Oh, all you who thirst, go for water, and you who have no money, come, buy and eat, without money, and without paying, wine and milk! Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen to me and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food…
Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
ISAIAH 55:1-3
Oh, all you who thirst, go for water, and you who have no money, come, buy and eat, without money, and without paying, wine and milk!
Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen to me and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.
Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.
Within the context of blessings and messianic hopes that characterize the latter part of the book of Isaiah, numerous motifs such as this one appear, in which God is represented in abundance and generosity.
This is an important prophetic dimension: God is presented as light, as water, as abundance. The positive portrayal of God, as the better choice, is a veiled reference to “the land flowing with milk and honey.” God is Israel’s inheritance, the secure tent, the water in the desert, the light in the night…
Its parallels in the Gospel of John are numerous and significant: Jesus as living water, Jesus as light, Jesus as the living bread. This is the reason this text has been chosen to accompany the account of the multiplication of the loaves.
The problem with these texts was their literal interpretation. For the righteous, those who follow the Lord, there would be no material difficulties: long life, health, children, prosperity: “you will be blessed and it will be well with you, your wife like a fruitful vine, your children like olive shoots…” a frequent theme in the Psalms. A theme tragically denounced in the book of Job and in numerous Psalms, scandalized that it is the wicked who prosper, and not the righteous.
At a national level, there was in fact an identification of the Promise with the integrity and political prosperity of Israel. If Israel is faithful, it will prosper as a nation. This was the interpretation of David’s triumphant reign, and – in negative – it will be the interpretation of the Exile, as punishment for infidelity.
And this same theme will constitute the trauma caused by the inexplicable death of the pious King Josiah, unintelligible from these parameters.
This “change of plane” is characteristic of Jesus’ teaching, and one of the sources, if not “the source,” of the rejection by the official religiosity of Israel. Jesus “spiritualizes” the Covenant and the Promise, the Temple, the Priesthood… which Israel had “materialized.” It is a typical case of the relationship between “fulfillment” and “bringing to fullness.” In this case – as in almost all – fullness means destroying what came before, like a vessel that can no longer contain its contents, like an egg unable to contain the bird any longer. Perhaps it was necessary, but now it is in the way.
ROMANS 8:35-39
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Once again, the text is barely related to the Gospel theme. However, let us point out – specifically – two aspects: the first Christian community soon had confirmation that the “blessings” of God had the concrete face of persecution: “For your sake we are being killed all the day long.” “Persecution, hunger, distress, tribulation, sword…”. The cross, the sign of the Christian.
On the other hand, Paul shows very clearly that all this is not capable of making us doubt the love of God, but rather confirms it. The blessings of God are none other than those Jesus had: faith and strength to face the cross. The resurrection is after the cross, not here.
The ultimate revelation of God is to continue believing that He loves us despite the cross, and the life of the Christian becomes a way of carrying the cross, the cross that is a component of every human life, without ceasing to believe in the love of God.
José Enrique Galarreta, S.J.