March 07, 2010
‘Learning to Thirst’ March 7, 2010
Rosedale United Church
(Psalm 63: 1-8 , Isaiah 55: 1-9) Doug Norris
Sometimes, when in the course of a week, you read both the Bible and the business section of the papers, sometimes you see connections.
This week, I suspect that the marketing people at McDonalds have been reading Isaiah. You may have seen the story – free coffee for the next couple of weeks at McDonalds. Just walk in, or drive up, and you don’t have to buy anything – just ask for a coffee.
It just happens, also, to be the week that Tim Hortons is starting the annual ‘Roll Up The Rim’ contest – but the people at McDonalds have said there is no connection at all – sheer co-incidence – as if to say, ‘Gosh we would never want to make things difficult for Tim’s, now, would we?’.
So, free coffee in one spot. Chance at free stuff in the other spot. Bikes and cars and toaster ovens…
Here’s where I see the Isaiah connection.
Check out the opening line of the Isaiah 55 passage – it is customarily read as spiritual poetry, but the prophets lived in the marketplace, in the rough and tumble of the day, and they understood competition. So now picture Isaiah in a crowded market, trying to be heard above the din, goats bleating and coffee vendors on one side of him competing with coffee vendors on the other side of him, and he jumps up on a table and calls out :
Hey! Look! Whoever is thirsty – come here and drink for nothing! You have no money? No problem! Come here, get food, eat! Come, get wine and milk without money and without price! Now that’s going to draw a crowd.
Then when the crowd is gathered (and he probably has a minute and a half before they realize that he has no actual food to give them, no wine and no milk) – he says what he wants them to know : That there is a deeper thirst, a more profound hunger at work in the human heart.
He asks them : Why do you spend your money on what is not bread? Why do you trade your labour for what does not satisfy? Listen to what I can tell you, and get this true food – O, let all who thirst, come to the water!
Here is what may be the fundamental challenge for comfortable, affluent Christians. It is to learn how to thirst. To understand that there is a place in us that is barren, dry. We have been taught to see such a place a failure – as a lack of our will or our faith or our accomplishment, so we fill any crack with junk – with things that do not satisfy, with empty intimacy, with substances we can abuse… So here is some work : To understand the character of our thirst, to come know what it is that will satisfy our hearts so that we may be whole…
I learned a trick this week on my bike. Not a stunt, no wheelies or flips. I learned to hide my weeping.
If I am on a ride of any length I will listen to music (I know, not entirely safe…) or a story, maybe a novel that has been recorded. And I learned this week that when you ride on cold days the wind makes your eyes run and when you get where you’re going and there are tears dripping off your chin because something in the story has just reached into the piano that is your heart and plucked on the deepest string, well you get where you’re going and take off your helmet and people see the wet face and they nod knowingly. That guy is fast! There is something noble about riding in the winter and you can get away with some tears, and if you choke a bit as you ride along, well, people will just assume you got some road salt in your lungs. Which is likely true.
But the real question about this trick is – why do I weep? Why do stories and music do this to us? I believe there is a thirst in me that I barely understand, and this may in fact be a life’s work in spiritual terms, to come to understand this thirst that prompts these tears,
Thirst for what? For beauty? For love? For reconciliation? For peace? And when we hear it or spot it or it finds us, it is a deep drink for the soul, and it flows out our eyes…
Here’s what I find at Communion. Too much bread, not enough wine. Well, OK, no wine at all. Too much bread, not enough juice. This is a very practical thing – you eat of piece of dry bread accompanied by almost nothing to drink and then try to sing a hymn. I used to do this differently – because I got served last I would take the cup and really swig it down.
Now I think I understand why we take just a sip, a dip. And it’s not to do with public health, with sharing a cup. This meal is not supposed to take away our thirst – it is supposed to remind us that we are dry, and looking for the One who is the Living Water.
We could do this differently, couldn’t we? We could put together a Communion service that would do Rosedale proud. A proper portion of a nice fresh ciabatta from up at the corner, maybe even a light glazing on it, a hint of cinnamon in the winter, a note of Rosemary in the summer. And a proper cup of a nice chilled beverage. That we could do.
Here is the challenge – to know how to thirst. So we come to a table that does not reflect our capacities or our resources. We come up here to a crumb and a sip, to say – of course we are hungry and thirsty! Of course we weep and wonder why! And to say that together we are still seeking what is good, what is right, and holy, knowing that it will fill us to overflowing…
And we still hear the voice of God and God’s prophets, over the shriek of the market, saying O! Let all who thirst, come! Come.
Come, God, come touch our hearts…