THIRSTY

A Communion meditation for March 7, 2010

Amistad Sunday

Scripture: Isaiah 55:1-9

Our text for today gives us an unusual image of God as huckster, as a neighborhood seller of food and drink. If you grew up in Baltimore you might have had a chance to hear the arabers, African American men with horse drawn carts who chanted their wares, fresh vegetable and fruits. Listen for God's call to us—

“Ho, everyone who thirsts—come to the waters. You that have no money, come, buy and eat!”

We all get thirsty, don't we…on a hot day; while exercising, after shoveling snow or walking the dog…I find public speaking a very thirsty activity. But these are minor thirsts—let's talk about REAL thirsts--imagine the scorched throats of Latinos migrating into the United States, forced to cross miles of hostile desert because of new walls and border fences designed to funnel them through these dangerous lands. Some Southwestern UCC churches have a ministry of water, leaving jugs where they might be found by thirsty migrants.

“ Come to the waters…”

Without water, life would not exist. Our bodies are something like 80% water, and a steady supply of drinking water is essential for life. I used to think that people could only survive two or three days without water, until the earthquake in Haiti . Some were pulled out of the wreckage alive after more than a week..I cannot quite imagine what that must have felt like, to be so dry and dusty and frightened.

“Ho, everyone who thirsts…” Imagine the thirst of Sengbe Pieh and his companions, kidnapped, captive human beings, including children, whipped and beaten and crammed in a tiny space below the deck of the ship La Amistad, bound for thirsty work on a sugar plantation in Cuba .

The captives took over the ship and attempted to return to Africa , but a gale drove them north along the Atlantic coast. With limited water supplies, thirst tormented them for two months; eight formerly enslaved people died of dehydration. But Singbe saw that the children were given full measures of water, and they survived.

“Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters!”

The exiled people of Israel who first heard Isaiah speak those words suffered from thirst, but not a need for liquids. Like the African captives, the Israelites yearned for the lands and ancestors they had left behind; even more, they all thirsted for freedom—for the right to seek their own destiny. Unlike the kidnapped Africans, however, the Israelites had been in Babylon for generations, and had been able to build families and create an expatriate culture.

“Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price!”

The poor among us today hunger and thirst for actual food and drink. Recent immigrants, who have come here by choice, still long for home and family, and familiar ways of doing things, just like the captives on the Amistad did.

The more fortunate of this world will be untouched, perhaps all their lives, by real thirst or hunger. Yet still we struggle, and yearn for more. All of us, at one time or another, yearn for a meaningful life; for community and companionship; for understanding and encouragement; acceptance and comfort. We all thirst for a listening ear; someone to hear us into speech, as the poet bell hooks used to say.

Many of us also long for freedom from addiction, whether it is the incessant pull of drugs, alcohol, or gambling; or ordinary pastimes that run away with us like shopping or eating; having the latest technology or the last word in a conversation.

God asks us here today, “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?”

It seems to be the human condition to want, and to confuse our wants with our actual needs. Our God wants to give us all we need, but not necessarily all we want.

I believe that we long for so much because we each have a God-shaped hole inside of us, as St. Augustine said, and we are restless until we rest in God.

As the Israelites did when they were captive in Babylon ; as Singbe and his companions did when they were jailed in Connecticut …seek God while he may be found;… call upon her while she is near!

Our God is a God of covenant, of love everlasting…the same sure and steadfast love that allowed enslaved people to keep their sanity and hope for freedom. As a result of that same covenant of love, our Congregationalist ancestors were able to keep up the struggle for abolition. God wants to offer every one of us that same everlasting covenant of love, if we accept it.

If we live within that covenant of love, we will see that all our needs are fulfilled and our yearnings stilled. God will slake our thirst, and fill that God-shaped hole inside us.

As someone said on the First Saturday retreat yesterday, God's grace and mercy are like a fresh spring rain that makes the parched earth come to life.

Jesus said, “Those who drink of the water that I give them will never be thirsty. The water that I give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”

Our Lord says, “Come. Come to me and listen, so that you may live. Come to the table and eat what is good, and drink of my Living Water.” God longs to nourish us. God's table is set, and we are expected…the bread of life and the cup of covenant await….

Thanks be to God!

Rev. Patricia Barth

March 07, 2010

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