“The Currency of the Kingdom”
Isaiah 55:1-11
Allen Huff
Jonesborough Presbyterian Church
6/7/15
Take a trip to the grocery store with me.
It’s 1960-something. We are in Durham, NC. Mom has my little
brother and me with her in the aisles of Winn Dixie.
I am about four. My brother is one. He sits in the grocery
cart seat, happily gnawing on one hand. Between the slobber and his runny nose,
his chubby, round face shines like a full moon on a farm pond. It’s gross.
I am standing on the bottom rack of the shopping cart and
clinging to the side of the basket. I look like a lizard on a screen door.
I have recently visited a friend whose mom made us some kind
of chocolate drink. The drink comes in a tall, dark brown, plastic cup. It’s
sealed on top and contains a little packet of chocolate powder inside. All one
has to do is add milk. To a 4-year-old, this is a great wonder and mystery. It
is water-into-wine.
While riding the shopping cart, I spot a shelf full of those
dark brown plastic cups. I leap down, run to the shelf and grab one. Mom says
it’s okay and to put it in the cart, but I can’t wait that long. I want full
possession of this chocolate miracle now.
I tell Mom I’m going to the line where everyone has to stand
before they leave the store with their groceries in paper bags.
It’s 1960-something, so Mom says, “Okay.”
I stand next to the black conveyor belt, and I hold on to my
cup. I do not trust my treasure that disappearing counter top. When it’s
my turn, I hand it to the lady standing behind the counter. She takes my brown
cup and examines it with all the careless boredom of someone watching her
fingernails grow. She reaches out and mashes a couple of buttons on an old cash
register the size of an engine block. Then she slams the heel of her right hand
on the long button on the right side of the register. The machine coughs and
sputters, like it’s clearing its throat. Then it sighs.
(I’m sorry young people. You can YouTube this, but you will
never really appreciate it.)
The cashier says some numbers to me. I learn that it has to
do with money. It turns out that after the big machine clears its throat and
sighs, and before you can leave with your groceries in a paper bag, you have to
give money in exchange for those groceries. This is news to me. Apparently,
without money, you can’t buy anything – at least not at Winn Dixie.
“Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you have that
have no money, come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money
and without price.”
Since reality teaches us that to buy something means
to exchange something of value for something else of value, Isaiah's invitation
to “buy…without money” puts a little strain on our definitions, doesn’t it? The
turn toward new revelation comes when Isaiah asks his rhetorical question: “Why
do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that
which does not satisfy?”
‘Why,’ he asks, ‘do you spend precious resources on food
that does not nourish, on material things that do not provide shelter and clothing,
and on other fluff that does not help make your community and your world a
better place for everyone?’
‘Come here!’ Isaiah says. ‘I’ll show you how to buy stuff
for nothing.’ Then he calls up memories of King David. He reminds the people of who they
are and what it means to be Israel. He reminds them that they have been chosen
for covenantal relationship with Yahweh and each other for the sake of the creation.
Then Isaiah issues a string of imperatives: Listen. Eat. Delight.
Incline. Come. See. Seek. Call.
When spoken with grace, imperatives not
only make demands, they make commitments. When a doctor says, “Take this
medication,” she commits herself to your continued care. When a teacher says,
“Learn this lesson,” he commits himself to helping you understand both the information
and why it is important.
Isaiah’s imperatives make similar
demands and commitments. He invites us to begin “buying into” a way of
listening, seeing, and living that creates widespread gratitude and shalom. He presses
us to discover the wealth of a currency that does not lose its value – the
currency of faith.
Faith is the currency of the kingdom. It
is the spendable endowment that allows us to hear that while God’s thoughts and
ways may surpass and confound us, God does not overlook or ignore us. God’s Word
is God’s personal investment in the creation, an investment that continues to
create something redeemingly new and gracious.
The currency of the kingdom is unlike
any human currency. There will be many times when we feel that we have
exhausted all our resources of faith. Our account is empty. We may even begin
to feel as if there never were anything or anyone to trust. Ironically,
the way to gather new sources of this most valuable currency is to acknowledge
one’s poverty in prayer, then to spend even more faith, with even greater
abandon.
Mother Teresa may be the most over-used
sermon illustration in the last sixty years. And about ten years ago, when her
private journals were published, her inspiration only deepened. Such was the
case for me, anyway. In those writings she revealed her own devastating and
heroic struggle with doubt. Is God real?
Does God care? Do I matter? Such questions can destroy faith. They can also
reveal that faith is a renewable resource that must be continually planted,
harvested, and replanted.
In the midst of her struggles, Mother Teresa simply
continued the servant work of Love and compassion. She continued to spend more and more faith energy loving
the unlovable, touching the untouchable, all in all doing the unthinkable on
behalf of others. Her life illustrates that the most reliable way to find faith
is to splurge one’s spiritual currency with reckless generosity.
The economics of the kingdom are kind of screwy
that way. While we may run out of its currency, we cannot overspend it.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways. [So trust me, says God.] My word…shall not return to
me empty…it shall accomplish…the thing for which I sent it.”
To our deep dismay, perhaps, God’s inscrutable thoughts and
ways call us to spend our way into an abundance of trust. That’s what poverty
of spirit and the promise of resurrection are all about.
Come, then, and spend some of your kingdom
currency at this table. Trust that in bread and wine you will be fed by the new
life of Jesus, the Christ, our Host.
Come and discover that for all you
spend, you only have more of the very best that Love has to offer.
Charge/Benediction:
A clinical psychologist and Thomas
Merton scholar, James Finley says, “If we are absolutely grounded in the absolute love of God that protects us from nothing even as it
sustains us in all things, then we can face all things with courage and
tenderness and touch the hurting places in others and in ourselves with love.”1
May you spend your way, gratefully, into
the kingdom of ever-deepening faith, hope, and Love.
No comments:
Post a Comment