Sermon: A Lenten Feast – or – Letter to the Deported
Peace Presbyterian Church, Jacksonville, Florida
March 23, 2025
Scripture: Isaiah 55:1-9 (NRSV)
Isaiah 55:1 – 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.
55:2 – 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.
55:3 – 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.
55:4 – See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples.
55:5 – 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.
55:6 – Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near;
55:7 – let the wicked forsake their way and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the LORD, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
55:8 – For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD.
55:9 – For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Who is the Bible for? The obvious answer is, Us!
And then, maybe, you’re thinking, wait – is he suggesting it’s not for us? And if it’s not for us, then who is it for?
Take our reading today. One of my favorite passages of scripture. Prophetic poetry which sings. Listen to this lyrical invitation again:
“Listen, 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.”
Isn’t that beautiful? In the midst of our season of Lenten fasting, this is an occasion for Lenten feasting.
A generous bounty. Our aching thirst sated. A table set and our stomachs full.
But there is something off. Why are some thirsty? Why do some have no money? And why do others have money but they do not spend it on bread or that which satisfies? Who are these people? Who are these people for whom, before the Bible for us, it was a special word for them? And who is the mysterious speaker, who begins with an announcement and without introduction and implores the people to “Seek the Lord”?
One principle of interpretation for the Bible, for it to mean something to us, is that we should at least first understand what it meant in its original audience. Before we translate it into something for us, we need to travel back in time 2600 years and halfway across the world, to the mighty and ancient kingdom of Babylon.
Our reading today comes from that time and that place, and has come to be known as Isaiah, chapter 55. But not all of Isaiah comes from that time and that place.
A close reading of Isaiah revealed to scholars that this book, attributed to one prophet, features at least three prophets. The Isaiah for whom the book is named lived in the 700s BCE in the Israelite kingdom of Judah. Much of the first 40 chapters of the book likely came from this prophet. But in chapter 40, there is a sudden shift in perspective. From that chapter until chapter 55, our reading today, we are no longer hearing the warnings of a prophet to a people in their homeland, a people in power. These are the words to a people deported.
The era of the prophet Isaiah had passed, the kingdom of Judah had reached its peak, and then it fell. The Babylonian Empire rolled through the Levant as Empires have not stopped doing for millennia since. Babylon destroyed Judah and destroyed their holy temple and drove the people into exile. This is how I and many students of scripture learned about this era, as the exile of Judah. But being forced into exile is a phrase when a word will do – they were deported.
Here is an opportunity for us to connect our time with theirs, and it comes by way of an uncomfortable comparison. You see, much of the Bible is written from perspectives like these: people living under the power and violence and whims of Empires. Here it is Babylon. In the New Testament, it is Rome. And even where there is some power, as Judah has power in the first 39 chapters of Isaiah, even there, the prophet speaks for the people on the margins, the poor, the orphans, the widows, the ones who had no power. The ancient law of the Torah itself, passed down from Moses, demands that power does not abuse the most vulnerable among us, which includes migrants. The law says in Leviticus 19:33-34,
“When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”
Those are God’s thoughts, God’s ways, not the ways of Empires. Empires do not operate through mercy and humility but by intimidation and overwhelming force. Empires are the mightiest nations on Earth and do what they will. God welcomes. Empires deport.
You see where I am going with this? We live in one of the mightiest nations on earth. Perhaps the mightiest. Perhaps the mightiest in history. And while we want to think of ourselves as the good guys, biblically speaking, we are the Empire. The power which lords over others with force. Of course, a Chinese preacher or a Russian preacher could make this same point about their nation. But we are part of it.
Now there are other parts of the American story too, which are reasons migrants flock here in the first place. But if we don’t tell this part of the story, the story of being an Empire, we miss who this part of the Bible is for. If Isaiah 55 is for us, those of us who live comfortably as citizens of this mighty empire, then it is not a word of comfort for us, but rather a word of provision and support for us to share with those who do not have that same security. The alien among us. The migrant among us. The one threatened with deportation among us. The poetry here is not meant to lull us into complacency. It is meant to give hope to those who have been shattered.
I want to share with you the story of my friend Leo, which he shared publicly for the first time this week. He was 13 years old when one night there was a pounding at the front door. This is how he described what happened next:
He said,
“I was confused. I was terrified. My grandmother saw me, and rushed me away back up the stairs, but I knew.
They were here for my mother.
I had always known she was undocumented, but I didn’t fully understand what that meant. I knew she was trying—going to lawyers, doing everything she could to make things right. And yet, that didn’t matter. The system doesn’t wait for paperwork. It doesn’t consider the family it tears apart. It just takes.
I wish I could tell you what happened after they pushed their way into our home… but no matter hard I try; I can’t recall any details or what exactly happened after the fear sat in. My therapist says that’s normal for trauma.
What I do remember is still getting on the bus and going to school like nothing had happened. I remember sitting in band class, gripping my trombone with shaking hands, and finally breaking down in tears. My band director, pulled me aside and gave me space to process. But how do you process something like that? How do you move forward when the world around you keeps turning, indifferent to the fact that your family is no longer whole?”
That is Leo’s story and he is sharing it so others understand the impact of deportation on families. Now, I ask you, what good could that possibly have done? Only by the logic of an Empire does that do any good. It has nothing to do with God’s thoughts and ways. As the heavens are than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts, says the Lord.
Welcome the alien among you as a citizen. Love the alien as yourself. These are God’s thoughts. These are God’s ways.
Even now, our migrant neighbors worry that they cannot even come to waters when they thirst, or they will be reported. They cannot come to buy food with no price, or they will be deported. Our neighbors are hiding in fear. This is not – I am telling you, this is actually happening around us.
This week our City Council will take up two bills to strike even more fear into the hearts of our immigrant neighbors. One of those measures is nearly the exact opposite of what the scripture says, though I know the men who proposed it claim to be Christians. The law would punish anyone who enters Jacksonville without legal immigration documents. I will be going to the city council meeting and sharing this verse with them:
“When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”
We have to decide: will we be Empire or will we be Christians?
There is another reading of Isaiah 55 I want to suggest as we close. And it is for us.
We have a choice about what we spend our money on. We have a choice to give up the feasts of empire and instead delight in the rich food that the Lord our God offers. The food of mercy. The food of welcome. The food of forsaking harsh and violent ways of power. To be a people who feed the hungry, who give water to thirsty, no matter who they are. To be the people that the vulnerable can flock to. Because they need not fear us. Because we offer sanctuary and safety and welcome. We can be that as a church. We can be that voice in our city and in our world.
That is the Lenten feast of Isaiah 55. Giving up what is not worthy so we seek the Lord instead of Empire. That is the invitation to a richer food and a higher way. That is God’s everlasting covenant, to a deported people, yes, but also to any of us willing to incline our and come before the compassionate One, who says to us, Listen, so that you may live.
This sermon is dedicated to Mahmoud Khalil, the descendent of deported people, currently held as a political prisoner by the Trump regime, in danger of being deported. Though I ended up not including his story in this sermon, his inspiration was with me throughout writing this. A human of great spirit and strength, a beacon for the Palestinian people and cause, one who relentlessly pursues justice yet always makes room for seeing how our struggles are the same and even has hope that the oppressors can be liberated from their hate. Solidarity.
Matt Hartley 