Totally Free. Totally Worth It.

Isaiah 55:1-5

1 Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
    come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
    without money and without cost.
2 Why spend money on what is not bread,
    and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
    and you will delight in the richest of fare.
3 Give ear and come to me;
    listen, that you may live.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
    my faithful love promised to David.
4 See, I have made him a witness to the peoples,
    a ruler and commander of the peoples.
5 Surely you will summon nations you know not,
    and nations you do not know will come running to you,
because of the Lord your God,
    the Holy One of Israel,
    for he has endowed you with splendor.”

Totally Free. Totally Worth It

Is it worth it? That’s the question Steven Lim and Andrew Ilnyckyj (il-nitz-kee) ask every episode of their quirky web series called Worth It. Each episode, Steven and Andrew go to three different restaurants to try similar foods at three “drastically different price points” – affordable, mid, and luxury. They then evaluate which dish from which restaurant was their Worth It Winner. For example, on one episode, they try steaks for $11, $72, and $306. That’s right, a $306 steak – a New York strip of Japanese Wagyu beef, seasoned to perfection, grilled over white oak and charcoal, broiled, then glazed with garlic butter. I know, just the description gets your mouth watering. All the food Steven and Andrew try on the show is, by their own admission, delicious. But the premise of the show is not what food tastes the best – or even which food tastes delicious. Their mission is to evaluate which dish – pound for pound, bite per bite, dollar per dollar - was worth it. When you’ve had a decent steak for $20, it’s hard to imagine how $306 steak is worth the price. But for Steven Lim, , that savory steak “[tasted] like pure luxury.” For Steven, that steak was his Worth It Winner.

That’s generally how it is, right? We associate the cost of items on a menu with quality: the higher the cost, the higher the quality. Let’s just say what Steven Lim insists is true – that $306 New York strip of Wagyu beef is absolutely worth the cost: would you buy it? Maybe you would. Maybe you wouldn’t. Maybe you couldn’t. Maybe you’re vegetarian. Or maybe you can’t afford to drop $306 on a steak: the cost is simply to high to pay. Well what if that steak was set before you this afternoon for lunch and – get this – it was absolutely free. Would it still be worth it? Does the fact that it cost you nothing diminish or detract from the worth of that steak? In fact, wouldn’t that make it even better? Because the pinnacle of all steak experiences cost you absolutely nothing and you still got the same $306 experience!

In our Scripture reading today, we’re not bouncing around from restaurant to restaurant. The prophet Isaiah paints the picture of a marketplace, where people bounce from shop to shop buying food and drink. Storeowners shout left and right trying to win the business of potential customers – customers who need water, wine, milk, and bread. And in the midst of these storeowners lobbying their sales pitch and itemizing their competitive price points – you hear the distinct cries of one storeowner, who graciously and genuinely invites all to come to his shop. But this storeowner is no ordinary storeowner: it’s God himself! And his business model is completely different than everyone else’s: he’s giving all his goods away for free! And God extends such reckless love to the world. “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.”

Without cost? Red flags go up as soon as we hear that, right? I’d imagine that was the case for the people of Judah, Isaiah’s immediate audience – a people constantly at war and quite familiar with severe food shortages, drought, and famine. An abundance of rich food for free? Sounds too good to be true – even for us living in the 21st century. If a sales pitch like this were an online add, we’d immediately assume it’s either click bait or a scam. If this were a video promo on YouTube, we expect to get “Rick Rolled”. We hear “without money and without cost” and we raise an eyebrow. “Where’s the fine print? What’s the gimmick?” We brace ourselves for an imminent bait-and-switch. Even the cliché “Buy one, get one free” isn’t free: I had to buy something first. There’s always a catch. There’s always a condition. There’s always an angle or agenda that’ll bite me in the end. And even when God offers something for free, our sinful nature insists that free is never free, right? “What’s God’s angle? What does he get out of this? What’s it really cost?”

But the skepticism doesn’t stop there. We hear the word “free” we immediately assume whatever it is God’s giving must not really be worth it. Kind of like when we hear, “Free concert” and we assume it won’t be worthwhile. “There’s no such thing as a free lunch” we say, and on the rare occasion there is a free lunch, we assume it won’t be a good lunch – let alone a $306 steak. Free becomes synonymous with poor quality. We hear “free” and we assume it’s not worth it.

But there’s another reason we bristle at the word free: because whatever it is God’s giving, we want to earn it. We want to deserve it. We want some hand in obtaining whatever it is God’s giving. We want to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps and buy it ourselves. We want to climb to the top by our own initiative. We don’t want to be given any handouts. We don’t want to be seen as a charity case. “I’m not so bad” we say to ourselves. “Why wouldn’t God love someone like me after all?” So, go figure, ‘Free’ insults our pride. And God knows that, too. He’s not worried about insulting our pride. He’s concerned about us dying on a steady diet of spiritual junk food. So, he graciously calls out to us in the marketplace, “Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?”

