Don't Count On It: the fallacy of universal law

Isaiah 55:1-9

In his work, “Cat’s Cradle,” Kurt Vonnegut wrote, “In this world, you get what you pay for.” My guess is that even if you’d never read anything by Vonnegut, you’ve probably heard those words before. It’s the kind of statement that most of us in this room have likely embraced our entire lives.

Then again, there is a law in physics called the First Law of Thermodynamics, which states that, “You can’t get something from nothing.” Whether or not you are into physics, you’ve probably heard that statement or it’s cousin, “you can’t get something for nothing” before, too.

Like other so-called universal laws like “what goes up must come down,” or “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction,” these laws have been proven over time and by experience. So, let’s face it, they just make sense to us. They perfectly express conventional wisdom bred into most human beings from a very early age.

Yet our first lesson this morning would seem to indicate that by God’s reasoning, you can get something for nothing. God’s economic theory is totally foreign to us. It offers a promise we are not quite sure we can buy – no pun intended.

The fundamental wisdom human beings seem wired to operate under, is expressed in many statements like the ones above, and we see the logic in them, right? But God counters these with statements from the Isaiah text this morning:

You that have no money, come, buy and eat!

Eat what is good and delight yourselves in rich food.

For most Americans, those former statements underscore and support basic laws of the economy of scarcity that guide our worldview and many of our actions.

They drive our fears and insecurities.

They underlie many of our relationships and interactions.

What that means is that we live with a fundamental philosophy that everything in our world comes in finite quantity: money, food, housing, land, and oil, for instance. There are other, less tangible things that we deem important for life, and these have limited supply as well: power, love, affection, time, and favor.

These truths abide as the foundation of everything from sibling rivalry to the adolescent drama of competing friendships and affections, to the battle for college admissions, to the give and take of workplace politics, family politics, church politics, and so on.

Knowing and following the rules is important to our survival. Operating within this economy of scarcity can be tricky.

In the modern world, every good thing must be earned, and it, too, is available in limited supply. People crave satisfaction and firmly believe that in order to get it you have to earn it. Consequently, when the bad comes along, it must mean we’ve earned that, too. And there seems to be no such limit on bad things.

There is a lament I often hear when tragedy, illness, or overwhelming challenges strike; you’ve probably heard it, too: “what did I do to deserve this?” It is not only a judgment we place on ourselves. I have counseled people deeply wounded by the assumptions of others, even people close to them, that when something bad happened, they must have done something to cause it.

A distressing example of this that we are all too familiar with is the propensity for public figures, including certain high profile Christians, to proclaim that a particular disaster, whether natural or manmade, is the result of God’s disfavor. By their reasoning, God’s anger over sinful behaviors or particular lifestyles have caused the calamity.

Since it is our determination that everything that occurs to us, good or bad, is just pay for our own actions, is therefore earned, so it is, that we approach this passage from Isaiah with suspicion and disbelief. It so firmly goes against human wisdom.

Ours is an age of reason, science, and markets. These influences are important in their place, but God’s wisdom is not found in materialism.[1] God’s wisdom speaks of something else. It doesn’t follow that laws of the physical world with which we are so familiar.

As we turn to the Old Testament text today, though the imagery might be beautiful doesn't the offer it contains seem too good to be true? “Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.”

Whenever I hear the opening words of this text it makes me think of old-time carnivals, and marketplaces. I envision the carnies and vendors, all lined up along the lane, each of them raising their voices, each crying over the other, each hawking their wares. “Hey you! Look over here! Come, see what I have for you - the finest of goods. The ones you really want. The ones you really need.” Each vendor is vying for your attention, and your dollars and coins. And it is in this scenario that we often confirm that old adage, “you get what you pay for” and learn that “what sounds too good to be true, usually is too good to be true. Cheap goods are often that – cheap goods – cheaply designed, cheaply made, cheap to buy, they functional cheaply as well.

But then, we read this text. “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money come, buy and eat!” Written for a people conquered and then long exiled and struggling in Babylonia, these words and images speak deeply. They sound frivolous and impossible to believe, as they describe a meal beyond the reach of the Israelites for whom these claims are first made; they represent something that is beyond their expectation and beyond all hope.

And yet, the people are invited to come and eat that for which they have not worked, to be filled with things they cannot afford. They have no money. It doesn’t matter. They have no property. That’s okay. Their thirst will be quenched and their emptiness filled up with the finest of provisions, without cost to them.

But then the word of the Lord continues with imperatives and purpose: come, they are told; listen, they are commanded. Why? So that you may live.

Immediately we are told what God is up to here – God’s interest is in making an eternal covenant that is connected to God’s steadfast, sure love for David. That covenant is meant to be life-giving.

God will restore this people to glory. God will raise their status. It is up to Israel to remain close to the source of its glory and power and status. It is up to Israel to reorient their lives by turning to God, by listening to God, by allowing God’s word, character, and love to shape them. Only then will they truly live.

For those who would try to rationalize this message, to make it fit into human rationale and understanding, the words of the Lord explain: For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. In other words, “trust, believe in that for which there is no logical explanation. Because God provides in ways that are too great and lofty for human explanations or understanding.”

