“Early one autumn evening the cheap-jack arrived with his cartload of crockery and tinware, and set out his stock on the grass by the roadside before a back-cloth painted with icebergs and penguins and polar bears. Soon he had his naphtha lamps flaring and was clashing his basins together like bells and calling: “Come buy! Come buy!”

It was the first visit of a cheap-jack to the hamlet and there was great excitement. Men, women, and children rushed from the houses and crowded around in the circle of light to listen to his patter and admire his wares. And what bargains he had! The tea-service decorated with fat, full-blown pink roses: twenty-one pieces and not a flaw in any one of them: the Queen had purchased its fellow set for Buckingham Palace, it appeared. The teapots, the trays, the nests of dishes and basins, and the set of bedroom china which made every one blush when he selected the most intimate utensil to rap with his knuckles to show it rang true.

“Two bob!”, he shouted. “Only two bob for this handsome set of jugs. Here’s one for your beer and one for your milk and another in case you break one of the other two. Nobody willing to speculate? Then what about this here set of trays, straight from Japan and the peonies hand-painted; or this lot of basins, exact replicas of the one the Princess of Wales supped her gruel from when Prince George was born. Why, damme, they cost me more n’r’n that. I could get twice the price I’m asking in Banbury tomorrow; but I’ll give ‘em to you, for you can’t call it selling, because I like your faces and the load’s heavy for me ‘oss. Alarming bargains! Tremendous sacrifices! Come buy! Come buy!”

Sadly few people did, for the people of Lark Rise were poor and had no spare cash. They may have hankered after the good things that were on offer, but they couldn’t afford them. The cheap-jack took a pound or so but never returned.

“Ho!” cries the prophet Isaiah – or is it God? – just like the market trader touting his wares. “Listen up! Take notice! Come and buy! If you’re thirsty, come and get water. If you’re hungry, I’ll give you some bread. Even if your purse is empty, come and get free wine and milk!” This isn’t just an offer which shouldn’t be sniffed at, nor a potential scam which seems too good to be true. It’s a genuine invitation – in fact it’s nearly a direct command: “This is what I really want you to do. I know that you can refuse – but, I implore you, please don’t!”

The people that Isaiah was writing to were almost certainly the Jewish exiles, held captive in Babylon for seventy long years – we seem to have mentioned them a lot over the last few weeks. As we know from the book of Nehemiah, many of these folk knew that their homeland had never recovered from the Assyrian invasion; its towns hadn’t been rebuilt and their inhabitants were scratching out a pitiful existence. The exiles longed to return, take charge, and get things moving again. In fact they wanted a second Exodus: not a flight from Egypt’s slavery to a Promised Land (a story which, to me, bristles with questions) but a return to a beloved country which had been snatched from them. That has some uncomfortable parallels with Ukraine’s refugees today.

However the exiled Jews did have a real choice to make. Many of them had got used to life in Babylon and put down roots; indeed many of them had become successful and were holding high-status posts. The plea to return to an almost mythical land which they’d never seen but only heard about from their grandparents was easy to ignore. They had to set the uncertain prospects of freedom and nationhood (and the call to hard work and discomfort, at least on a short-term basis) against the security of life in Babylon – that might be comfortable, even luxurious, but they’d always be second-class citizens there, at the beck and call of foreigners. Going back involved real risk: was the promise of a land again flowing with milk and honey enough to tempt them? It wasn’t an easy decision.

Of course, Isaiah was thinking of more than a physical meal and a physical journey. The pictures he uses have spiritual meanings as well. As one writer puts it, “Poetry that eloquently describes a pragmatic return from exile soon came to be read as describing the spiritual journey of every believer from our various alienations to our home in God”. The people are being called from physical comfort (but spiritual emptiness) to a new life which may be poorer in the material realm but far richer and more satisfying in the spiritual one. There’s work and food to be had in Babylon, but no real satisfaction: Isaiah’s promise is of a much more worthwhile life “back home” with God.

