““Hey there! All who are thirsty, come to the water! Are you penniless? Come anyway—buy and eat! Come, buy your drinks, buy wine and milk. Buy without money—everything’s free! Why do you spend your money on junk food, your hard-earned cash on cotton candy? Listen to me, listen well: Eat only the best, fill yourself with only the finest. Pay attention, come close now, listen carefully to my life-giving, life-nourishing words. I’m making a lasting covenant commitment with you, the same that I made with David: sure, solid, enduring love. I set him up as a witness to the nations, made him a prince and leader of the nations, And now I’m doing it to you: You’ll summon nations you’ve never heard of, and nations who’ve never heard of you will come running to you Because of me, your God, because The Holy of Israel has honored you.” Seek God while he’s here to be found, pray to him while he’s close at hand. Let the wicked abandon their way of life and the evil their way of thinking. Let them come back to God, who is merciful, come back to our God, who is lavish with forgiveness. “I don’t think the way you think. The way you work isn’t the way I work.” God’s Decree. “For as the sky soars high above earth, so the way I work surpasses the way you work, and the way I think is beyond the way you think. Just as rain and snow descend from the skies and don’t go back until they’ve watered the earth, Doing their work of making things grow and blossom, producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry, So will the words that come out of my mouth not come back empty-handed. They’ll do the work I sent them to do, they’ll complete the assignment I gave them.”
??Isaiah? ?55:1-11? ?MSG??????????
https://bible.com/bible/97/isa.55.1-11.MSG
I’m this country and at this day and time we have aspected The economic theory, and also the lay opinion, that whatever goods and services are provided, they must be paid for by someone - that is, you don't get something for nothing.
The phrase is also known by the acronym of 'there ain't no such thing as a free lunch'.
Before discussing the origin of 'there's no such thing as a free lunch' it would be useful to go back to the days in which lunches were free.
Free lunch was a commonplace term in the USA and, to a lesser extent in Britain, from the mid 19th century onward. It wasn't used to describe handouts of food to the poor and hungry though, it denoted the free food that American saloon keepers used to attract drinkers; for example, this advertisement for a Milwaukee saloon, in The Commercial Advertiser, June 1850:
At The Crescent...
Can be found the choicest of Segars, Wines and Liquors...
N. B. - A free lunch every day at 11 o'clock will be served up.
Free lunches, often cold food but sometimes quite elaborate affairs, were provided for anyone who bought drink. This inducement wasn't popular with the temperance lobby and was also criticized for the same reason that others in the 20th century later introduced the TANSTAAFL idea to economic thinking, that is, saloon customers always ended up paying for the food in the price of the drinks they were obliged to consume. Indeed, some saloon keepers were prosecuted for false advertising of free lunch as customers couldn't partake of it without first paying money to the saloon.
It was into this context that the economic theorists enter the fray and 'there's no such thing as a free lunch' is coined.
Yet in the text today However, it is exactly with this message of free food and drink that the prophet in this week’s lectionary reading is seeking to draw his audience into the world he imagines.
In Isa 55:1-2, the speaker urgently invites the exilic community burdened by imperial policies in a three-fold repetition of the imperative “to come.” They are invited to “come,” “buy,” and “eat” from the rich gifts of food the prophet is offering: the wine and the nourishing milk well-suited for a festival. The audience is called to take part in the feast, to eat what is good, and to delight themselves in rich food (v. 2). Making a connection between food and the word (or wisdom as in Woman Wisdom’s invitation in Prov 9:1-5), this text offers evidence that food increasingly is understood on a spiritual level, intended to still Israel’s spiritual hunger and thirst.
The recipients of the prophetic word in Isaiah 55 are described as being needy. To be thirsty and to have no money (v. 1) indeed are fitting metaphors that describe well the situation of the exilic community. The traumatic experience of the exile and its aftermath had unquestionably depleted not only the physical but also the emotional and spiritual resources of these weary survivors.
What is remarkable about this invitation is that people are encouraged to come buy the expensive fare without money . Denoting the utter inability of the exiles to change their situation, this text asserts that the gift of salvation offered by God is completely and utterly free–there is nothing one can do to earn this gracious gift.
Bradley Harris, North-West of England Reporter for GB News, has delivered a first-hand account of the poignant scenes occurring in Medyka, a small Polish town near the Ukrainian border.
There, he describes the dozens of Polish volunteers currently rallying to support the streams of Ukrainian refugees, mostly women, children and the elderly who are arriving by the busload after fleeing their war-torn hometowns.
Bradley reports: “When I was driving to Medyka, a small Polish town very near the Ukrainian border, I expected chaos, I expected disorganisation, I expected the worst.
“But instead, I was met with support. People who were willing to do anything to help Ukrainians.
“I met volunteers which were serving hot tea. I saw taxi drivers turn up offering Pizzas, I saw Polish people helping the elderly onto busses.
Buses and buses kept coming, coaches and coaches, constantly coming through the border into Poland and taking people into the nearing city of Przemysl.”
Bradley tells GB News that once Ukrainians arrive in Przemysl, which has become a central point for incoming refugees, they are greeted by more Polish volunteers who were “taking them in, feeding them, giving them clothes all for free”.
“I can see bags filled with clothes which are free to take. I can see a bus being filled with Ukrainians, old people, young people, young children with their faces pressed against the window,” Bradley recounts.
This is what God looks like in times of suffering People helping one another in love and faith.
For people who have experienced the devastation brought about by food supplies being cut off (cf. e.g., the famine imagery in Lam 2:11-12 where babies and infants are fainting in the streets, crying out for bread and wine), the image of abundant food and drink would have been particularly significant. Drawing on the connotations of milk as a nourishing and thirst-quenching drink, as well as wine’s ability to gladden the heart (Ps 104:15),
Isaiah 55 explores both the life-giving quality as well the joyous nature of the transformation effected by God’s word (cf. also the theme of euphoric joy at the end of this chapter when the trees of the field will burst out in song in v 12).
The prophet’s invitation in Isaiah 55 suggests something of the inner appropriation of the prophetic word (cf. also Ezek 2:8-3:3). To “come,” “buy,” “eat,” “listen,” and “delight” all are actions of participation.
Like food and drink become part of the body, so the word and the prophet’s message should be fully embraced.
To dine on God’s gifts of food, to listen, to make the good news of the return from exile their own, is to receive the gift of life (v. 3. Cf. also vv. 6-7).
The prophet is imagining a new life filled with joy ahead for the people who have had more than their share of suffering and pain.
However, the people have to join this world filled with life-giving possibilities by feasting on the Word.
This balance between holding on to the traditions of their ancestors while at the same time looking for ways to creatively apply the memories of the past has important implications for our own application of biblical texts. The living word of God, which is as nourishing to the soul as milk is to the body; which brings as much joy to the mind as wine does to the human heart, can never become stagnant and mechanically transmitted from generation to generation. The living word of God has to be constantly actualized in terms of the new challenges presenting themselves in each new interpretative situation. Continuing the metaphor of serving a meal of good food and drink, contemporary preachers are called to proclaim God’s word in such a way that they offer a nourishing alternative to the emptiness that all too often is dished up by an increasingly capitalistic, technologically-obsessed and media-saturated society.
The church has to be the new water of our time for our struggles
