TEXT: Isaiah 55:1-13; Luke 15:11-32

Would everybody who is able please stand up?

If you can say yes to any of the following, please sit down:

• have a box of things in your home that you haven't opened in more than five years
• bought something at a yard sale that you later sold at a yard sale
• bought Nike's because you thought there was an outside chance that wearing Nike's would make you play basketball like Michael Jordan
• bought a car that you didn't like six months later
• own more than 10 books you have never read
• have anything in your closet more than a year old with the tags still on it
• own a power tool you have never actually used on a project
• have ever needed a vacation from your vacation
• have an object in your garage that you know must go to something, but you're not sure what
• bought something you didn't want because somebody else thought it was cool
• ever had to pay somebody to tell you how much money you have

I took you through that so that you can hear the question God asks in Isaiah 55: 2. "Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy?" It is not asked in judgment, but in bewilderment...What are you people doing? asks God. Why would you buy things that don't nourish you or feed your soul? Why would you work so hard for something that leaves you cold? You work 24/7 so you can get more money and you throw away all that money on stuff that leaves you harried and anxious, tired and unsatisfied. Why? God is completely bewildered by our behavior, and if you think about it for a minute, you can see why.

Let's say you own a company called "Food, Inc." You sell food. It's the best food around. In fact, it's the only food around. There is not a single nutrient of any sort in any other product from any other company. You have it all. But no one buys it. Everybody is out there spending their money on other stuff. They don't really like the taste of the other stuff, and after they eat it they get sick, but they insist on buying it anyway. Why? you ask. Why do they put out good money for that other stuff, when the same money could buy real Food. Your Food tastes good and people feel better and are happier when they eat it. But yet they don't buy it.

That's puzzling enough, but that's still not where God is in the Isaiah passage. So imagine that you lower the price. Food now costs half of what other companies charge for junk. But people still spend more money for junk that makes them sick, and they stay away from Food, Inc. in droves. Now you're really confused. You go bankrupt...people just won't buy Food. But you're a good owner and you don't just destroy the stock because you know how badly it is needed.

So you decide to give away everything in your warehouse. You go out into the streets and offer free Food. All around you people are dropping like flies because they are only eating that miserable junk. And they are working round the clock to pay for it at jobs they hate. But they still won't take the Food, even though it's free. This is where God is coming from in Isaiah 55. Can you see why God is at a loss here? Why? Why? Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? What is wrong with you people? Listen carefully to me, says God, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.

That is what God wants...for us to be healthy and delighted. But what God is facing in this passage is the old adage... "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." This is God standing at the water saying to us horses... "Drink, drink! This is what you need...just try it and see. You'll feel better, you'll have energy again. I know you're dragging because you're dehydrated and malnourished. You need this...it is cool and refreshing...drink, drink!"

Which is, by the way, exactly the same point that Jesus is trying to hammer home centuries later. People didn't get the message just from the printed ads in the Old Testament. God had to show up in person and start handing it out...feeding the multitude, saying to the Samaritan woman at the well, "Ask and I will give you living water," calling himself the bread of life. The message has never changed from the day God put Adam and Eve in a lush garden and said...eat! Be fruitful! Multiply!...it's all good for you except for this one tree. And, of course, that's the one where they chose to spend their money...for that which was not bread.

The message of God begins that way in Genesis and it ends that way in the last chapter of Revelation...the last book of the Bible. Chapter 22:1-2, "Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations."

From beginning to end, from Genesis to Revelation and everywhere in between, God is trying to make people realize that life with God is designed to be full of joy and abundance and good food and dancing and in general be the best time you ever had. I have come that they might have life, says Jesus, and have it more abundantly. He takes water and makes it wine and is accused of being both a glutton and a drunkard. He tells about banquets where, if those who are invited won't come, then he goes out into the street and brings anybody in who wants to come have a feast. When the prodigal son finishes squandering all his money on that which is not bread and his labor on things that do not satisfy...when he comes to his senses and comes home...he is charged no fee. God throws a party for the boy and has a feast to beat the band.

In fact, I don't think it's too far fetched to think that Jesus may have had Isaiah 55 in the back of his mind when he told the parable about the Prodigal Son. "Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon," says Isaiah. That's exactly what the Prodigal did. He remembered God, abandoned his wickedness, came home, and was forgiven and received with joy.

Now, before somebody calls me on it, let me back up a couple of weeks to the sermon where I said that since we are followers of a suffering Christ, we have no business expecting that being a Christian will make us exempt from pain and suffering...that we should expect it as part and parcel of the Christian life. Now today I turn around and say that from the beginning God has been promising us joy and abundance and feasting and dancing. And you might well ask me, "Well, which is it? Joy or sorrow, feasting or mourning?"