There is clearly a message of salvation being offered here – just as Jesus says, “I am the bread of life: whoever comes to me will never be hungry”; “Those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty … it will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” and “I have come in order that you might have life – life in all its fullness”. We might think of the writer to the Hebrews who spoke about people of faith who “confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth … [but] … desired a better country, that is, a heavenly one”. Isaiah’s readers.had to decide between the temporary but empty benefits of remaining in Babylon and the lasting joy and worth of obeying God and dwelling in Judah, just as people today must decide between merely enjoying all the pleasures offered by our world (which may leave a cloying taste in the mouth, an empty bank account (or worse) and the “lasting joy” – albeit with its trials – of being a disciple of Jesus. “Come, freely buy, live in the land and be satisfied”, calls Isaiah; “Take up your cross, follow me along the path of abundant life”, calls Jesus. The response we make is always ours.

I’d like to take this a bit further. The Christian traditions which place a lot of emphasis on the sacraments might want to emphasise the idea of the bread and wine of Holy Communion offering spiritual food freely and to all (I’m not sure how they’d fit milk into their thinking!). I can understand this point of view, but we need to remember that Isaiah was writing several centuries before the time of Jesus so knew nothing of the symbolism which he brought to the Passover meal which Christians now call the Last Supper. What I think we can say, however, is that God offers sustenance to his people from his Word, the Scriptures; for instance the writer of Psalm 119 talks of God’s words being “sweeter than honey” in his mouth.

This parallels with the thoughts of other Old Testament prophets: so Ezekiel has a vision of God giving him a scroll which he is then told to eat, while Amos warns of the famine which will arise when God withdraws his Word: people will desperately run to and fro, seeking but never finding it. This is a calamity of the first order: as we’ve seen in the last few days, people may be amazing at providing emergency relief for those who are physically hungry; but have they (or we) risen up to offer the spiritual solace and nourishment which are also needed? I visited Glenwood Church earlier this week and was impressed by the way they’re seeking to care for both people’s bodies and spirits in an area of deprivation and poverty.

But I think there is still more here. For we’re being encouraged to think about what’s really important in life, what are our priorities. And while we all want to be warm and well-fed and safe – I’d go as far as to say those are fundamental human rights, although a distant dream for so many – I wonder how much more than that we should expect from life? Clearly none of us is looking to buy an oligarch-sized superyacht, nor a multimillion-pound mansion in Mayfair, nor have a garage stuffed with Ferraris and Lamborghinis (one is quite enough), nevertheless the vast majority of us, including me, do hope for more than just a “basic” lifestyle. Indeed, items which our parents or grandparents would have called luxuries – a fridge, a washing machine, a television, fitted carpets, central heating, a telephone – have now become necessities; not to mention other things which they never could have imagined, such as as home computers. Those things aren’t bad: but listing them does show that we’re spending our money on more than just bread, milk and wine, the basics of life in Isaiah’s day and long after.

So perhaps we need to start thinking of the choices we can make in today’s world. Is God inviting us to make healthy choices for own own souls, selecting things that give life and rejecting those that do not nourish? Is he inviting us to choose good, healthy foods such as fruits, vegetables and grains rather than processed and packaged items with unpronounceable ingredients which have been developed more for their profitability than their nutritional value? Is he asking us to think carefully about the ways in which our desire for cheap or exotic foods have distorted farming in the developing world, leading already-poor people to depend on expensive imports? In total, does this passage confound the logic of our consumer economies and call the world to a new way of thinking about commerce and trade – for, if God the market owner is going to call everyone to buy without paying, won’t those who make money from selling things soon go bankrupt?

Well, we can’t do much about these big issues. But, in this season of Lent, perhaps we can think afresh about our priorities in life, in particular the choices we make in food, drink and the other things we buy. I know we can tie ourselves in knots looking at products on the supermarket shelf and weighing up the benefits of Fair Trade, organic production, plastic packaging, food miles and the rest of it: things used to be easier when we just went into the greengrocer and asked for a few pounds of white potatoes! Perhaps we ought to think more carefully before splashing out on consumer goods: do we really need to upgrade our computer or phone, what’s the real motive for trading in our car for a newer model, can’t I live without that latest gadget for the kitchen? And there are choices to be made about less tangible things, such as holidays: my parents were happy with a week in Porthcawl or Tenby, so do I really need to go to Thailand or (the real) Barbados? How much should Christians be sticking to the basics and denying themselves for the sake of God’s world? We’ll all have different answers, but at least we should think.

God wants us to delight in his bounty. But he doesn’t want us to pay over the odds for it. So let’s make careful and wise choices: so we may enjoy the rich fare he freely offers, never taking it, or him, for granted.