Texts: Psalm 63; Isaiah 55

Have you ever been thirsty? Do you remember what it was like to want something to drink? Perhaps you were hiking in the hills or taking a long run or working out extra hard. Maybe you had spent a sunny summer afternoon working in the yard or you were in the middle of a long shift of physical labor at the factory or farm, home or business. Can you hear yourself say, “I’m dying for a drink”? In many venues, we are reminded to keep ourselves hydrated – in exercise, in flight, in singing. Dehydration can make you feel exhausted; it can be deadly. The Passion accounts tell us that was one of Jesus’ words from the cross – “I thirst.” I don’t know all your stories well enough yet to say with any authority what you might have experienced of thirst, but I imagine most of us have not come too close to being desperately thirsty, where it was a life or death matter. Still, we all know something of thirst and what it feels like to have our thirst quenched by cool, clear water.

Have you ever been hungry? Do you remember what it was like to have hunger gnaw at your belly? Perhaps you got preoccupied with study or a project and missed a meal. Maybe you had to fast before some medical procedure or you chose to fast as spiritual discipline or a political protest. Maybe you were trying the latest diet in order to lose some extra pounds. Can you hear yourself say “I’m famished; I’d give anything for a doughnut, chocolate bar, steak, cracker…”? You fill in the blank. Again, I don’t know your tales of hunger, but I imagine most of us have not missed many meals or stood at starvation’s door. Still, we all know something of hunger and what it feels like to savor something delicious that breaks our fast.

Have you ever really wanted something? Do you remember what it was like to crave something or someone? Perhaps you had set your sights on achieving a goal like class president, or the leading role in a production, or medical school, or winning the race. Maybe you fell for someone and weren’t sure they even knew you existed. Maybe you had your eye on a hot car or a special outfit. Maybe you just wanted to know for sure that someone saw you, acknowledged you, admired you, loved you. Can you hear yourself say, “I had my heart set on…” or “I wanted … so badly I could taste it”? I don’t know all the desires of your hearts, but I imagine that enough have come true so that many of you can say your life has been good. Still, we all know something of longing and craving; what it feels like to have a dream finally fulfilled or a relationship restored or a desire satisfied.

The Psalm for today begins with deep longing, “…my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” As with the text from Isaiah, this was most likely written in the time of the Exile. These are the words of a poet, carried off into captivity in a foreign land, the lament of one who might also ask, “How can I sing God’s songs in a strange land?” We live in a rich land, perhaps the greatest empire the world has ever known. We are largely people of social and economic privilege. Of course, we have had our financial difficulties or times of trial. We have been down, relative to our friends and neighbors. We probably know something of what it feels like to be disappointed, shut out, looked down on, even ridiculed. But most of us have never lived in captivity in a foreign land. Few, if any, of us have been refugees, so how can this Psalm sing for us? How can these ancient words from a refugee poet live in our lives? “…my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”

Part of the challenge of the Lenten season is that it asks us to consider texts such as this, to look deeply into ourselves to see if anything is wanting. What difference would it make in our lives, yours and mine, if we found a longing in our heart of hearts? “My soul thirsts for you, O God. I have looked long and hard at myself and I see that all I have and am is not enough if you are not a central element to the equation of my life. I am rich, privileged, blessed and yet it is not enough when you are not near or I am not near to you.” St. Augustine said something similar centuries ago, “God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you.” “O God, you are my God, I seek you…” the Psalmist cries. Clearly, even in exile and slavery, this is a person of deep and abiding faith. For it is only in faith that such lament can be uttered.

The Psalmist goes on to speak of how he has seen God in God’s sanctuary, how he has seen God high and lifted up in power and glory, as Isaiah also reported in his great vision, but that all seems so far away now. How can he sing God’s song in a strange land at such an enormous remove from the majesty of Solomon’s temple? Perhaps you, too, have encountered the glory and majesty of God, only to lose the vision. We know something of what is like to have peak experiences, how difficult it is to hang on to them, how impossible it is to recreate them. Still, there is the deep longing to be connected to the holy in the both the heights of glory and the depths of intimacy.

