Isaiah 55:1-9
If Only I Had a Cowboy Hat
James Sledge March
3, 2013
There’s
been a lot in the news lately about changing the offensive name of the Washington
NFL team. I try not to say the nickname,
but the discussion recalls my childhood, a different time when cowboys and
Indians were movie and TV staples.
Cowboys
were everywhere in the 1950s and 60s, and my brother and friends and I all had
holsters and plastic six-shooters. I also had a pair of pointy-toed cowboy
boots, and at some point decided I needed to complete the look with a cowboy
hat. I had a toy cowboy hat, but I wanted the real thing, and they had them in
the Sears, Roebuck & Company catalog.
For
those too young to recall such things, the Sears catalog was the closest
thing we had to internet shopping. It was a huge book. You could find almost
anything in the Sears catalog, and they had genuine cowboy hats, right there
in the section with saddles and bridles and barbed wire and other things that real
cowboys might need.
My
parents wouldn’t buy it for me though, and so I began saving my money. With a
25 cents a week allowance, it took a long time save the $8.00 or so, but I
saved and saved, and finally had enough. My mother ordered it for me from the catalog, and then I waited. It seemed to take forever. I’m not sure I ever
anticipated something so intently. O how different and grand my life was going
to be when I got that real, genuine, cowboy hat.
In
truth, I looked ridiculous in it. We had measured my head and ordered the
correct size so it did fit, but still it was an adult hat on a 9 year old boy.
There’s a picture of me somewhere in a sport coat and tie, wearing the hat. I
have a stern, serious look which I must have thought made me appear more manly.
I looked like an idiot, and I must have eventually realized that because I didn’t
wear it for all that long. And I never experienced that transformed and grand
life I was hoping for.
I
suppose I learned a lesson from the experience, if only a partial one. I don’t
know that I ever expected quite so much from one new thing, but such hope never
completely goes away. There is always something that promises a better life. If
only I can get that car, get into that college, get the house of my dreams, get
that perfect job… There is always something that beckons us, that we strive
toward, that will make everything better.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not
bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? It’s a
recurring problem for us humans. We chase after what isn’t truly satisfying.
Most of us know someone who destroyed a relationship chasing after money or
career or power or excitement or experiences, too late realizing what really
matters.
The
biblical story of humans starts with a couple who has almost everything. There
is only one thing off limits, but surely life would be so much better if only
they could have that.
Jesus
insists that full and meaningful life, true life, comes not from getting something
more but from letting go, from serving others. He speaks of denying self, of
finding life in the act of losing it. The Apostle Paul writes of a wonderful,
new life that comes only when the old life dies. But like that couple in the
garden, like those addressed by Jesus and Paul and Isaiah, we are inclined to trust
our own hopes and wants and efforts and schemes over the promises of God.
Ho,
everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy
and eat!.. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your
labor for that which does not satisfy? Why indeed?
Here
at the table, Jesus waits for us. Here is spiritual banquet, served without
price. Here Jesus offers to feed us. He promises to provide all we truly need
as he beckons us to come and follow, trusting that he knows the way to full and
true life.
But
can we trust such promises? Dare we trust such promises?
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