LISTSERV 16.0 - HUNGERSERMONSTARTERS Archives

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!

Holy Trinity Sunday! At once an exclamation about the Trinity and also an expression of possible exasperation, “Holy Trinity!” comes to my mind as I imagine you saying to yourself, “And what am I going to preach about on this Sunday, especially if someone comes to church with ‘So what?’ on their mind?” What I offer here are my hopes that you’ll preach well on this Sunday, answering the needs and hopes of your parishioners. “So what” indeed! Holy Trinity in deed!

· Whoever “Wisdom” is – a subject in its own right! – the work of this supernatural being or quality of God is foundational. Pillars, the canopy, the basic framework of creation is set up like the tent in which a wonderful circus will perform.

· At this time of year, the God of creation – and the accompanying Wisdom -- stares out at us with wonder at our sometimes stupid understanding of the created world.

· How are we wise enough to be “with God and with the creation” in our daily living? How do we build wisely on the foundations? How much do we tear them down? (Pollution tears down, sustaining actions build up.)

· If we presume that our supposed godliness requires responsibility towards the inhabitants of creation, how can we countenance the degradation of the environment that feeds them, that destruction largely brought about by our own lifestyles? (Do a carbon usage analysis?)

· Background: The gittih could be an eight-stringed instrument, a specific harp that David brought from Gath (a Philistine city) or a form or style of music. A fun word.

· Why get out special music or instruments on this day? Creation is praise-worthy, and so is the God who made it all! God is here with us today!

· As you worship this morning, millions of other people around the world are thinking the same thing: Wow! Let’s praise God, if only because all of creation is a wonder. Crops grow, our lives are sustained, these really cool creatures give us food and delight, we breathe and we discover beauty. At this moment, we are part of a very, very large choir that praises God about God’s creation. God watches and is pleased.

· The details are important: Look what the psalmist sings about – on his gittith or in a gittithish manner – and you can find elements of creation that sustain life. God sings along.

· That’s what we do together in the ELCA Hunger Program: Praise God – with gifts, with daily life, with mutual encouragement – because creation sustains life everywhere. We participate in God’s work in preserving the creation, if only by reminding each other about God’s awesome nature. And the awesome nature God has created. God blushes, but accepts our praise. God likes gittithy praise.

· At this moment of worship, millions of people are praising God even though they’re smack-dab in the middle of hardship, oppression, suffering beyond words.

· God is at work, sleeves rolled up and dispensing love and favor as quickly and assuredly as the suffering that drives millions of people towards God-centered hope.

· We who sometimes think ourselves gods can falsely see ourselves as the center of our own hope. Not so for people who will eat nothing today, or earn less than $1.00.

· We work alongside God, wisely and with great effect, through the ELCA Hunger Program and its many international partners. The ELCA Hunger and Disaster Appeal funds that godly work, but God makes it effective.

· Many current writers --- Anne Lamott, Al Gore, Anne Basye, you – have noted that we live in a world in which “full truth” is sometimes lacking.

· One ugly reality: A higher-than-tolerable percentage of the world’s people will not eat anything this day. They suffer from disease, famine and neglect.

· Another: By our economic decisions – about “our way of life” – we determine how the world’s economies will play out: who will grow, produce or manufacture what, who will consume and who will most greatly benefit.

· What to do? Confess that we are NOT gods and rarely godly. That we are culpable in the lies that weave together to keep truth at bay. That we fail to seek or to listen to God’s truth, God’s judgment, God’s promises. That we can as easily be part of the solutions to hunger as we are easily the causes.

· What to do? We can insist and persevere in hard-questions, deeper truth-digging, soul-searching, accountability. Not just to elected officials, but in our families and friendships and natural encounters with co-workers, bosses, decision-makers whom we know.

· Part of the whole truth: We are sinners, all of us. Another: We are beggars, all of us. Still another: We are forgiven sinners, all of us. Last: We are blessed, gifted and commissioned stewards, all of us.

1. There’s this wonderful children’s song, “All God’s Creatures Got a Place in the Choir”, that pretty well describes Psalm 8. Sing it with kids, bring out a panoply of creaturely puppets to sing along and talk about their contributions to the created world. Have fun praising God about the wonders of creation.

2. Find a “gittith” from today’s world – an autoharp, a mouth harp, a harp! – that children may not know very well. (Others: A gourd, an ocarina, an instrument from another land) Make some kind of “music” as though praising God. After the laughter dies down, offer this observation: Each of the children is also a “strange instrument” of praise to God. Somewhere, though, God hears this music and is delighted. Part of the audience, too: People in other parts of the world who want to praise God alongside of us. With their voices and their instruments. Including kids who are hungry and live in danger. What would be “music” to them? What would it take for their lives to be happy and joyful?

