Sermon – God’s Economy

(I preached this sermon on December 14, 2025 at Christ Lutheran Church in Harrisburg, PA. The sermon is based on Isaiah 55:1-13. You can listen to the audio at this link.)

God isn’t a capitalist.

And that means God does not run the world the way the powerful expect.

By the way, God isn’t a socialist either. God isn’t a communist.  God’s doesn’t believe in feudalism, or mercantilism.  God isn’t a free‑market fundamentalist either. God doesn’t measure success by GDP or the stock market or quarterly earnings reports or by the percentage growth of the economy. God doesn’t sort people into winners and losers, productive and unproductive, deserving and undeserving.

Every human society has an economic system. At its core, an economic system answers very simple questions. Who gets what. Who decides. Who goes without. Who benefits when resources are scarce.

Isaiah 55 tells us that God has an economy too, but it is nothing like ours.

And that matters deeply for a congregation like ours, in a neighborhood like Allison Hill, in a moment like this.

Human empires have always measured greatness the same way. By military strength. By wealth. By technology. By how much land they control. By how far their culture spreads. By how many people fear them.

Babylon measured greatness that way. Rome did too. Modern empires still do.

But Scripture tells a very different story.

Israel was never the biggest nation. Never the strongest. Never the wealthiest. Rarely politically stable. Often conquered. Often occupied. Often dismissed as insignificant.

And yet promise after promise is made to them anyway.

That is one of the most unsettling and consistent patterns of Scripture. The mighty are brought down. The poor, the powerless, and the marginalized are lifted up. Not once. Not occasionally. Over and over again.

That goes against human expectations. But God has different expectations.

Isaiah 55 stands right at a turning point in that story.

The people have been crushed by empire. Exile has stripped them of land, safety, power, and certainty. They do not look like the kind of people history bends toward.

And yet this chapter signals that things are about to turn.

The powerful of the world rarely see moments like this coming. Their eyes are fixed on shiny objects. On growth charts. On slogans. On narratives that protect their own position.

But the powerless often see clearly.

When you live close to suffering, you learn to recognize what is hollow. You learn which promises are empty. You learn which systems are rigged to benefit the wealthy and powerful while punishing the poor and the marginalized.

You hear the hollowness of concern about immigration systems from people who never have to fear deportation, detention, or family separation.

You hear the hollowness of concern about affordable housing from people who never have to wonder where they will sleep.

You hear the hollowness of concern about SNAP and Medicaid from people who have never opened an empty refrigerator or rationed medication to make it last.

The poor always see past the shine of empty rhetoric.

They always have.

Because when policy decisions are made far away, it is the poor who feel the consequences first. Cuts that look like numbers on a page become empty cupboards. Changes that are made to sound reasonable in speeches become lost medication, untreated illness, impossible choices, and plenty of anxiety.  

The powerful rarely worry about those consequences. They are insulated from them. Or at least they believe they are.

But that too is a lie. Anxiety does not disappear just because it is hidden behind wealth. Fear does not vanish just because it is dressed up as control.

God does not run the world the way the powerful expect.

Isaiah speaks to people like that. People whose eyes are clear because they have learned to look past appearances.

Into that reality, the prophet dares to say that nations will come running to this people.

Not because Israel has an army.
Not because they control trade routes.
Not because they are culturally impressive.

But because God is at work among them.

This is an inversion of imperial language. Empires expand by force. God expands by invitation.

Come, God says.

Not submit.
Not pay.
Not prove your worth.

Just come.

This is God’s economy confronting human economies.

Human systems run on scarcity. There is never enough, so compete.

God’s economy runs on abundance. There is enough, so share.

Human systems reward accumulation.

God’s economy restores dignity.

Human systems try to profit.

God’s economy heals.

God does not run the world the way the powerful expect.

To the ordinary observer, this looks unrealistic, even ridiculous.

But that is how God has always worked.

