Hungry and thirsty

A communion reflection on Isaiah 55:1-13

The passage we read from Isaiah is one of those beautiful, poetic passages from the Old Testament. In fact, it is so beautiful that I was tempted not to preach on it but to simply read it over to you a few times and let its beauty and its message sink in. But I know that that meditative style of reading the Bible does not appeal to everyone. And some of you would just think I hadn’t had time to prepare a sermon. So let me share with you just a few thoughts about this scripture.

In the Old Testament, and in the new, we often find prophets speaking harsh words to the people. Being cruel to be kind, if you like. Saying some pretty awful and hurtful things often to shock the people into changing their ways and finding their way back to God.

But the prophets could also speak words of comfort.

And that’s what we find in this reading from Isaiah. It is a word to comfort and encourage the people. To lift them from the depths of despair and bring them hope for their future.

But, for all that, it is no less challenging. Still it calls the people to seek another way- to remember their calling as children of God and seek to honour God in all of life.

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.

The prophet knows that what the people need at this time, more than anything else is good news, a reminder of all the goodness of God in the midst of all their difficulties.

But he has to find a way of getting that message through to them – through the despair and hopelessness that is overshadowing all of life.

So what he preaches is in stark contrast to everything else they are hearing, flies in the face of all they know.

An offering of gifts without price, a call to return to a God who has become little more than a vague memory.

A God who, in these dark times of exile, yet is waiting to enrich them with gifts that will feed their souls – for ever.

We come here tonight to celebrate an ancient tradition, to remember our Lord. It’s a feast with which we are familiar. A feast that perhaps means little to us except a ritual we perform out of duty once in a while.

And just maybe we need to hear that voice of the prophet. The voice that comforts us and doesn’t upbraid us. The voice that calls to our attention things we have always known. Things that we could do with reminding of in a whole new way. Things that will bring this feast to life for us as never before.

Perhaps we need to hear words that will lift us from our preoccupation with living or our downright boredom with life - lift us onto a whole new plane.

It seems we spend all our days slogging to keep mind and body together, to fulfil expectations, to conform to what others expect of us. And we barely even realize that we are hungry or thirsty. That there is more.

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. 
Incline your ear, and come to me;
 listen, so that you may live.


These words of the prophet are an invitation to Abundant Life, a life that shows up the lives for which we currently settle.

They are a call, not to settle for what is-but to look forward to what we have been promised.

To remember that we are beloved children of God who are called to live differently. To know that there is another world, a world in which all God’s beloved children have enough to eat and to drink and to never tire of working towards that world, even when it goes against all that we see around us.

On this night when we celebrate this feast of bread and wine, we hold with us our brothers and sisters who have no bread, who have no wine.

And as we celebrate an abundance that we barely notice, may these symbols speak to us in a new and startling way, calling us to turn around, to stop being obsessed with the things of the world that don’t really matter and that don’t really last but to turn our attention and our energies to God’s kingdom where all are welcome, all are valued and all have enough to share.

It’s sometimes said: You won’t miss what you’ve never known?

That’s nonsense.

Sometimes it’s the things that we don’t know we’re missing that we long for the most. That’s why, whether we know it or not, we are hungry and thirsty for the new life that God offers – both now and in God’s kingdom.

Listen again to these beautiful words of the prophet. Words that comfort. Words that remind us of the longing of our hearts, that reveal our hunger and our thirst. And as you listen, come back to God who meets us in this feast.

Isaiah 55:1-13

An Invitation to Abundant Life

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. 
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. 
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. 
See, I made him a witness to the peoples,
 a leader and commander for the peoples. 
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.


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. 
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.


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.


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. 
Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;
 instead of the brier 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.