaiah’s prophecy speaks to a certain people at a certain time, it extends to us to explain how God works and to point the way to our future with him. This reading is paired with the gospel of the feeding of the five thousand. Both readings reveal that mere bread, mere human food is not enough. Our souls long with a deep thirst for something far greater, far deeper, far more satisfying than regular bread. The beginning of that fulfillment starts with the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus, with the Eucharist, the Sacraments and the Church. But God’s plan of salvation is not yet finished. We look forward to the deepest quenching of our thirsty souls at the end, when the Lord comes to tell the end of his story and hand out that free food and water once and for all.
image: jorisvo / Shutterstock.com