The distance dividing heaven and earth is compared to the distance between God’s plans and intentions and our human ability to understand them. God’s plans, power and potential cannot be understood; it can only be accepted. It can only be received; it cannot be earned by any product of human imagination or reason.

          This word of the Lord, delivered through the prophet is a word for us today.

          All week long we have worked and struggled, compromised and sought approval, earning our reputations, our paychecks, and our sense of well-being in a world of competition. All week long we have done what was necessary to buy what we need and to produce what was demanded of us, whether it was homework and test scores in school, meeting a deadline or quota at work, satisfying various demands in our relationships, or, writing a sermon!

          All week long we have struggled, functioning under the human economy of scarcity. There is never enough time to do everything on the “To Do” list; there is never enough money to supply all our needs and wants; we run out of energy before we can fulfill all the demands that fill our days; our hearts are worn out from trying to love enough, give enough, feel enough, to make ourselves and everyone else in our lives happy enough.

          And then God comes along with these liberating words; come, listen, turn, live.

          As a Lenten text, those liberating words are the ones God speaks to our aching, struggling, doubting hearts and souls.  As we examine our lives we know that we have wandered far from the streams of living water that God offers us. We sense that God’s command to come is nothing other than a life-giving instruction for repentance – for the radical reorientation of our lives that places God at the center of our lives, and allows us to truly live.

          It takes turning toward God and listening to God for the reshaping to begin, and yet we know deep down that even that turning, even that listening, is not something we can take on ourselves.

It is only by the working of God’s Spirit, a gift of God for the people of God, that this reorientation can begin. The Spirit is planted deep within us, and abides with us, that as we begin the radical reorientation which sets us on the road to follow God’s command and invitation, the resultant reshaping will allow us to be the disciples God calls us to be.

“In this world you get what you pay for?” In the kingdom of God, there is an abundance where our hunger is slaked and our thirst is quenched, where we receive grace for which we do not pay, and life without measure.

“You can’t get something for nothing?” While true, we are not the payees. The cost for filling our need has been paid for us through the eternal love of God and the cross of Jesus Christ.

Every so-called universal law that we can name and articulate, which is governed by our law of scarcity is ans

wered and conquered by God’s overarching law of abundance, wherein God’s love permeates our being and abides within us, answering our need, and filling us – filling us with good things.

May our repentance this Lent be a radical turning toward the God who shapes our hearts and lives to live abundantly knowing and trusting in the one who can satisfy our deepest longing.

         

---

[1] Darryl M. Trimiew, in his commentary on this passage in Feasting on the Word: Year C, Volume 2, Lent through Eastertide, p. 76.

Divine Utilities - Plugged In, Connected and Empowered

John 14:15-21

As human beings we are simply not wired to be alone. We are wired to be in, to live in, relationship, and I mean that in the broadest sense. There are many of us who, for various reasons live by ourselves. But we are connected through a broad range of threads drawing us to other people, and linking us in profound ways to each other. Regardless of which Genesis creation story you read, we are told that once God had labored to produce the magnificent creation, and before God was truly done with that original creative work, God went about creating humankind. First, God created Adam. And once God had set the first human in the garden, God decided that it wasn’t good that the man should be alone with only animals to keep him company, so God created woman.

For better or worse, from that time forward the nature of human kind has been that we are made for living in relationship to one another. We are connected. Even more importantly, we are made for relationship with God. Of course God envisioned and designed the perfect kind of relationships, and though we have challenged God’s vision and design over the ensuing millennia, still, God persists in building, creating and sustaining relationship with us and for us. And because connectedness is our nature, the opposite condition – being alone - frightens most of us. In fact the thought of being left alone, of being isolated and abandoned terrifies us.

It is that fear, I think, that drives us to thoughts of boogey men and monstrous creatures lurking around us when as children- or adults - we lay alone in our beds at night – that and a hefty dose of Grimm’s fairy tales, Disney movies, or whatever the conveyors of evil and malevolence are for you these days. There is security in numbers; there is safety in company; there is confidence within supportive relationships and networks.

In her book, Gospel Medicine, Barbara Bradford Taylor shares her experience of being the eldest of three daughters, and therefore the designated babysitter in the family from about the time she was twelve years old. Each time she would be left to care for her siblings, more or less the same scenario would play itself out. After receiving from her parents both the pep talk about how much they trusted her because she was so responsible, and then all the necessary instructions, including emergency numbers and protocols for what to do in case something should go wrong, she would walk with her parents to the door, where everyone would kiss goodbye. Then, Barbara writes, “the lock clicked into place, and a new era began. I was in charge. Turning around to face my new responsibilities, what I saw were my sisters’ faces, looking at me with something between hope and fear. They knew I was no substitute for what they had just lost, but since I was all they had they were willing to try.”

