Rev. Tom Sorenson, Pastor
August 7, 2011

Scripture:

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

The passage that we heard from Isaiah is one of those passages from scripture that just makes me sit up and shout: Of course! That’s the problem! That’s the problem with American culture. That’s the problem with American politics. Not the part that talks about David. That part doesn’t say much to me, but verse 2 of Isaiah 55 is, for me, one of most penetrating pieces of social analysis I have ever read anywhere. That verse asks the rhetorical question “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?” That verse so nails the fundamental disorder of American culture and American politics today that I want to talk about it today even though it actually is from the lectionary readings from last week not this week. Given the events of this past week I just couldn’t pass it up.

I was indeed sorely tempted to harangue this morning about how upset I am with the budget and debt ceiling deal that our federal government enacted this past week, but I won’t. I will say that I do believe that the current political climate in our country raises a foundational spiritual question that every country and every individual must address. It is the question that our passage from Isaiah raises starkly and clearly. It is the question of values. It is the question of what is right and what is wrong. It is the question of what our lives are about both individually and collectively. It is a question as current as this morning’s headlines and as ancient as human civilization. It is the question of what brings wholeness of life for us both personally and as a society.

Twenty-five hundred years ago the prophet we call Second Isaiah wrote those penetrating words: “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy?” I don’t know that I can give an answer to the question of why we do that, but I know that we do. Many Americans do individually and our country does it collectively. As a nation we labor for power, even hegemony, in the world; and no politician of either major party challenges that horribly misplaced priority that leads only to war and international hatred. We perpetuate a system of taxation and of governmental priorities that benefits the wealthy and harms the poor. On a more personal level our culture screams at us in hundreds of ways every day that our lives are only about ourselves and that satisfaction consists of being young and beautiful, of wearing the right clothes, owning the right electronic gadgets—I admit that I give in to that one some myself—and driving the right car. People strive to make as much money as possible and to gain as much power and prestige as possible. I used to live in that world when I worked in downtown law firms, and I can tell you that it’s all a lie. It’s a lie that makes us reject and even hate our true selves so that we will spend our money and our labor for that which makes the wealthy wealthier and the powerful corporations more powerful. The truth is that all of that leads not to satisfaction but to spiritual death, not to wholeness of life but to inner emptiness. There has got to be a better way. A great many people, perhaps most people, in our culture are hungering and thirsting for that better way. If you doubt that just look at the religion and spirituality sections of any large book store. You may be surprised at how big they are. People are thirsting for true water. People are hungry for true food.

Our culture tries to kill our spirits with its materialism and its militarism, but the human spirit doesn’t die all that easily. It keeps fighting back, thanks be to God. And here’s some good news: Because we have made the decision and the commitment to live our spiritual lives within the great Christian tradition, we have available to us ancient and proven wisdom that exposes the lie of contemporary American culture and offers us true bread and true satisfaction. The Christian tradition offers us profound, life-changing, world-transforming spiritual food. It offers us bread that we can buy without money that truly satisfies the hungering of our souls. We receive that bread when we allow that Christian tradition to connect us to our ground and our origin, to our meaning and our end, that is, to the God of grace, the God of justice and peace that we know in and through Jesus Christ. That’s where we find true bread, the bread of life. When we labor to use and to live within the magnificent stories and symbols of the Christian faith we find that which truly does satisfy. We find satisfaction for our souls. We find peace, joy, comfort, encouragement, and challenge. We find meaning and purpose. We find grace.

Today we return to the Lord’s table to partake of bread and wine. We take only symbolic amounts of the elements, but those tiny amounts truly can connect us to Jesus Christ. When we take them into our bodies we symbolically connect ourselves to Jesus and to the God Whom he revealed to us. As we do we find true satisfaction. We find not the false riches of our culture but the true wealth of our Christian faith. We find not the tragically disordered priorities of American culture and the American government but the true priorities of God, the priorities of peace, justice, and wholeness for all of God’s people

So come to the table this morning with joy. Come to buy bread and wine without money and without price. Come with open hearts and open minds. Come to put aside the false pursuits of the world. Come to receive that which is truly bread and that which can satisfy your souls like nothing worldly ever can. Come for true satisfaction, the satisfaction that God alone can give. Come, for Jesus Christ is our host, and true satisfaction is our reward. Amen.