“Provisions” based on Isaiah 55:1-9 and Luke 13:1-9

I was reading a commentary on Luke and I realized I’m “getting” Pilate more and more these days:

Josephus’s accounts of Pilate’s confrontations with the Jews confirm that bloodshed was not uncommon: Pilate’s troops killed a group of Samaritans climbing Mt. Gerizim; Pilate introduced Roman effigies into Jerusalem; Pilate seized Temple Treasury funds in order to build an aqueduct.1

I don’t appreciate having a more visceral understanding of the experiences of ancient Jews in oppression by the leaders of the Empire, but here we are nonetheless.

I have been convinced by Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan, and Walter Brueggemann that the Bible sets up a contrast between human systems of oppression and domination and God’s aims for systems of wholeness and interdependence. Various entities play the role of “oppression and domination” in different parts of the Bible. Egypt and the Pharaoh get to be the first and primary example of oppressors.

Egypt and the Pharaoh oppress the descendants of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, and then God intervenes and frees the people. The people learn dependence on God and each other, and then get to settle into the “Promised Land” where they live in mutuality with sustainable practices and relative equality for a nice long time. 400 years or so.

The next example of oppression in the Bible is the Ancient Israelite Kings, perhaps none more so than Solomon. Once the people get a King, they get high taxes, forced labor, and class differentiation, not to mention kings who think they have the right to do whatever they want regardless of settled laws. The people are oppressed by their own Kings, mostly, although there is some debate about if that oppression was “better” than some others.

Then the next big oppressors are the nations who capture Ancient Israel and Ancient Judah, Assyria and Babylon. We hear more about Babylon, and it Babylon that features in our Hebrew Bible lesson today.

Isaiah 55 comes from the time of exile, when many Ancient Israelites were exiled in Babylon. While the exiles were taken away in waves and returned in waves, we often summarize the exile as lasting about 70 years, which means that most of the people taken into exile died there and most of the people who ended up returning had never been “home” before.

Today’s passionate passage dreams of the joy of homecoming, and contrasts the oppressive systems the people knew in Babylon with a return of God’s dreams back home. Walter Brueggemann writes:

The poet makes a sharp contrast between old modes of life under Babylonian authority and the new offer of life with Yahweh. The initial verse, perhaps in the summoning mode of a street vender, offers to passerby free water, free wine, and free milk. This of course is in contrast to the life resources offered by the empire that are always expensive, grudging, and unsatisfying. Israel is invited to chose the free, alternative nourishment offered by Yahweh.2

The thing is, the author of Isaiah 55 knows that not everyone will make that choice. The people who were thriving in Babylon were likely going to stick with the oppressive regime that benefited them instead of trying to live out God’s dreams. Others would stay because they just didn’t believe things could be any different. Despair kept them in place.

Whenever I encounter this passage, I’m drawn like a magnet to verse 2, “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.” This just has so many layers of truth. One is probably too literal, but in these days of ubiquitous processed food designed to create cravings without satisfaction I take the passage as a reminder to eat food that satisfies. Similarly, why do we spend money on cheap plastic gadgets that we’ll eventually tire of and trash?

More spiritually though, this passage guides me to reflection. What am I spending time, money, or energy on that doesn’t actually matter? Where is my labor being wasted? What good things is God wanting for us that we’re too distracted to attend to? What things that we have and hold dear might actually be getting in the way of what need or what would be great for us? What do I think of as “bread” that is really “fluff” and where do I seek satisfaction where I’m really being exploited?

The premise here is that God wants goodness for the people. Satisfying food that everyone can access, labor that builds up life and doesn’t drain it, delight, love, hope, a clear sense of God’s closeness, mercy, complete and utter wholeness and freedom. Contained within though is the reality that even when that kind of goodness is offered, people don’t always take it. Probably, at least in some ways, we don’t either, and God invites us to goodness again and again.

And to turn away from the things of death and destruction, from cheap tricks that distract us, from oppression and evil in all forms. So that we, and all, can move towards life.

Of course, we never get to do that in a vacuum. While we’re trying to learn how to live into God’s goodness, and let go of the things that don’t satisfy or bring life, we have to do it in the midst of a world where domination systems exist and oppression is present. Sometimes those are heavier than others, which I think we have already noticed today, but they’re never gone (at least in Western societies, I think some indigenous societies were and are quite different.).

By the time of Jesus the domination system of oppression was the Roman Empire version, and it was about as brutal as usual. While we hear Jesus talking about two incidents – one where Pilate had killed a group of people and one where a wall or tower collapsed and killed a group of people – I think the author of Mark was probably talking a lot more about the destruction of Jerusalem itself. There are profound questions being asked here, generally amounting to “are people who die in random incidents killed because God is punishing them for sin?” to which Jesus answers, “no!” And yet, Jesus says, unless things change and people engage differently with each other it will keep happening. Which, I’ll say, is true. For the early Jesus movement, there was a sense of urgency in this, perhaps because the early Jesus movement had also just experienced the massacre and destruction of Jerusalem and had a strong sense that the world was ending.

The end of our passage is also meant to bring urgency, but it also brings grace. The desert climate of Israel isn’t an easy one to grow anything in, there isn’t spare land or spare water for trees that don’t produce fruit. And yet, the gardener intercedes on behalf of the tree, asking for one more year to nurture it more deeply and see if it is able to fulfill its purpose.

I love that it reminds us that when we aren’t able to “fulfill our purposes,” we too may need some gentleness and nurture to give us a fighting chance. I love that it reminds us of a good way to treat others who are struggling. And I notice that the end goal is a tree that bears fruit, so that the people can eat from it.

Jesus and his followers get accused of being gluttons, drunkards, and violators of the Sabbath because they eat when they’re hungry and drink when they are thirsty. Jesus tells stories about fig trees, and wanting them to make figs so people can eat them.

It feels a little bit like the fulfillment of Isaiah’s dreams of what it would be like for the people who returned from exile. There was in the time of Jesus a plenty powerful oppressive system in place, but Jesus and his followers just ignored it. They lived as if they were responsible for and to each other, and savored life. This wasn’t a simple way to be, and it definitely had consequences, but I think it was a faithful way to be.

In the midst of systems that seem to push people down, one of the strongest forms of resistance is to eat bread that satisfies AND share it! To simply refuse to participate in oppression and instead participate in enjoying the goodness of life that God offers, and inviting others to do so as well. To find what satisfies, and share that too. To live God’s mercy.

Come to the waters, beloveds of God. You are not obligated to drink the oppressors’ poison, you are are invited to eat and drink and be satisfied and whole. Receive the provisions of God. God’s goodness remains, no matter what the oppressors have to say about it, no matter what they do. Thanks be to God! Amen

1R. Alan Culpepper, “Luke in” The New Interpreter’s Bible Vol IX, editorial board convened by Leander E. Keck (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995) Commentary on Luke 13:1-9, page 270.

2Walter Brueggemann, Isaiah 40-66 (Louisville, KT: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), page 158-9.

Rev. Sara E. Baron 
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady 
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305 
Pronouns: she/her/hers 
http://fumcschenectady.org/ 
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

March 23, 2025