Isaiah 55 "Everlasting Signs" Scott Hoezee

Mark Salzman's novel, Lying Awake, is set in a Carmelite monastery just outside of Los Angeles. The book details the lives of the nuns who live there and ultimately ponders the meaning of what constitutes a genuine religious experience of God's presence. The nuns devote themselves to prayer and contemplation, allowing the rhythm of liturgy to set the cadence of their lives. All their thoughts are bent toward the Holy and the Divine and so they eschew anything that could distract them. One of the perceived threats to a spiritual life is food and drink. And so when, three times a day, the nuns gather in the monastery's refectory for meals, they are not allowed to speak a single word. The only one who does speak is that day's appointed reader, who reads from Scripture and classic works of Christian devotions while the other nuns silently take in their sustenance.

The goal at mealtime was to do anything-but pay attention to the food. At the head table where the Mother Superior sits, there is a human skull sitting in the center of the table, serving as a reminder to the nuns that everyone will die one day anyway and so food and drink were of only marginal significance. And so the nuns made as little noise as possible during the meal in the firm belief that maintaining a proper spiritual focus was never more threatened than when taking food into the body. It was, therefore, every bit as important to observe proper decorum in the dining hall as in church.

As some of you know, a monastery such as this one reflects a strain of asceticism and austerity that runs fairly deep in the Christian tradition. It is not, however, a particular hallmark of the Reformed tradition in that we have tended to view the physical creation and all its bounties as profound gifts of God. Whereas the nuns in Salzman's novel are convinced that pondering food would distract them from God, we Reformed types are more apt to think that not celebrating food is a sign of ingratitude toward God.

Because it is striking how frequently Scripture yokes the image of a feast with God's salvation. Isaiah 55 is a shining example of how themes of creation and redemption weave in and out of one another so much that finally you're not completely sure what is what. In the end, though, you have the distinct impression that not only is God's salvation a whole lot like a table laden with whipped cream, fresh-baked bread, and chalices filled with pinot noir, it even looks like salvation includes exactly such a feast. In other words, it's hard to see where simile and metaphor leave off and literal description begins. Is the experience of God's forgiving grace like a banquet or is it a banquet? Is salvation something that involves our souls only in ways that remove us from all things physical, or is salvation so all-encompassing that when Isaiah talks about bread, wine, milk, trees clapping their hands, and mountains leaping for joy, he means it all literally?!

Those of you who have listened to me preach for any length of time should already know where I intend to come out on these questions! But let's just admit that it ought to be no surprise if in fact redemption introduces us to a realm that really does include hearty loaves of bread and joyful maple trees. C.S. Lewis famously claimed that the deepest longings of the human heart are hints and echoes of the same things God desires for us. Just as a fish washed up on a beach longs to be back in the water (because that is its natural element) so also if we find ourselves pining for something, it is because we, too, have been thrown out of our natural element. Our longings are often reflections of what also God as Creator desires for us. Our desires reveal what we were made for.

If so, then might it not be the case that the near-universal hunger for good food and drink indicates that these are the very gifts that also God himself wants us to enjoy? Because across the range of human experience, in nearly every culture and society, again and again you encounter dreams of feasting and delight. If ever a better day would arrive for people in difficult circumstances, one of the first places they'd expect to see evidence of their improved lot in life would be on the kitchen table. You know you've moved up in life when you go from having nothing to eat (or only bad things to eat) to having delicious food to eat.

In stories like the novel The Grapes of Wrath or in the Little House on the Prairie books, you see repeatedly that especially for children who live in poverty or other economically strapped circumstances, what those kids dream about as much as anything is getting the rare treat of a bag of licorice or an ice cream cone or fresh strawberries or a juicy hamburger with ketchup and mustard. And not just kids. In The Grapes of Wrath the grandfather of the Joad family never makes it to California but dies along the way on the journey from Oklahoma. But up until his death grandpa would talk over and over about how great it would be to arrive in California and when they did, the first thing he was going to do was go find himself a bunch of grapes in one of those fabled California vineyards and just tuck into that juicy fruit with abandon. He dreamed of how delightful it would be just to let that grape juice dribble down his chin and all over the place and he wouldn't care because, Oh!, having access to such great fresh food would be the best indicator of them all that their days of struggle were over.