3. You can easily find songs of praise from other lands – the new Evangelical Worship does a good job here – and teach them to children. Maybe some old, old songs. Maybe some songs of lament, too, in keeping with the “suffering” thoughts of the Second Reading. Talk about the words and the reasons for praising God. The question: How do we partner with this Holy and Triune God?

4. Hand out work-themed clothing that kids can put on. Hard hats, gloves, tools, protective gear, nail pouches, etc. The reason: “Getting dressed for God’s work.” If you theme this work toward hunger and justice, include items related to food-production. The story: God goes to work every day, wanting to keep people safe, keep them fed, keep them able to take care of their health and well-being. Through the ELCA Hunger Appeal, we make that kind of work possible in other lands. Other places and situations. All of them places where God goes to work!

1. This would be a good day to connect the truth that God is holy and Triune with the matters of environmental care and sensibility. Without devolving into a whining or moaning session – about the degradation of the environment or global warming – talk together about the ways in which this church (your congregation, too) works at getting at environmental matters that ultimately benefit the world’s poor. Consult the ELCA Hunger Web site for starters or starter stories.

3. Get at “praising the Triune God” in a slightly different way, based on the Proverbs and Psalm texts: For what do you praise God this way, and how are you joined in similar praise with the rest of the people of God around the world?

4. Think together about this question: How wonder-causing and awe-inspiring is the fact that God is Three Persons in one God? (Think of the separate-but-joined functions of the Godhead.)

Truth be, I’m pleased to be one of God’s people today. One of the folks who, like you, have just enough people around me who pay attention when I tell the truth about this wonderful God we serve. Privileged, too, in being a leader. (You’re a leader if anyone pays attention to you.) Privileged and blessed today, I wish the same on you and your preaching.

· The psalmist states biological fact: In the morning we wake with our brains reset – the possible function of sleep and dreams – and ready for what will face us. Unless otherwise predisposed, our default position is positive, joyful and willing.

· Reading Psalm 30 I got to thinking about all the people in the world who will go to sleep crying, some lacking the ability to shed tears. And then I thought about how many of them would be physically able to find “joy in the morning.” Not many, I worry.

· Two directions to go here: Thinking about how we can bring “joy in the morning” for these people AND how we can avoid the temptation to worry or despair about the state of the world.

· How DID your sermon hearers wake up this morning, in regard to the problems of hunger and injustice? Sorrowing or dancing? Wearing sackcloth or with flowers in their hair?

· What would it take for your congregation to bring joy in the morning to folks who are poor and live nearby? Faraway? What if you showed up some morning to give them joy?

· (I volunteer at a homeless shelter, and have the privilege of waking up “the working poor” who get up at about 4:30 AM to catch trains and ride their bikes to low-wage jobs. Sometimes I think of myself as one of the night-shift angels who help protect them, and sometimes I think of myself and the other volunteers as the bringers of morning joy. Even if it’s just a cup of coffee before breakfast and a respectful and hopeful morning conversation.)

· The writer of Psalm 30 – strange that it’s written for the dedication of the Temple building process, hmm? – recalls his vacillating between joy and sorrow, between death and life.

· One way to think of this matter is to think of joy as being embedded inside of mourning. While we sorrow, we also praise God. While we grieve the loss of loved ones, we joy in their release from suffering.

· God gets the economy of which David speaks in verses 8-10: What good does it do if God’s people are ground into the dust and dead? God gets this transaction very well, not because God needs our praise or our work but because God loves us dearly. Poor people as well.

· So where’s the joy in our mourning over the prevalence of hunger and injustice in parts of the world? Our grieving over the loss of life in Iraq, including not just soldiers but innocent non-combatants – where’s the joy embedded in that mourning? Where’s the economy of God (the plan and will of God) in these matters?

· Perhaps it’s in our reactions to the mourning, our dedicating our lives – the temples of God’s Spirit – anew. Our redoubling our efforts to praise and serve the God of life, not death. Perhaps even the building of real temples – institutions, programs, buildings, organizations – that fight sorrow, death, and destruction.

· Ready to do that? Ready to admit that your congregation already does that? Yep, the Hunger Program of this church – along with visible and invisible partners and our ecumenical counterparts – mourns along with poor people. But we’re also working together to find the joy in this mission, too, and to praise God for that opportunity to offer life to people.

