Isaiah chapter fifty-five presents us with a vision of a world redeemed. God calls everyone to come and drink from the waters. Come, drink water not drawn out of a well by human sweat and toil but, instead, flows freely, with room enough for everyone at its banks.
But we need food as well. So God calls, but this time to those with nothing. Come, you who have no money. Come, buy grain, and eat.
How can those who are not simply poor but penniless buy anything? Buying involves money or, at least, something of value that can be offered in exchange. How can this be?
There’s no mistake in the translation. The word used is the same one used when Joseph is managing the storehouses in Egypt during the famine. People from everywhere, including his brothers, came to buy grain. This is not a gift like the waters flowing through the world. No, the penniless, in this vision, are buying bread.
But, how? They have no money. They have nothing of value.
Perhaps those who have much, under the Reign of God, will empty their pockets, spread their wealth far and wide to provide the poor some value. But that is not what it says. God is not calling those who now have money. No, the One is calling those with no money.
This can only be some kind of miracle. All things, we are told, are possible for God. And so it must be. Because, in this world, still waiting for its fulfillment, groaning for Christ’s appearance, those without money cannot buy anything.
Again, buying implies having something of value that can be given in exchange. Money defines the value you have, right? Those with a lot of it have lots of value. Some had value but have lost it, either through mismanagement or circumstance. Some have never had it. And these must work in order to earn their value so that they might buy and eat.
This is, of course, why we must be careful about what we give to those who aren’t working, isn’t it? We can give them money, but that doesn’t really increase their value. Yes, they now have something with which to purchase grain, but what they have is devalued. They never earned it. And it robs us, we who have value, of our value. What does our value mean if it doesn’t have to be earned?
Unless this value that buys grain for food isn’t something we earn? Then where does the value come from?
Jesus said, not one sparrow, worth less than a penny, falls to the ground unnoticed by their Creator. You are of much greater value, he said, than the sparrows.
We did nothing for it. We’ve, likely, done much to devalue ourselves, but we have value. It is the value that comes with being part of Creation, being someone who Christ loves and knows by name. It’s a value even the penniless carry with them.
And it is more than enough with which to buy bread.