If it feels like we’ve talked about this passage before … we haven’t! It’s just that social justice, taking care of people’s immediate needs, shows up over and over and over again in the Bible. If you’ve ever heard that you’re not really a Christian or that you’re “doing” Christianity “wrong” because of your progressive convictions, this passage is a helpful reminder that taking care of each other is constantly close to the heart of God.
Isaiah 55:1-9
All of you who are thirsty, come to the water!
Whoever has no money, come, buy food and eat!
Without money, at no cost, buy wine and milk!
Why spend money for what isn’t food,
and your earnings for what doesn’t satisfy?
Listen carefully to me and eat what is good;
enjoy the richest of feasts.
Listen and come to me;
listen, and you will live.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
my faithful loyalty to David.
Look, I made him a witness to the peoples,
a prince and commander of peoples.
5Look, you will call a nation you don’t know,
a nation you don’t know will run to you
because of the Lord your God,
the holy one of Israel, who has glorified you.Seek the Lord when he can still be found;
call him while he is yet near.
Let the wicked abandon their ways
and the sinful their schemes.
Let them return to the Lord so that he may have mercy on them,
to our God, because he is generous with forgiveness.
My plans aren’t your plans,
nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
9Just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways,
and my plans than your plans.
Photo by Anthony DELANOIX