Taylor then describes how everyone would be agreeable for a while, as they played games and ate their snacks. But eventually, as the night went on they all got crankier and crankier. “Where are mommy and daddy?” the younger girls would ask. “Where did they go? When will they come back? I told them over and over again,” Bradford Taylor says. “I made up elaborate stories about what we would all do together in the morning. I promised them that if they would go to sleep I would make sure mommy and daddy kissed them good night when they came in.”

What made Bradford Taylor and her sisters fearful, was that something might happen to their parents while they were out. What if something bad happened to them? What if they were in an accident? What if they never came back? What if we are left orphaned? What will happen then? And that age-old, primitive fear took over – what if we are left alone? Alone to fend for ourselves in the world, alone without a safety net, alone without the guidance, love and support of the ones who have been the center of our universe? Abandoned and alone, what will we do?

As Bradford Taylor explains, as the sister-babysitter, it was hard for her, too, because of course she had her own fears. She was a potential orphan too, with as much to lose as her sisters. But she couldn’t give in to her fear because she was the one in charge, the one who was supposed to be cheerful and confident and sure of the future for her sake and for her sisters’. She was supposed to know all the answers. But fear stalked her, too. I think that there are so many parallels to our lives, too.  I wonder what instills that kind of fear in you?

This is the question that is at the core of our text for today. It is the question that certainly was on the minds of the disciples as Jesus is telling them that he will be leaving them soon. How can Jesus leave us alone? What will happen to us? What are they going to do without Jesus there leading them, guiding them, teaching them all there is to know about God and about this new life that Jesus is offering them? Keeping them safe?

What is it that the disciples need to hear from Jesus?

They need to hear that they will not be left alone. They need to know how they will live. They need to know how they will continue in this relationship with God, how they can be disciples once Jesus is gone from them, and how they will do all that they need to do as disciples of Christ. They need to know how they will exist once he is gone, and is no longer there to teach them, guide them, and accompany them. And, crankily, they want to know, how could he be leaving anyway?

Jesus knows what is in the mind and hearts of his disciples. He knows what the challenges of the next days will bring as he faces his arrest, passion and death. Jesus knows the confusion that will follow the discovery of the empty tomb. Jesus knows how frightening it is to be left alone.

What Jesus offers the disciple both then and now is the promise of “another advocate”. Jesus himself, “the first advocate” is God incarnate, who came so that we might see and experience God – and for the disciples, that is exactly what Jesus has done up to now. But now as Jesus is preparing to leave, he gives his instructions and he makes these promises; his beloved disciples –we – will not be left alone; he will not abandon them, but instead, through the Spirit, will continue to abide with them - us. Jesus will not leave these children of God orphaned, without an anchor. Rather, Jesus will give an advocate, who will stay with them.

In a couple of weeks we will celebrate the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples at Pentecost. We will celebrate the special gifts and tools for ministry they received, similar to the gifts we receive through baptism. But in these verses before us today, Jesus is promising the disciples that through the love of God, their allegiance to Christ is a sure foundation, and by their love and their dedication to the mission Christ has set before them, they will be blessed. And this is a word of grace and gospel for us today as well.

On Pentecost the Spirit descends to equip us for mission, too, but for today, the purpose of the Spirit is to advocate for us, to accompany us, to bear out the words of Christ, that although the cross and the tomb and then the empty tomb await, Jesus is not leaving us alone. Rather, in love and mercy Jesus is ever and will ever be with us. This week we celebrate Ascension Day – the day on which the disciples witnessed Jesus physically ascending as on clouds, up into heaven. It is the final “leave-taking” of Jesus, so to speak, and once again it may feel like Jesus is abandoning us as he shed his earthly bonds and ascends into heaven. But as Jesus has promised, there is life after Easter; there is abundant life in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, through whom Jesus accompanies us throughout our days.

As Bradford Taylor comments, as Christians, we may sometimes feel like the babysitter left in charge, the responsible elder children trusted to carry on in Christ’s name, and “everywhere we go,” she writes, “we see the faces of those whom he has given in our care.” They come from different places with different expectations and different needs and wants. They may still be waiting for Jesus to return or they may have given up. “Where is he? Where did he go? And when will he be back? It is hard, being the ones in charge, because we are potential orphans too, only he said he was coming back again, and not only at the end of time.”

Jesus promises that through the Spirit, this advocate, he will be with us, he will accompany us, and will make a home with us. Jesus promises that there is life beyond Easter because the power and presence of Easter persist beyond the empty tomb. Jesus promises life beyond the boogeymen and monstrous creatures and the fearsome evil we confront in daily life. As David Lose puts it, there is more to being a child of God than being raised from the dead. Our Easter reality is that we are alive for Christ, we are bold to live without fear, because Jesus does not, and never will, leave us alone.  

Jesus will soon ascend into heaven, and the post resurrection visits that we have read about will come to an end. But God’s presence, God’s abiding with us, will not end. God has made us God’s dwelling place. God will continue to make Godself known to us, through advocating, accompanying, comforting, constantly creating and inspiring Spirit of God. God will never leave us alone, for in life, in death, and in life after death, we will ever be in the power and presence of our Lord. Of this we can be sure. Thanks be to God! Amen.