Come and Be Fed

March 3^rd, 2013      “Come and Be Fed”       Rev. Heather Jepsen

Isaiah 55 and Psalm 63:1-8

          We are a hard working people.  Oh, how we labor.  Each works diligently to earn his keep.  Many of us have jobs, we are busy 9-5, 8-6, hours and hours we toil away.  Then there are the jobs at home; washing, cooking, cleaning, caring for children, grandchildren, pets, gardens, and flowerbeds.  There is trash to be taken out, dinner to be made, dishes to be done, snow to be shoveled, and clothes to clean; our work load is ever growing.  And don’t forget those trips into Kansas City.  For some its work, for others it is a need to do some special shopping, see a special doctor, make that appointment, or just to get out.  No doubt about it, we are a hard working busy people.

          Why?  Because we have to, because we want to, because we need to, because we hunger.  We have to work to buy the food and pay the bills, we have to labor around the house to have a clean and safe place to live, and we have to head to KC to get things done.  These are things we have to do, and that is why we spend so much time doing them.

          But you and I both know that our labor often goes beyond our desire to fulfill our needs, and into our desires to fulfill our wants.  We work harder so we earn more, we buy more than we can eat and store it in our pantry until it spoils, we save our money not for donating to the needs of others, but for buying a bigger house or car.  The world around us constantly urges us to hunger for more, more, more!  Even though we are overweight and overfed, we are still an over hungry people.

          “Ho!” Isaiah calls to us, “everyone who thirsts, come to the waters! . . . Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy?” he asks.  Why are you working so hard for things that you do not need?  Isaiah is preaching to the people in exile.  They have gotten comfortable in their ways.  They have been laboring away in their daily routines and have forgotten the promises of the Lord.  Isaiah calls to them a reminder of the abundance that God longs to give to them.  “Listen carefully,” he says, “come to me and listen so that you may live.”

          The people have wandered in the wilderness of exile and they have wandered away from God.  Similarly we have wandered in this land that continually calls us to ask for more.  We have ignored our God, and worshiped the dollar and all that it can buy instead.  In his essay “The Religion of the Market” David Loy writes that the threat to Christian worship is not other faiths, rather it is the religion of the market.  It is money that demands our time and energy and it is the stock market that demands our worship.  Even this church carefully watches the values on the market as our endowments fluctuate up and down.  The power of the stock market is just a reality for many of us. 

Isaiah reminds the people of Israel and us, that this is not the way things should be.  God has made a covenant with them.  And not only that, this everlasting covenant will extend to all nations, including us.  God has promised a great banquet where those who are hungry can come and buy wine and milk without money.  Through this covenant God has promised us a great supermarket where the shelves are never empty and the price is always right.  God promises us that we will be filled until we are satisfied.

          Following this theme from Isaiah, Psalm 63 speaks of the deep hunger that resides within every person.  All of us are hungry for God.  I believe that in our created form, this is simply the way that we were made.  There is a hole in each of us that nothing but God can fill.  The Psalmist writes, “O God, you are my God.  I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh longs for you.”  O, how we long for a genuine experience of God, a true relationship with the one who created us. 

          I believe that often we try to fill this hole in our lives with everything but God. We fill up on the world around us, consuming as much as possible.  Not only do we consume physical things, we consume entertainment as well.  In our modern age, we deaden our senses with a huge amount of screen time.    From computers to TV, I-pads to smart phones, we constantly have our faces in the screen.  I don’t need to be troubled by the hole in my soul if I have my face in a screen 24/7.  

You can see the effects of this beginning in folks of my generation.  Now we have people struggling to fully enter adulthood, because we have spent so much time disconnected from reality.  I am sure you can all think of someone who fits the description of the new extended adolescence; nearing 40, living at home, and unable to grow up.  Then there are the generations that follow, over weight and short on attention.  We have raised our kids with a face constantly in a screen and a stomach full of processed foods.  We have filled ourselves and our children on everything but God.

          This is not the way it was meant to be, nor the way it has to be.  God longs to fill us with more than these things.  As the Psalmist writes, “My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast.”  The Psalmist finds God in the sanctuary, here in corporate worship, and the psalmist sings God’s praises with joyful lips.  We need to come out to worship to receive the food that God longs to give us.  We need to come and be fed here together.  Sure you can find God in the wilderness and beauty of nature, but you can’t be fed the way you can when you come before God as part of a community.  Worship is the place to unplug, come, and be fed.  Of course, you all know this as you got out of bed this morning.  This is a real case of preaching to the choir!

          But, there is a message here for us regular church goers as well.  Even those who actively seek the Lord in worship, need to be reminded that the sustenance that God provides can take a while to sink in.  Our lectionary couldn’t be more fitting today as Isaiah says “As the rain and snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth . . . so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty.”  We’ve got a great illustration outside as the snow comes down and just sits there.  Eventually it will all melt and water the earth, “giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater” but right now we have to wait. 

          So too, for us, it sometimes takes a while for the word of God to sink in.  For those of us who recognize our hunger and come to worship to be filled, it can take a while for the snow of God’s word to fully melt into our hearts.  Sometimes we need to ruminate a bit before we fully understand the message and purpose of our worship.  I often think of this as taking our worship out into the week.  I might understand things one way on Sunday, but come to a whole new understanding on Wednesday.  We can rest assured that understanding will come, as the word of God shall “accomplish that which is purposed, and succeed in the thing for which it is sent.” 

We gather together today as a hungry people, and as a people who thirst.  Often we seek after that which does not satisfy, and spend our hard earned money on moldy bread.  God is calling us to the banquet, calling us to feast on food that will fill our bellies, and to drink from fountains that never run dry.  God is calling us to Gods-self.  But God will not force our hand, we must come of our own accord and be fed.

          “Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near,” Isaiah urges us.  “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.”  Isaiah’s call is a call to repentance.  We who have wandered from the Lord are called to turn back to God, and to embrace the gift that God has offered to us.  We who have looked for comfort in the vain things of this world, are called to return and find our comfort and our sustenance in God.

          Like the people in exile, we have wandered away from our God.  We have gotten wrapped up in our labors and our busy tasks, and we find ourselves unable to make time to worship and pray.  We have hungered after any number of desires, and have not committed our time and energy to the gifts that God has promised to us.  As Isaiah says, we have spent our money on that which is not bread, and our labor on that which does not satisfy.

God has called us to the banquet, but we must respond to that call.  We must turn from our selfish ways, and turn toward our God who longs to feed us with the food that we really need.  If we are willing to give ourselves to God, then God promises to change our lives.  Isaiah tells us that “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 a memorial, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.” 

God will take the weeds from our lives, God will take the thorns from our stalks, and God will uproot the spiny bushes that are growing in our hearts.  In their place God will plant trees and bushes that will benefit us, fruit to feed and nourish us as we need.  God will change our lives for the better, if only we will allow it.

          “Ho” Isaiah calls to us, “Everyone who is thirsty, come to the waters!  Drink and be fed, partake of the banquet that the Lord has prepared in your name.”  And if we are willing to accept this invitation, and to turn from our hunger for worldly things we will be a blessed people.  Isaiah calls us to come and be fed, if we do than “we shall go out with 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.”  Sound familiar? We’ll sing it at the end of worship.  This is a promise that the whole earth will celebrate if we turn our hearts to God.

          As we continue our journey through Lent, I invite you to consider how you spend your time.  Are you so busy working that you can’t rest in the Lord?  Are you hungry for that which does not satisfy?  Or are you interested in coming to the feast of milk and honey?  God’s banquet table is set for us, if only we will come and be fed.  Amen.