The lessons for each Sunday in the church year proclaim God’s grace in Jesus Christ. Also derived from a Sunday’s texts are lessons for the Christ-inspired and Christ-like life of God’s people. The comments here will help you find hunger-related threads – sermon starters – among the themes of this day’s texts. (We're presuming you have already done your exegetical work on the texts.) God bless your proclamation (and teaching) of what is most certainly true!

· What causes hunger – that’s a matter for consideration by God’s people as well. (The story about “who’s throwing the babies into the river” comes to mind.)

· One of the causes of hunger in other places is likely our consumptive lifestyles here. It works this way: What the people of the richest country in the world want – food, clothing, toys – is what the rest of the world will produce. No matter what the rest of the world really needs. (So a farmer in Africa may forego planting food for his family in order to grow cotton for clothing, no matter that she has no control over the price she will be paid.)

· Another cause for growing economic problems: The food consumption habits of people in the United States. For example: when diabetes and heart disease begin to invade the lives of larger segments of the population, when a growing number of children are obese – then the economic fortune of the country shifts towards repairing and reclaiming these lives, with increasing costs taking priority away from other important matters.

· Whereas most of the world eats to live, many of us live to eat. And by so doing, we fit Paul’s description of people who have made their own stomachs into idols that demand increased food offerings.

· How can you approach this sinfulness in your congregation, which may include a fair number of overweight or obese people who are otherwise faithful followers of Jesus? Maybe even yourself?

· Jesus ministry to the poor may have bothered the belly-gods of his day, starting with the Herods and moving into the circles of the religious elite.

· This psalm could easily describe the work of relief and development workers for non-governmental agencies – like Lutheran World Relief or Lutheran World Federation – in many countries of the world. Doing justice doesn’t guarantee friends.

· Yet the tent protects; a thin-walled traveling church is where God lives – for folks writing before the Temple cult takes over Judaism – and in that place there is safety.

· Churches protect people from their enemies, and your congregation may be a knowing or unknowing refuge for those who are attacked by others because of their righteousness. Your members provide counsel and friendship for people whose lonely battles against evil sometimes leave them vulnerable. Your programs and sermons can provide wisdom for those beset behind and before by the back-talk of naysayers or worse.

· One of the strangest lessons in all of the Old Testament, today’s first reading portrays a God who assures one faithful follower of bountiful blessings.

· At this moment, in thousands of other places in the world, herdspeople like Abram face their God in the same way, wondering what will become of them, long-term. Not just their good name and their economic legacy, but also their values and their hopes. Fisherpeople in Indonesia, fish-farmers in Africa, fishery workers in Asia – these folks come to God empty-handed, and they find God’s promises kept. How? You betcha! The work of Lutherans around the world, in relief and development programs that assure more than “a fish for today” or even the skill of fishing, but that offer the title to the pond and an abundant water supply as well. Your gifts to the ELCA World Hunger Appeal give shape to the promises God makes to contemporary Abrams.

· Today tell stories of the faithfulness of God’s people – starting with your congregation and moving into the wider church here and throughout the world.

· When it comes to hunger and justice, those stories are inspiring – tear-inspiring, I would say – and so worthy of our consideration, mostly as evidences of God’s own tearful faithfulness to us in Jesus.

1. If your congregation conducts a canned food drive – not the best thing for food cupboards, but it’s a start for some folks – you might talk with children today about the matter of “food offerings.” Pretend to give your own stomach “an offering” of some kind of canned food. Or pile up the cans and boxes of food in front of another child’s stomach. (You can set the scene how you wish, but a nicely decorated table could serve as faux altar for this lesson.) Contrast this semi-silly scene – using the Philippians text? – with the idea of offering food to a food cupboard as an offering to God’s own self.

2. If you understand the cultural context of the Genesis text, re-enact it with blessings that aren’t dissected animal parts. Think of clothing, bedding, medicines, food packages, even toys. Work the “blessed to be a blessing” feature of God’s complete covenant with Abram, asking children what might become of the items that have been used in the re-enactment.

3. Talk with children about sticking to their values in the face of detractors. Ask them to tell stories about how when they’ve tried to do the right thing they’ve been the subject of verbal or physical abuse, and how they’ve questioned whether to keep on keeping on. Listen carefully to the story starters and use the time to assure children that being faithful is what they’re called to do, and that God will ultimately protect them.

1. The Philippians text begs consideration of this matter: How much are any of us conformed to a view of the world that’s not godly, but merely about our own wellbeing? How can we determine if that’s true, and how do we correct that matter?

2. If participants are able to be honest – about themselves and others – and do so in a respectful way, spend time on the concept of “whose god is their belly.” Think together about how this congregation promotes gluttony or over-eating, or how any of us shamefully overlooks this problem in ourselves or those around us. Is “fat” forgiveable? And is it always sinful? How do we strengthen each other’s resolve to avoid the stuffing and chomping that we mistake for “eating?” For what shall we pray?

3. We’ve talked together before about “being the only one” who was working towards justice. Today’s psalm raises up the subject again, with similar thoughts:

4. Aside from its deterministic, nearly Zionistic features, the OT lesson does get at the idea of God’s abundance. When it comes to combating hunger, we can find it difficult to give of ourselves if we live within a mindset of scarcity. This text begs questions about this matter:

I’m the descendant of people for whom “land in the Sierras” is a wonderful legacy. Although semi-desert in its characteristics, our family’s property has always been a place of refuge for weary people of God, travelers and hikers and family members who want to find the blessing of quiet thought in the middle of creation’s beauty. I understand how God protects by the thinnest of fabrics – an old cabin – and in a thousand miraculous ways. I wish the same for all God’s people, and in this work commit myself to bringing safety and security to people for whom today may be only horrific and dangerous. It’s a good work, and one blessed by your partnership!

