Isaiah 55: 1-13
March 11, 2007
Rev. Elizabeth Macaulay
There is a story told in the
Hebrew tradition.
According to this story, an angel
comes down from heaven when a child is born, takes the child under its wing,
and recites the Torah, or the teachings of God.
At the end of the recitation, the angel places a finger on the upper lip
of the child, creating the indentation that each human possesses there, and
says, ‘Forget’. The child then journeys
through life trying to remember.
Have you felt that tug, that
sense that there is something missing in your life, some call or word or breath
that needs knitting into yourself in order to feel whole?
Well, according to the wisdom of
the Hebrews, you are feeling the need to remember. To remember the touch and
the word of God.
We do that seeking for wholeness
in so many ways. We seek to fill that
emptiness with so much that is not bread, as scripture says, and we work so
hard sometimes for things which do not satisfy.
One of the things we do to this
hunger in our souls is seek to medicate it away.
Many of us drink, or smoke, or
use chemicals in ways that numb us because it hurts too much to feel fully the
lives we have.
Chemical abuse is at its core a
spiritual thirst and hunger gone awry.
The Rev. James Nelson is a
theologian who was on the faculty of United Theological Seminary here in the
Twin Cities. He retired before I got
there, unfortunately, but he wrote a book recently about his own dance with
alcohol. It is called “Thirst”.
He speaks in his book what people
in the recovery movement have long known – the truth that psychologist Carl
Jung, when writing to the founder of AA put this way:
Roland’s craving for alcohol was
the equivalent on a low level of the spiritual thirst of our being for
wholeness… you see, alcohol in Latin is spiritus
and you use the same word for the highest religious experience as well as for
the most depraving poison.”
Nelson goes on to say that in its
fundamental dynamic, alcoholism is longing for the Spirit (and paradoxically)
it finally takes the Spirit to counter the spirits. There is a thirst behind the thirst. Some name it the desire for God. (pg. 28, Thirst)
Nelson and the AA movement are
aware of how drink is used to quench a spiritual thirst. But we all know that there are many things we
use in our life to quench a thirst or satisfy our God shaped loneliness.
Some of us keep ourselves so
busy. We shape our life in such a way
that we have no time or room to feel. We
work for that which does not satisfy and we aren’t even sure why we do it. The misery we feel in trying to do so much is
real and the stretch on our lives is so painful and we keep going and keep
going and keep going because to stop is to take the chance that we may discover
that we detest the empty chaos that is our lives.
The prophet Isaiah wrote the
words we are tasting on this day to a people who were
frightened and afraid. They had been
pushed out of all the things they thought they knew made for good and solid
life. They were in exile in
And what the prophet told them
was this: in the midst of the challenges
and fear that is your life, don’t forget this (the indentation on your top
lip). Don’t forget that God is bread and
drink for your soul and don’t forget that you cannot medicate that God hunger
into submission and you cannot work it into numbness.
What you are to do is allow the
waters of God’s grace and forgiveness and undying love to soak into the parched
and hurting places in your life in order that you live your life with joy. With gratitude for the
magnificently unique child of God that you are.
Why is it so hard to embrace that
person and share that person – ourselves – with God and with creation?
I want to share some more wisdom
from James Nelson. Because
it is the antidote to the dryness of our souls.
He talks about how important it
is to listen to ourselves. To be open to
the still small voice of God within and through us and the voice that would
have us examine how it is we are spirit people.
“In spite of being well into
mid-life when I became actively alcoholic, and in spite of years of dealing
professionally with issues of the deeper self, I was still listening too
intently to others’ voices telling me who I was. From our early grade-school days we are
taught to listen to everyone but ourselves, and when those outside clues get
built into our egos it is difficult to hear the deeper and truer voice
within. This is heteronomy, listening to
“the strange god.”
If recovery is to begin, there
must be truth in the inward being. I had
to listen to the truth about myself, including what I did not want to
hear. It takes patience.
In that listening I learned to
name the thirst I really felt within, and it was a thirst beyond that for
alcohol. The truth leading to recovery
had to come by hearing and recognizing the voice of God within myself.” (Thirst, pg. 172)
Listen. Along with the fully 6% of our population
that knows itself to be addicted to alcohol, there are the rest who know
themselves to be thirsty for the sweet watering found in remembering God’s
whisper of love in our ear.
We won’t drink freely from the
waters of life until we become immaculate listeners to the voice of God
sounding in our souls.
To listen for and hear that voice
is to remember. To know joy so fully
embodied that the very trees of the field clap their
hands and all of creation rejoices.
Ho, everyone who thirsts – is
that you? Come to the waters.
The waters of life.
Amen