We are a hungry people. And no, I don’t mean physically hungry – but spiritually hungry. And even full pantries of physical bread won’t cure that kind hunger. We crave true satisfaction. We’re starving for real hope. We hunger for real, absolute peace. We thirst for sound, substantial answers to life’s greatest questions: who we are, where we are going, and why we are here. We ache for lives of meaning and purpose. We want the solace of being not only in a right relationship with God but being loved by God. And there are countless shops in the marketplace that promise they have just the bread for you! Just as long as you have enough to buy it! Have you heard their sales pitch?

Certainly, there are loads of religious vendors in the marketplace. Catholicism promises you heaven if you’re pure enough. Islam guarantees you salvation if you’re devout enough. Buddhism promises Nirvana for those who are ascetic enough. Mormonism offers you a celestial kingdom if you’re obedient enough. But how, in any of those systems, do you know that you’ve actually done enough for God? You don’t. Labor and toil all you want – you’ll never do enough.

But there’s other bogus bread out there – and it doesn’t take much a sales pitch for us to come running. Our culture promises that social media is a ticket to stardom, so we spend hours and hours scrolling through and idolizing the lives of others – and we’re left with this inescapable feeling that you’re not cool enough, popular enough, or attractive enough. Even with photogenic filters, our Instagram never garners the attention we’re told we need. We are drowning in a consumer-driven culture, and no matter how much stuff you buy, what is reiterated is, you can still buy a little bit more! Put it on the credit card! No matter how many TV shows you binge watch, what is constantly reinforced is you haven’t watched enough TV. Go ahead! Sink further into your couch! Door Dash will bring you dinner! Don’t feel fulfilled enough? Buy the latest self-help book. Not accomplished enough? Try putting in more hours at work, work overtime – even if you don’t need it – even if that means coming in on Sundays. Marital problems? Have you tried pornography? Stress and anxiety? Have you tried self-medicating? Feeling angry? Try taking it out on everyone around you. Is your life a mess? Have you tried running away from your problems? Or, better yet, blaming everyone else for them?

Spiritual hunger requires spiritual food – real spiritual food. The grand irony is, we, in postmodern America, think we’re living in an age of a spiritual buffet, when, in actuality, we’re starving ourselves in a spiritual wasteland. There is a lot of bogus food out there – marketed as spiritual sustenance, but ultimately leaves us broke, broken, and just as hungry as we were before. Such “bread” really isn’t bread: it’s nothing. You can slap whatever price tag you want on nothing: the price does not matter. In the end, nothing amounts to nothing. The bogus bread we buy will never satisfy. And if we line up to buy that kind of food, we’ll never get what we truly need, but we’ll always get what we paid for.

But that’s not what’s on God’s menu. He’s got something way better. And when the hustlers would take that gift and corner the market, your God flips the economy of the world upside down and gives it away for free: his amazing, faithful love; the forgiveness of each and everyone of your sins; a restored, right relationship with God. It’s free! And we needed it to be free! If I insist on buying all those things - I’ll never have enough. I’ll never do enough. I’ll never be enough. I’ll never earn it. I’ll never deserve it. If God’s economy is that of causal reciprocity – where I must do something first, or I must be something first in order for God to be something or do something for me – than I’m dead where I stand. Why? Because you and I are born spiritually dead – doomed to die of spiritual hunger, desperately seeking satisfaction and finding nothing but spiritual garbage. But God operates on a grace-based economy. Otherwise, grace wouldn’t be grace!

But if the cost is free, how could it be worth it? Don’t confuse the “free nature” of God’s grace to mean the quality is lacking. The greater food is free! The true drink is of no cost to you! God isn’t just offering you something on par with the rest of the world: what he offers you is the richest of fare! But don’t think for a second that God’s free gift of salvation didn’t have a cost. It did – one that you couldn’t pay. So, he paid it. Jesus, God enfleshed, was perfectly devout, perfectly obedient, perfectly pure for you! He paid the price to make us at peace with God on the cross. “By his wounds, we are healed.” Why would God do such an amazing thing? Because you were worth it! You are worth dying for. So Jesus did.

In Christ, we have every spiritual blessing. In Christ, the buffet of God’s blessings is fully and freely laid before us! And that gracious God still provides for you daily; maybe it isn’t a $306 steak – but you’re fed nonetheless. That God brought you to the waters of Baptism and made you his child. Our Savior brings you to his table and gives you his body and blood in bread and wine. And yes, your God gives you a window into his very heart and mind – His Word! Read it! Meditate on it. Inwardly digest every syllable. Because the food God gives is totally worth it. And it’s totally free. Amen.