Isaiah's Time and Message
The passage we heard read to us this evening was originally written nearly 600 years before Jesus was born. It was a message proclaimed to the Jewish people while they were prisoners, in exile in Babylon - the country which is now covered by modern Iraq. 150 years before this passage was proclaimed to the people, Jerusalem had been invaded and the leaders of the people, the politicians, the civil servants and the priests were carted off into exile in Babylon. Now the city of Jerusalem lay in ruins and the Jewish people who lived in Babylon only knew of their homeland from the stories handed down to them by their grandparents.
This message was, therefore, about hope. It was a timely message. A year after this prophecy was given to the people, the Babylonian empire fell apart and the new star on the political scene was the King of Persia - modern day Iran. After he conquered the Babylonian Empire he allowed the Jews to return home and to rebuild their nation and culture.
Isaiah's message happens a year before these political upheavals which allow the Jews to return home. His shout in the market place sounds like a water-seller calling out:
Oh come to the
water all you who are thirsty; though you have no money, come!
Buy corn
without money, and eat, and, at no cost, wine and milk.
Why spend money on
what is not bread, your wages on what fails to satisfy?
Listen, listen to me,
and you will have good things to eat and rich food to enjoy.
Pay attention,
come to me; listen, and your soul will live.
He invites people to leave behind their everyday life in Babylon and all the activities there which, ultimately don't matter, and to respond to the invitation to the feast which is given by God. Along side this invitation to the feast there is also an invitation to repent, for the Lord is ready to have mercy.
God's thoughts and ways are far greater in understanding than those of the people who had lingered in captivity for all those years and who must have thought that their fate was sealed.
Isaiah assures the people that God's word soaks the earth, like rain and is drawn back toward God like plants and trees. God's word, or purpose, is always fulfilled and God's spirit is infused within human beings where it brings forth divine fruits.
Isaiah prophecies that the return to Jerusalem will be greeted with great natural signs and wonders. All the world will break into song as God brings Israel back wondrously.
The curse of thorns and sin is removed forever and in their place grows the trees of paradise. There is a theme of paradise being re-gained. The briers and thorns - which an agricultural people would know choke the life out of fields - are changed. These threats to agriculture are replaced by cypress and myrtle, symbols of God's powerful transformation of the wilderness. This reflects God's powerful transformation of the fate of the Jewish people. The re-establishment of God's people in their own homeland constitutes and everlasting sign of divine love.
The Message for Us Now
Isaiah's message, powerful as it was for his original hearers, still has power and meaning for us, 2,600 years after it was first proclaimed.
There are three aspects of this passage which I think are relevant for us now; first the invitation to the feast, second the call to repent and seek the Lord and third, the vision of a transformed nature.
The Invitation to the Feast
Isaiah calls people a feast - we are called to come to the water and drink - even if we have no money; we are called to buy corn and eat - even if we have no money, to feast upon wine and milk and the choicest foods. Isaiah goes on to ask us why we spend money on what fails to satisfy.
In our culture we are continually tempted to pay money for an elusive dream of satisfaction. If we have a certain lifestyle - we are told - we will be happy. If we wear certain clothes, live in this new apartment, drive this car, drink this designer cocktail, listen to this music and go to this bar, then we will be happy and fulfilled. Yet the fashions change and the clothes that were supposed to bring us happiness last year no longer do the trick this year. The "hot" apartment last year is now passé this year, last year's car is now worth many thousands less and the fashion has moved on. It's a new cocktail to drink this year, the pop artist we heard last year is now at the bottom of the charts and the bar we used to like now makes us sick. We spend our money on the things which don't satisfy and on things which don't last in our desire to find happiness and fulfilment. Isaiah asks us why in the same way he asked the Jews the same thing living in Babylon all those years ago.
Yet he does more than this. He doesn't just tell us what we are doing is daft, he gives us an alternative. He invites us to a feast where everything on offer is free and satisfying. In the Old Testament the image of a feast is one used to convey the loving care God shows to the people. The Passover meal showed God's care for the Israelites as they left Egypt.
Isaiah invites us to a sumptuous feast with God - but what is this feast?
Isaiah describes it as a banquet for all peoples. In the days to come when the alienation of humanity and of God's own people will have been healed, then there will be a real banquet or Covenant meal, with all humanity present and God's Messiah presiding at the head of the table.
It is a vision of a new society where God's abundance is satisfying and fulfilling. It is a symbol of the life we have when we become friends and followers of Jesus. When we change the values of our life and chase after the things which do satisfy - when we find meaning and purpose for our lives. When we know we are created to glorify God though using our gifts and skills, when we know that we are called to live by the values of love, honesty, integrity and joy then we find our lives have meaning again and we don't need to chase fulfilment in a bar or a bottle, we don't find meaning in a car or a T shirt!
It is also a foretaste of the meal we share each week in worship when Jesus, the Messiah, acts as our host and our servant. In this meal, shared by Christians all over the world since that first meal many years ago, Jesus feeds his people. All are welcome to receive, all who thirst for God may find God here in this meal. This is the feast which gives us life and meaning. In this meal we gather around the Table of the Lord to receive from God, to be filled with God's loving kindness and to be renewed so that we may continue to be good disciples.
The Invitation to Repent
Our culture is not one which likes the word repent. I have been told off at MCC conferences when I have designed services, for putting confessions of sin into the services. It seems that many people like the invitation to the feast, but not the invitation to repent and "seek the Lord while He may still be found".
The Christian life is one which is based upon repentance. But repentance is not just about saying sorry, mumbling through a confession and listening to comforting word about forgiveness. Repentance is about changing our lives and our lifestyles. The Bible uses a word meaning "to turn right around" when it talks about repentance. To repent is to say sorry, but it is also about then turning ourselves around so as to try and avoid doing the same wrong things again. Repentance for an addict means finding God's help to turn her life around and to find the strength to stay away from the source of the addiction.
God is always there to receive and welcome us back when we have strayed away and God gives us the strength to turn away from the things which drag us down.
The Transformation of Nature
In his vision Isaiah sees nature being transformed as God's purposes are revealed. Mountains and hills bow before the people of Israel, even the trees of the countryside clap their hands. The thorns and weeds will be replaced by good trees and there is a promise of abundance.
This is a promise for the future. As we repent, as we enjoy the feast provided for us we find that our natures are changed. As we grow in discipleship we find that live more and more according to the design and purposes of God. This means we learn to live in a right relationship with God, with each other and with our world. God reconciles all things and, at the end of this process of reconciliation, even nature will once again be as it was in the beginning --transformed and giving glory to God.
My Life Is Changed Because of This Passage
The power of this message of Isaiah is about repentance - in its truest sense. We are called to turn away from the things of our world which do not satisfy - the material things we want, the sense of community we seek to find in all the wrong places, the happiness we seek in a bottle or a pill or in the arms of a stranger. Instead we are asked to turn around and find fulfilment at the table of the Lord. We find fulfilment as we receive from God, as we learn to value the food that God gives us - food for our souls, nurture for our spirits and meaning for our lives.
Prayer
Loving
God,
Thank you for the invitation to the feast you give us.
Help us to
turn away from the things in our lives and in our culture
Which do not really
satisfy us.
Help us to feast on your love and goodness.
Help us as you
feed us in this meal,
To more fully understand your purposes for us,
To
more fully understand your love for us,
And help us, as we are changed,
To
change our world.
Amen.
This sermon was first preached in the Metropolitan Community Church
of Manchester. Click here for further information.