So when Isaiah issues his open-ended invitation to come to the waters, to come and get bread and milk and wine for free, how do we understand this? Indeed, when he cuts loose with this promise of a never-ending, cost-free feast and then aims this at precisely the poor who have no money, is he inviting them to a buffet table or to a Sunday school class? Well, clearly the spiritual food of God's Word is a significant part of Isaiah 55. That's why verse 2 can say, "Listen to me and eat what is good." What goes in through our ears when the Lord God speaks is "soul food" that is every bit as nourishing as a real piece of bread. Similarly in verses 10-11 God uses rain and the production of wheat as an analogy for the effectiveness of his Word, but it is obviously that very Word that is the key to understanding what Isaiah is talking about there.

Still, there can be no denying that the promise of salvation is connected with a rich and full celebration of all creation in ways that go beyond metaphor. Here is a key part of theology that we need to keep in mind, especially as we prepare this morning to sit down once more as guests at Jesus' dinner table. For once again this morning what we will receive will be real bread and real juice.

As I have suggested before, there are lots of theological and philosophical reasons to object to the traditional Roman Catholic belief that in the Eucharist the bread and wine transform into the actual body and blood of Christ. But my main reason for rejecting that idea is more pedestrian than philosophical: namely, the problem with this teaching is that it means the food of the Holy Supper is not real food like what you eat the rest of the time but is, as a matter of fact, something completely different. Our bodies are not fed at the Lord's table, but only our souls. But if so, then that would mean there is no connection between the bread and the cup here in the sanctuary and the bread and cup you will draw to your lips at noon today when you have your Sunday dinner at home.

But just that is the problem. We should not want to remove this meal from its setting within the creation. True, this table is distinctive because unlike all other meals, this one is a sacrament at which the real presence of Jesus is communicated to us in ways that do not happen just anywhere. But still even this spiritual nourishment comes to us not when some bit of hocus-pocus happens to make the bread not bread but precisely when the bread stays just exactly what God made it to be: the stuff of soil and sunshine, of rainwater and wheat, of flour and oil, of yeast and salt. So I think we would do well, when sitting down to eat this noon or tomorrow evening or next Thursday at lunch, to look at the bounties before us and remember that all food is a sign of grace and a way of drawing closer to God.

So in a few minutes when you put that cube of bread into your mouth, don't ignore its flavor or the way it makes you salivate, its texture against your tongue and the sensation of its sliding down your throat. Don't ignore all that in an effort to be only so very "spiritual," thinking about anything-but the actual bread. When the sweetness of the grapes fills your mouth, don't ignore that sensation as though paying attention to it makes you less pious. Jesus gave us real bread and real wine precisely so that we could understand that his salvation of us is exactly as real, exactly as tangible and true as the stuff in your mouth. To make that food anything other than the real, earthy substance it is may have the effect of making also your salvation seem less real instead of more real.

But I would suggest also we make a connection to all the other meals we eat and to all the other features to God's creation in which we take joy and delight. Give great thanks in coming days for pizzas and burritos, for hot soup and cool yogurt, for cold beer and fresh-squeezed orange juice. Give thanks to God for providing you with the goodness of his creation and then reflect again that the power of God's Word, the truth of all his gospel promises, and the reality of Jesus in your life is every bit as real and as precious as these physical treats. These "spiritual" items are just as real as the physical ones because, as Isaiah 55 makes clear, they are all part of the same bolt of divine cloth in the larger fabric of salvation. And even when you're not eating but simply enjoying the shade provided by a majestic oak tree or marveling at mountains and sand dunes, then see in your mind's eye the rejoicing of those trees and mountains and dunes--see their joy at being part of God's grand program of creation renewal through Christ Jesus. Let salvation be that earthy to you.

The nuns in the novel Lying Awake hoped incessantly for vivid experiences of God's real presence among them. They were so focused on this goal that they ate their food as though not really eating lest they get pulled away from God. In a few moments at Jesus' dinner table, and then in all your other encounters with food, drink, and the splendor of creation generally, I suggest you do just the opposite: see in food and drink not a distraction from all things holy but a connection to the truth of God's creation care, to the reality of our salvation through Christ, and to the final truth that one day, what will be good news for us will be good news for also the rest of creation--so much so that it will leap with joy. Because in the end as in the beginning, good wine and fresh bread, tree-clapping and mountain-leaping, the growth of every pine tree and the spread of verdant myrtle throughout the landscape of creation will be for the Lord's renown--everlasting signs that will not be destroyed. Thanks be to God! Amen.