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Buying Food Without Price
- Gethsemane Lutheran Church
- Aug 2
- 5 min read
Isaiah’s words are profoundly weird: everyone who thirsts, come to the waters! Okay, that part isn’t weird—it isn’t hard to imagine a stream of running water, clean and delicious, a gift from God. The next part is weird: you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Did he just say “buy”? Was that an accident? But then Isaiah says it again: come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
Okay, how do you buy things without money? And if you are buying things without money, is it one of those “you get what you pay for” situations, where the food is terrible, the wine is sour and the milk is spoiled?
In the original Hebrew text of Isaiah, the verb is BUY. BUY the food without price. The message is not: RECEIVE the gift of food that I give to you for free! NO. That’s a nice idea, but that’s not what he’s saying. You who have no money—YOU STILL HAVE POWER. Come, buy what you want, and eat! You HAVE power, so you ARE buying it.
So consider then how you are using your power. Spend your money on stuff that matters. Use your money for that which sustains and nourishes you. Use your power for good. This isn’t just about receiving gifts from God, but how you utilize what belongs to you, how you use whatever you believe you have earned or properly stewarded or whatever you say belongs to you.
Do you use what you have received from God to give glory back to God? God invites you to a feast, but you don’t show up empty-handed—you also have something to give, and your gifts are valuable. God isn’t manipulating humanity into a one-way relationship, where our job as humans is only to receive whatever God gives and meekly say “thank you” and then God is happy and we go do whatever we want. This is a two-way relationship, where God gives us what we need, and we thank God for it, and then we use what God has given to give glory back to God. We don’t just receive food from God, we feed others too. This is how God’s glory is multiplied, in a ripple effect. That’s how it’s supposed to work.
But we live in a world with economic systems that favor the already-too-rich and punish those who are already-too-poor. God knows there are banquets being given behind fancy walls where poor people are not invited. God knows there are rich and powerful people celebrating birthdays and giving toasts and entertaining themselves by executing their critics.
That’s what was going on when Herod saw his stepdaughter dancing and was so delighted he told her he’d give her anything she wanted, so in front of everyone, the girl said she wanted the head of John the Baptist on a platter. Which is probably not what the girl actually wanted; she was just a child trying to please their parent. And what else could Herod do but follow through on his promise? What would people think if he broke his promise, was he protecting a prisoner, would this ruin his reputation?
So John the Baptist gets no due process, no last meal on death row, just his life turned into a joke for the entertainment of a crowd enjoying a feast.
Jesus needed to mourn after that. So he went away for a little bit, like we all do when we’re grieving a loss. Jesus got into a boat and went to a deserted place, maybe a deserted place like John the Baptist would have appreciated in his ministry. Maybe Jesus had flashbacks to when he himself went out to find John in the Jordan River. People are coming from everywhere, maybe Jesus thought: what would John do?
He was moved by compassion. It was fierce love that overcame his sadness. So Jesus came ashore and started healing people. He healed people for so long that the disciples told Jesus to send the crowds away to get food. You know, support the local economy and whatnot.
In a commentary about this gospel lesson, Matt Skinner writes:
“Localized food shortages were common within the Roman Empire, and officials knew the political value of grain giveaways and circulating propaganda that trumpeted Rome’s ability to feed its people. Someone who’s able to feed the masses in a desolate place can give hope to the masses who reside in the empire’s periphery.”
So what did Jesus do? He told the disciples “You give them something to eat.” The disciples answered, “We have nothing here.” And then Jesus gave the disciples a look that said, “Your failure of imagination is not my problem.” And that’s when the disciples finished the rest of their sentence… “We have nothing here BUT five loaves and two fish.” So Jesus said, “Bring them here to me.”
Matt Skinner again points out:
“We would have a different story if Jesus were to instruct the crowds to come forward and take their loaves and fish from a central distribution point. More different still if a full plate magically materialized in front of each person. Instead, the disciples distribute the food, looking again and again into hopeful and delighted eyes as they move from one hungry body to the next. What a different banquet this is, in contrast to the macabre celebration of Herod Antipas’s birthday…”[1]
This Gospel lesson is an excellent story to illustrate that following Jesus does not mean just standing around, waiting and watching for what Jesus will do. Jesus calls his followers into service, specifically to care for the needs of other people. Hungry people are not metaphors; they are human, and hunger always returns.
Human needs are not unimportant; God knows there is enough in this world to feed every human who is alive. God has given us the money, the tools, the access to food to feed others. And not just feed people with food, but to feed people with community and companionship—also what we need to live.
We can’t ignore the fact that compassion can be dangerous—delivering free food can get a person in a lot of trouble, doling out hope as Jesus did can get a person crucified. But on the cross Jesus wasn’t apologizing for healing people and feeding people. Jesus died and rose to new life, with power over death and death-dealing systems that execute prisoners and keep people hungry and keep people without access to healthcare and keep people hiding their identities.
Which system will you work for? How will you use what power you do have? And will you use your power to glorify God? Because we know how God uses power—we heard it earlier in Psalm 145, also one of the most lovely dinner prayers I ever heard. “The eyes of all wait upon you, O Lord, and you give them their food in due season. You open wide your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.”
Amen.
Pastor Cheryl
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