For the answer to that, I refer you to Psalm 30, "I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up, and did not let my foes rejoice over me. O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me. O Lord, you brought up my soul from Sheol, restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit...You have turned my mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, so that my soul may praise you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever."

When we are taking the nourishment of God...when we are filling ourselves with prayer and Scripture and worship and are using our labors for the meaningful work God has chosen for us...we will have the strength and stamina necessary to get through the sufferings of this life and move from mourning to dancing, from sorrow to joy. "Sorrow may endure for a night," says the Psalmist, "but joy comes in the morning." The sorrows will come, but they will also pass.

BUT...if we are not getting nourishment from God and are running ourselves ragged in meaningless work, the sorrows of life will drag us down to the point where we can no longer experience joy, no matter what happens. Our joys will become sorrows and our dancing become mourning...every glass will be half empty rather than half full, every triumph will have its dark side, every blue sky a dark cloud.

In other words...what God is saying is that how we view the life that we live has everything to do with where we are drawing our sustenance from. You are what you eat, in a way. Looking at it objectively, every single life will have times of sorrow and times of joy. What God promises is that if we get our sustenance from God, we will be able to believe in goodness even in the face of great evil and we will be able to return to great joy even after great sorrow.

If we try to live off of what the world has to offer, however, we will become cynical and jaded and live out our days increasingly unable to enjoy any form of pleasure at all. And how true that is. We all know people of both types -- the one that can find the silver lining in every cloud as well as the one who can find something to be miserable about no matter how happy the occasion. The witness of Scripture is not that these are just different personality types. They are a direct result of the types of things with which you surround yourself. Dwell on the things of the world and spend your time chasing after money and possessions and you will grow bitter...that's not real food. Dwell on the things of God...fill your life with prayer and Scripture and worship and thanksgiving and you will be an inspiration to the world, even when life is crumbling around you.

Where do YOU draw your nourishment and your strength? Where do you look for your satisfaction? The world tells us to look to money, and most of us have to one degree or another. Wayne Muller in his book Sabbath points out just how insidious and far reaching this is. The worldwide standard for measuring the health of a country is an economic one...the GDP...the Gross Domestic Product. When lots of money changes hands, the GDP goes up, we say the economy is booming, and we believe we are well. When there is little exchange, the GDP goes down, and we get worried.

What that means, in a practical sense, is that if we suddenly quit buying all that stuff we don't need and accepted a lower standard of living so we could work fewer hours and have more time to read to our children, take a walk in the woods, or care for a sick neighbor, the GDP would plunge and the media would proclaim that we were in an economic decline...which would send us into a panic that we were falling apart as a nation. If, however, we start a war, we can put a lot of people to work and exchange huge amounts of money and as people die and are left homeless and maimed for life our GDP will soar as we spend millions to deal with the fallout, and we will proclaim ourselves to be in good shape.

I quote now from Muller in his book Sabbath, "Every time someone gets cancer, the GDP goes up. Every time an infant dies, the GDP rises. A drive-by shooting improves the economy by $20,750. If the victim dies, and there is a murder trial, the benefit to the economy leaps to well over $100,000. An oil tanker spill can contribute between five and twenty million dollars of "growth"; the benefits of an airline crash or terrorist bombing can be far greater...In short, we have converted destruction into an economic good. But anything that grows without money changing hands -- parents who care for their children, people who voluntarily care for the sick, the dying, or the homeless, people who pray or meditate or walk in the woods -- these at best have no value. At worst, they take away precious time and energy that could be used to grow the GDP."

It's hard to imagine how we got to such a place, and yet those are the terms in which we think and run our country. Remember the slogan, "It's the economy, stupid?" And now I quote again from Isaiah 55: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." The way things are today is not the way God intended. God intended our nourishment to come from Himself, not from money and the system of buying and selling. What you really need, says God, is not bought or sold. It's free. Why do you slave away for that god called money, who gives you nothing but anxiety and tiredness and envy and suspicion in return for all of your money and all of your time? Why?, people, why?

"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...For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it."

And what is that purpose? It's right there...seed to the sower...meaningful work, work with a purpose that will benefit both you and others; and also bread for the eater...the bread of life, real food, nourishment for the journey. The purpose for which God sends out His word is summed up at the end of the chapter, "For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands."

"If you will live this way," says God...if you will draw your strength from me and my word, and if you will accept the work and the calling which I have for you, THEN "Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle; and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off."

What is going on in your life right now? Are you producing thorns or cypress? Briars or myrtle? Bitterness or joy? For what do you spend your money? Is it bread? Does the use of your time bring satisfaction...to you? to your family? to anybody? "Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live." Or, to say it another way, "Come unto me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." The Prodigal finally figured it out and came home. Will you?

Amen.

© 1999, Anne Robertson

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