· In the Second Reading, Paul offers a slightly different resume than in his other letters. Here Paul talks less about religious heritage and more about where he’s been.

· The great good Paul offers to the early church is that wealth of experience past the small-mindedness of some other church leaders, the ones who were provincial or parochial in their view of God’s will.

· And you? Your congregation? Who knows the world well, and who has seen God’s action in places other than the four walls of your church? How do you honor their wisdom, by accepting it or learning from it?

· What would it take for your congregation to know and love people in other parts of the world, past pity and past paternalism? How are you already doing this?

· No, this isn’t a commercial; it’s a testimonial just like Paul’s: I know much better God’s will for the world when I know much better the people whom God loves. I’ve met lots of them at the Global Mission event. I have lots to tell. Lots to learn.

· Both Elijah and Jesus make short shrift of this grave condition: healing/resurrection is immediate. No messing around, no teaching, no mourning. Just quick action.

· Who’s bringing those kids back to life? You and your congregation are! Kids about to die of starvation, kids dehydrated down to nothing, kids hiding from marauding soldiers, kids who have no place to live and no one to take care of them – they’re given new life (or taken back from the brink of death) by the work of the ELCA Hunger Program.

· Offerings to the ELCA Hunger Appeal enable the ELCA and its international partners to install, operate and maintain programs that keep children from dying. Almost anywhere in the world you can name, including here in this country.

1. Find and tell stories of children being brought back to liveliness by the work of the Hunger Program. A program itself made lively by the example and words of Jesus. (You just received your Summer Hunger Packet, so should be able to find some stories in there, yes?) The Hunger Web Site is always helpful, too: www.elca.org/hunger.

2. For a few weeks in a row, read some children’s literature from Africa – yes, the library is the place to find these, or good bookstores. Not just fables, but stories that African’s might tell each other. The point: We can learn valuable lessons about life from people in other countries.

3. Talk about pajamas with kids. (Find and bring along some examples.) Look at the messages that you find on these pajamas, and think about how most of them are intended to bring joy in the morning. (You knew I was going there, right?) Now talk about other clothing that gives joy. And think together how the children and you might provide clothing for people who want to find joy. People who are homeless, people in other lands – No, please do NOT send actual clothing because it mildews and rots in shipping containers.

4. Try a “citizens of the world” exercise with the children and others who may be listening while you talk together. Show the children a globe and muse about how good it is that God loves the whole world. Then ask for a show of hands as you continue musing – the word for today – about who among the children or in the congregation might have lived in or visited various places in the world. Encourage children _- and adults, too – to find these world travelers and ask each other how and what they learned from the people they met in these places. Big Question: Did they meet Jesus in any of these people? Big Answer: I hope so.

1. The stories of the loss of sons – could have been daughters, too – in the First Reading and the Gospel calls to mind the daily/hourly loss of children to people who are poor. Consider these two texts from the viewpoint of the women who have lost their children to death. What are the short- and long-term consequences of these deaths? What about poor widows who have lost everything in today’s world? What’s it like for them? What can we do about this? How could we stop those deaths from happening in the first place?

2. Psalm 30 is really about someone who has escaped certain death. This is a thankful person, to be sure, but also a reflective person. How might the participants in this conversation quietly reflect on their own experiences of rescue from death? You might try role-playing each of the verses in this psalm from the viewpoint of a grandmother in Africa who children have all died of AIDS and who is now raising her grandchildren single-handedly. You might also spend a good share of the session together in specific prayers for women in the world who today will face this prospect – or perhaps this rescue.

3. I’m struck by Paul’s meticulous description of his life experiences in the Galatians text. (The description actually includes some of the verses following this lectionary.) How long did it take him, living in all these places and meeting all these people, to become Paul the Missionary? And why all the non-Jewish places? A correlated thought: How might the life experiences of conversants be accumulating at this moment toward some greater task, role or mission for their lives? Go ahead and ask the question – some folks may have been waiting for a long time to talk about that prospect.

As I write this, it’s a bright Spring day in Chicago. Hope surrounds me – I office among the Hunger Program folks – and I am excited about this day’s possibilities. As I exult, though, I am cognizant of my colleagues and other Christians half-way around the world who are at this moment wrestling with very real sorrows, mourning very real losses, wondering where they’re going to find joy, whether in the morning and any time. I pray for them now, confident that God is working through me, through you, through them. It’s good to have a God like this, isn’t it?