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. Isaiah 55:1
If I was to add one more defining description to Isaiah...and keeping with my beautiful alliteration above....I would use the word, "paradoxical". Isaiah never met a paradox he didn't want to play with.
Isaiah 2 - everyone comes to the mountain...and everyone means everyone. That person who annoys you? Yup. The family member whose politics is different and always pushes your button? S/he is there too. The person who cut in-front of you in the line yesterday? Probably trying to do it again at the mountain. We struggle with the "all" part of "y'all come". We'd rather divided ourselves into our carefully constructed tribes. People who think like us...or at least we think they think like us...because when we dig deeper maybe they want medical care for all but in a slightly different path way...suddenly we have to confront that we are not as similar as we thought. See how "y'all" is a paradox?
Isaiah 9 - lion and lamb laying down together? Seriously, Isaiah, learn a little Darwin here! That lamb isn't safe. That lamb needs to get out of there before the lion realizes like the shark in Finding Nemo that mantas like, "Fish are friends not food"...might not help with your stomach is growling.
Every single post in this series has a built in paradox...a world turned upside down. A tension that won't be easily resolves. Comfort people in exile is like comforting someone in the emergency room. Singing a new song when you are stressed, strained, and in a strange climate...isn't when we are at our most creative...thank you very much.
And what about this one above? A feast you don't have to pay for? A table where everyone is welcome without bringing any money? What kind of business model is that? One doomed to failure! One that cannot last very long!
Yet, at the heart of the Christian faith is the sacrament of communion, when these words stop being something from the distant and disconnected past...to a tactile and tangible moment ~~ glimpse of God's grace. Communion is partaking of food you did not buy...you did not prepare...and for which you will not receive a bill. Communion is a gift of grace. For grace to be grace it needs to be unconditional. Grace comes to us freely so that we might freely receive.
I love that the first word of this past is "Ho"...not as in the Santa "Ho, ho, ho". Rather it is the Hebrew word, "Hoy". It means, "listen...pay attention." We tune and turn our ears because what God is saying at this meal...both in the time of Isaiah and today at communion...is this is the way the world is supposed to work/look. Forget what Adam Smith said...forget that commercial on t.v. about buying your spouse a new car as the best Christmas present ever. Yet, to let go of that, is very vulnerable. It challenges us because we have based and built our entire life on these systems. Work hard and you'll be rewarded. A penny saved is a penny earned.
Scripture seems intention on dismantling those very things we hold dear.
Or put another way, to paraphrase Thomas Merton, "We can spend our whole lives climbing a ladder, only to reach the top, and realize it was on the wrong wall."
Or put another, God comes to us in a vulnerable tiny infant. Not a powerful prince...or Zeus throwing lightening bolts...or with decrees and demands of what to belief. An infant - meek and mild - and there was no room for that child. And the question remains - do we have room for the One who will totally disrupt - interrupt - our ways of thinking and being in the world? If we do...come on y'all...there is a feast set for all of us.
May there be a trace of grace in your life that holds lightly the beautiful paradoxes of life today.
Blessings ~~
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