But, for the Psalmist, there is no temple here, no glory days, no trappings of majesty. How is one to find God, to know God’s presence? What can the refugee poet, sitting in exile, an alien and slave in a strange land say about God? “Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you…My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast…when I think of you on my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night; for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy.” The Psalmist, lying sleepless on his bed, has taken the opportunity to go deep inside himself and found there drink to quench his thirst and food to feed his soul. It is ultimately not in the trappings of glory, power and might that God is found. It is not in riches and blessing and privilege but in steadfast love that God draws near and fulfills all our longing, craving, desire. Love of God is the foundation of all life and living, in fact it is better than life – at least any life we know as human beings, clinging to our own limited design and desires for it.

We know that Jesus blessed those who hunger and thirst and said they would be filled. We also know that this is Luke’s account of the beatitudes; that the writer of Luke is concerned for those who were literally hungry and thirsty, the physically poor and the needy. The writer of Matthew, in his more spiritualized account, has Jesus blessing those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for right living, for they, too, will be filled. I don’t think it is necessary to choose one of these readings over another, except, perhaps, as the words speak to us personally. Matthew may spiritualize the blessing here, but it is also Matthew who reports Jesus’ parable of the separation of the sheep from the goats, who says that it is those who care for the physically poor and needy, the least of these, that are Jesus real disciples and friends, those who will ultimately find a place in God’s realm. The spiritual fulfillment is always connected to real compassion and care for neighbors in need.

There is surfeit of riches to have two such magnificent texts on the same Sunday. We also have the author of Second Isaiah, writing from the Exile, with a vision of what the realm of God is like – both spiritually and physically. “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and you that have no money, come, buy and eat!” Is he inviting only the exiled rulers of the people? Is he speaking just to the upper crust, the privileged few, the educated, the cultured, those who have known wealth and power? No. “EVERYONE who thirsts” is invited. It doesn’t matter that you don’t have money or power or prestige. In God’s realm, in God’s economy, no one goes thirsty or hungry. This is literally and spiritually true.

“Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy?” he goes on. This is such a vital question about priorities. What is important to you? Where are you investing your lives and resources? Are you spending your precious resources on something that passes for bread but has no real nourishment to it? Are you working your fingers to the bone for something that, in the end, God’s end, has no real substance and is of no real consequence? Are you trying to get by on cotton candy and an accumulation of stuff? Will riches and power and prestige get you a seat at God’s table? Will all those things we longed for, desired, craved, save us in the end? Will they make any difference when we come face to face with our hunger and thirst for righteousness, when we are confronted with God’s steadfast love for the whole creation?

"Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live," Isaiah speaks God’s word. “Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” Paul Nuechterlein says, “This passage is about listening to the God of Life, whose "thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways…For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." He goes on to suggest that “…our thoughts and ways are shaped and molded by cultures of death” (Paul Nuechterlein, Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary, Lent 3, March 11, 2007.) That is, we try to keep ourselves healthily nourished with that which is not the true Bread of Life; we invest our lives in schemes and promises, in hopes and desires that do not, and cannot, satisfy. Nuechterlein, again, argues that “Another indication of the difference [between our ways and God’s] is the imagery involving a ‘free lunch.’ We don't believe in free lunches; God, in divine grace, apparently does.” Finally, he says, “All-in-all, the theme of famished craving and Affluenza is related…to our human experience of death. Our anxiety over scarcity is linked to our fear of death, that we will have died without having enough -- ultimately, not enough Being, though all our other cravings stand in that breach. It is only in Jesus Christ that we learn of a heavenly Father who truly and graciously gives us enough. It is when that love sparks real faith in God's abundance that we can truly begin to live.”

“O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you…” the Psalmist said long before Jesus, “...because your steadfast love is better than life…” Jesus demonstrated the truth of the Psalmist’s faith, uttered from the depths of exile and slavery, from a refugee camp in Babylon. “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and you that have no money, come, buy and eat!” the prophet Isaiah proclaims from the same position of exile. Jesus comes healing the sick, freeing the possessed, feeding the hungry, liberating captives to this very promise of the coming culture of God. Those who hunger and thirst for food and water as well as for righteousness will find the Bread of Life and Living Water, springing up to eternal life. They will indeed be satisfied, now and forever. So may it be for us. Amen.