Isaiah 55:1-5

Hear, everyone who thirsts; come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your earnings for that which does not satisfy?

Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. Now you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you, because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you.

Sermon Text

            Imagine a perfect world. What images come to mind? I’m sure for many of us we imagine a world with no violence or disease. Summers that are not too hot and winters that are not too cold. We dream of a Utopia and see in it the perfection of our present world. We are right to do so. Scripture is clear again and again that the next world, perfected by God and bringing together Heaven and Earth forever, will not be the erasure of what currently is – but a continuation and rebirth of it in totality.

            I think our dreams often reflect an understanding of the privileges we have known in life as well. Sometimes we fail to mention things that a perfect world absolutely would have, or else we imagine our own desires carrying over into heaven in a way that misses the point. Ask any teenager struggling through puberty what their worry about Heaven is and they will probably point to sex, because that is the occupation of a teen’s mind. Ask an older person and their focus will be on reunions and the cessation of pain, because that is the occupation of their minds. Our images of Heaven are as dependent upon our own cognition and concerns as any writ of scripture.

            This was true of Ancient Israel too. In the pre and post exilic period, the writers of the Bible seldom talk of what happens after we die. They just weren’t worried about that in the way we typically are. For them, they imagined what a perfect world on this earth looked like. This is why the New Testament does both – it addresses our spiritual existence beyond physical death and that the spiritual and physical will one day rejoin in the resurrection. When God speak to the prophets, however, the image that is painted is strictly terrestrial. The Divine Truth of the New Jerusalem and the marriage of Heaven and Earth is not denied or contradicted, but it is not fully revealed. The Old Testament speaks of God’s final victory in earthly, national terms.

            There are a few key points to these prophecies. Firstly, the lost people scattered across the earth will return to the Land.[1] Secondly, the land will be healed and never again suffer invasion or blight or famine.[2] Finally, the land will be so wonderful that all people will seek to come and enter into it, either for worship or to enjoy the fruits of the land.[3] A person who lives to be one hundred will be considered young.[4] It is a beautiful dream, limited only by an imagination that did not have subsequent revelation to build upon. God showed the people what they could handle of the perfect world that was to be born, and they would have plenty of gaps to fill in themselves.

            Of all the promises that I see in scripture, one returns again and again. That is that God will create a world where no one goes hungry. Food takes a primary focus time and time again in God’s work. When God comes to Abraham, Abraham shows his righteousness by making God a meal. Moses instituted a memorial in the form of the Passover dinner, a recreation of their hasty preparation for the flight from Egypt. Joseph fed the world and was declared its savior. Again and again, food is a way that God’s kindness, and the kindness of God’s people is shown.

            We are blessed that we do not know hunger. Our neighbors do though. It seems impossible, in the wealthiest country in the world that anyone could go hungry, but they do. Things will only get worse as time goes on. Jobs are getting scarcer, but there’s still people who need to eat. Food scares increase as FDA funding is cut. Global conflict and changing climate make prices climb such that people cannot afford their daily bread. Globally, locally, as near as our next breath – a food crisis persists in this world. The table of God, set so beautifully in front of us today, cannot be the only food and drink we offer to the people around us.

            Locally we have two food banks that help make sure people have what they need. Some of their goods are sourced locally, some are supplied by the state. Feeding America, through Mountaineer Foodbank and similar entities, has made sure folks here in West Virginia have access to food. However, the Federal dollars were cut down in 2025. One billion dollars, were cut from TEFAP and from subsidies that let food banks buy from local farmers.[5] Based on the numbers provided by Feeding America, that’s equivalent to three meals a day for 4,563,084 families of four. So much was lost when that spending was cut.

            In West Virginia, we see a horrific dichotomy. The average income for the state is (I think generously,) reported at about $60,000.[6] Care to guess how much the cost of living for a family of four is? About $65,000-$70,000 on average.[7] Lest we get excited and hope that folks have hope of government intervention at that range, I am sad to report such a household is at 150% of the Federal Poverty Level, and so will have few, if any, aid programs they qualify for, unless there is a local or state organization that allows that threshold.

            Times are tough and I think we are foolish to imagine they are going to get better. There is only one thing that we can do in the face of a world that hostile to existence. Take care of each other. God’s people had feasts, festivals, and public worship spaces so that they could share resources as much as celebrate God’s goodness. When you sacrificed an animal, you took some of the meat home with you to eat, or else ate it there at the temple. You, the Priest, and God, were sitting and having a meal – that’s what sacrifice meant in those days. When you held a feast, everyone was invited, relative, neighbor, friend, even people you didn’t like, because God’s gifts were meant to be shared.

            For us, we can keep a close eye on the people we know. Step in and help when they need it, even if sometimes we have to fight for a while to get them to accept that help. It means that we support local nonprofits doing good. When the government cuts one billion dollars, we cannot give that much, but we sure can give some more time and energy to making sure our pantries never empty. We can have events here, like our hot dog cookout, where we offer food to people, regardless of anything except the fact that all people can eat, should eat, and that we who have are obligated to help those who do not.

            I have never gone hungry in my life. Even when the pantries would go empty at home, there was always a little something for us to throw together into something that kept us going. My grandparents did not have that luxury. Yet, looking back, they tell similar tales. That they always had just enough, because they had family that stuck together and helped them in the thick of it all. For us, now, we can be that family, that support to our community which needs us to reach out a hand and help to fill hungry bellies.

            How fitting this be our scripture, and that this be our lesson, on the day we offer up praise and thanksgiving, and likewise receive the grace from God’s offering of Christ. God could have chosen anything to be a memorial of Christ’s passion, yet he chose bread and wine. Bread which is a means by which we are sustained – full of nutrients we need to live. Wine, a sign of celebration and as Ben Franklin put it, “Proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” Today we take spiritual food and drink to the preservation of our bodies and souls, but do not think our responsibility to set a table ends with this paten and chalice. The world is hungry, and the Church must feed it. – Amen

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[1] Isaiah 11:11, Ezekiel 37:21, Jeremiah 23:7-8, etc.

[2] Amos 9:15, Jeremiah 42:10, etc.

[3] Isaiah 2:3, Zechariah 14:18, etc.

[4] Isaiah 65:20

[5] https://www.ipm.org/news/2026-03-05/food-banks-short-on-food-amid-stall-in-federal-funding

[6] The difference between a true “average,” vs. Median income is a matter of debate among statisticians I do not have a firm grasp on. However, census data supports that ca. 46% of family households in West Virginia are below the $60k earnings point, so I feel that the median income reflects a good idea of the upper limit of most “average,” West Virginians. https://www.neilsberg.com/insights/west-virginia-median-household-income/

[7] Simulator from https://livingcostindex.com/regions/west-virginia-us/, calculated to exclude recreational spending.