· In the great economy of God – God’s enfolding and unfolding will for the world – the choice between sustaining and destroying seems to be held in eternal tension.

· In another sense, only the vineyard owner gets to choose whether supposed performance makes any difference. Manure or the printer’s axe – not the choice of the plant or people.

· In the great economy of God – to be efficient and effective – none of us stands a chance of earning our rewards for productive or useful lives. And yet, our deeds either match God’s plan for the world -- food available for all -- or our own sense of productivity, leaves and branches available for none.

· If fruit is to be shared or have utility for all the world, and if branches and leaves benefit only the plant itself, it may then be true that our lives are measured by our capability to feed others, not only ourselves.

· Whether we are fed in order to feed, or pruned in order to be fuel – these are our choices. God’s will remains constant: That the world will be fed by God’s fig tree people.

· God’s wishes and God’s actions predispose God’s people toward equitable – fair/just – availability of life’s basic resources. Partiality is not God’s way.

· We can easily live in perpetually clueless existences – chasing what’s not important – if we remain bound by the evil and self-destructive ways of living that are not “higher” – commanded or invited by God.

· Repentance – turning – is an option, a possibility, a redemptive act to which God invites our inner beings. We are not the perpetual victims of biological addictions – to shameless acts, to evil, to selfishness, to willful ignorance of others’ rights.

· Yielding to temptations presupposes that we are the victims of our own idolatry, governed by the pleasure-seeking – and addiction-prone – parts of our brains.

· The temptations to become self-made gods – and therefore supremely deserving of everything we get and everything we want – are as old as time itself. So are the possibilities of strong avoidance and resistance of those temptations.

· We are, as always, what we eat, what we see, what we do. The more we engage in behaviors that are not of God’s own will, the more we become ungodly.

· The first step to solving the world’s increasing problems – hunger, disease, war, rapacious consumption of the world’s resources – is to throw off our idolatry. (Luther’s notion: The first commandment is, in some ways, the only commandment – or at least the primary one.)

· Destruction or life – God’s invitation is to the latter. So God’s gifts equip us for selfless acts of service to those who God loves as surely as us.

1. I don’t know if it’s possible, but could you “feed and water everyone” attending your worship services for this day? Could there be a potluck associated with the worship service, or a free meal for everyone in the community? Perhaps the possibility becomes a “what if?” story that you tell. Perhaps you note your congregation’s service to your community’s deepest needs.

2. Tell stories to children about how the ELCA World Hunger Appeal feeds the world – through partner agencies and ongoing relief and development programs – so that the “everyone” in the Isaiah 55 text becomes a literal reality. Use a world map or large globe as you tell stories. (Check your most recent packet of hunger resources or the ELCA Hunger Program Web site for details – www.elca.org/hunger.

3. A mirror makes a good idol-finder. Could you tell a story or find a fable/myth from earlier tmes or other cultures, in which someone thought themselves to be a kind of minor God? (The wicked stepmother of Snow White comes to mind.) If nothing else, use the mirror – and a puppet? – to portray someone so enmeshed in his or her self-care or self-appreciation that he or she neglects the feeding of the poor.

4. This might be a good set of texts to help children their responsibilities – and privileges – to be productive people of God. (NOT to earn or deserve God’s favor, but as response to God’s invitation and God’s blessing!) Fig trees don’t tell the Owner how to behave!

5. Retell the Gospel from the viewpoint of the fig tree, who comes to understand that figs are for others, while “nice leaves” are just for the fig tree’s benefit. So, too, our own lives. (In the end, the fig tree learns the lesson and so understands God’s desires.)

1. The texts for this day are rooted in a deeper understanding of the idolatries of God’s people as they moved toward the Promised Land. A gradual and painful experience of maturity from selfish and self-aggrandizing attitudes and behaviors towards their eventual understand that their covenant with a loving God required them to understand their responsibility to the worlds around them.

2. The “everyone” in the Isaiah 55 text can be unpacked carefully with questions about equitable distribution of food and water in the world, or the opposite. (How can such a small minority of the world’s population justify using so much of the planet’s resources?)

3. The matter of “wasteful living” is more than details of re-use and recycling. In the Isaiah the text, strong hints are included about the “higher ways” of God, as well as the dissatisfaction of pursuing empty-shell lifestyles. Talk together about your own answers to the Isaiah 55 questions. (See Isaiah 55:2.)

4. Paul warns the Corinthians about “shameful acts” (Contemporary English Version). Look at the Greek derivatives for this term as you ask participants to describe what might be shameful about any idolatry, including self-idolatry.

5. The premises of idolatry are that the gifts given to the idol – usually tangible elements of life like food and wine and crops and artifacts – put the giver in the enviable position of being rewarded. When it comes to eating and drinking and consuming the Earth’s resources, how do we feed the idols that are ourselves?

6. (Remember that for the Old and New Testament writers, idolatry was made tangible by the major enterprises of their cultures. Thus the punishments for idolatry accrue to whole societies, not just individuals.)

7. Consider this possibility: As we feed, clothe, heal, protect, visit or walk alongside the people of the world, we increase our capability to become our own idols. Thus the Hunger Program of this church body provides a way out of self-destructive behaviors that invite God’s eventual punishment. We give away our lives to gain them – or we gain our lives as we give them away.

I’m writing this while airplane-speeding back to my home in Illinois – from a visit with my frail parents, who will always exemplify generosity. High above the snowy plains of this fair land I can see how easily this gifted country can continue to be part of God’s will that the whole world be fed. I imagine in the thousands of towns below me the faithful people of God – among them the saints who occupy your congregation’s pews – who make possible what God promises: A world where everyone can be fed. What a premise and what a promise!