God chooses what the world overlooks. God trusts what the world discards. God builds the future through people the present has written off.

This is the heart of the text.

Come, all who are thirsty.
Come to the waters.
You that have no money.
Come, buy and eat.

This is not decorative poetry. This is economic language.

Isaiah is speaking directly into questions of exchange, access, value, and survival.

Sometimes we are told that politics and economics do not belong in church. That theology should stay spiritual, private, and polite.

God does not honor those compartments.

God knows that hunger is political. That debt is spiritual. That access to healthcare is moral. That housing is holy ground.

God is not just God of theology. God is God of the whole of creation. God has something to say about how resources flow, who is cared for, and who is left behind.

Just not in the way human systems usually practice these things.

God’s economy is not built around profit or control. It is built around shalom.

Shalom means more than peace. It means wholeness. Repair. Restoration. Right relationship. Thriving life for the whole community.

These are not soft ideas. They are not slogans. They are practices that reshape politics, economics, and social life.

In God’s economy, people are fed because they are hungry, not because they earned it.

People are forgiven because they are broken, not because they deserve it.

People are healed because God delights in wholeness.

People are surrounded so they are not alone.

God’s economic indicators are different from ours.

Not stock prices, but whether the poor are cared for.

Not productivity, but whether the sick receive care.

Not efficiency, but whether the lonely are embraced.

Not profit, but whether people are set free.

This is not abstract theology. This is lived reality.

And every time we see it lived out, we glimpse the truth again: God does not run the world the way the powerful expect.

And it threatens every system that depends on fear, debt, and exclusion to survive.

Isaiah presses even further.

God’s word does not float harmlessly through the air. God’s word acts. God’s word is effective. God’s word changes things.

Like rain falling on dry ground.
Like snow nourishing seeds.
Like water making life possible where there was none before.

This is not a promise that life will be easy.

And that matters here.

Because many of you are tired.

Tired from poverty.
Tired from sickness.
Tired from uncertainty.
Tired from fear of ICE raids.
Tired from choosing between medicine and rent.
Tired from living in a system that tells you there is not enough, that you are not enough, and that if you are struggling it must somehow be your fault.

God does not run the world the way the powerful expect.

Isaiah does not deny that exhaustion.

Instead, God speaks directly into it and says my word will not fail you.

God’s promise is not escape. It is transformation.

This is what prophecy really is.

Not pretending things are better than they are.
Not spiritualizing suffering away.

Prophecy names reality and then insists God is still at work within it.

God’s word does not merely describe the world. It reshapes it.

That is why this passage is good news.

It tells the truth and then refuses to let injustice have the last word.

I want to tell you a story.

Years ago at my previous call, we would go to the local truck stop, spent time with people living in their vehicles and staying in motels along the Carlisle Pike, passing through, trying to survive.

We did laundry together. We shared meals. We prayed.  We made sure they could get a shower.

We would always do a meal after laundry at Denny’s.

There must have been two dozen of us. People who had no money. People who were hungry. People who were tired. People who felt lost. 

We shared dinner church right there. Prayers offered by anyone who wanted. Communion shared freely. No barriers. No requirements.

It was joyful. Holy. A foretaste of the feast to come.

When it was time to pay the bill, the waitress came over and told me something.

Someone anonymous had paid the entire bill.

Over three hundred and fifty dollars.

No explanation. No recognition. No strings attached.

Just abundance.

In that moment, Isaiah 55 was no longer poetry.

Come, buy without money.

Eat what satisfies.

Delight in rich food.

God’s economy had broken in quietly, unexpectedly, beautifully.

God does not run the world the way the powerful expect.

This text makes claims we do not have to explain away.

God’s economy is real.
God’s word is effective.
God uses the unlikely.
God feeds without price.
God restores dignity.
God is not finished.

God does not run the world the way the powerful expect.

And God is already at work here.  God’s work continues.  And God invites us to participate. 

In this place.
Among these people.

Right now.

Thanks be to God.