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!

· In the first lesson, the Deuteronomist gets just a little silly --- now THERE’S a word picture! – as he pretends that someone can’t fathom obeying the commandments because they’re too far away or too unreachable.

· It’s equally silly to think that all of us can hide behind Gospel and grace, relishing our freedom like a good meal, burping our way toward somnolence while professing deep gratitude to those who provided and served the meal.

· Starting with our own lives, we obey and do what we’re told. Why? Because this Teller knows more than we do, because we are still not minor gods come to Earth to write our own commandment tickets. God loves these people who are starving for their rights, their children, their wellbeing -- and this God is not pleased at all with our disobediences.

· “Life journey” imagery might suggest that the Psalmist” version of “path” has to do with our sense of ultimate guidance toward a desired end, about choosing how we will serve, about not straying, about following someone else down a life course already determined or at least scouted.

· “Paths as habits” also takes us toward something important: The idea that we build our paths by our behaviors. Our habits compel us, and we need to be honest about those that lead to destruction or futility, and those that lead to dynamic living.

· When it comes to hunger and justice, it seems to me that there are only two major highways or two major sets of habits: One highway/set is about the near-idolatry of taking care of Number One; the other highway/set is about giving our lives away for the sake of others.

· Please understand my deep appreciation for your personal and congregational participation in the funding of the ELCA World Hunger Program through the ELCA World Hunger and Disaster Appeal. You have other choices, but you’ve chosen to be part of this specific way of doing God’s will.

· You have my admiration as you try to discern what is God’s will for your life, your leadership, the way you live out your faith every day of your life. You could ignore this whole God-rules thing and just soak up beer or goodies while burping your way through life.

· I thank God when I think of you because I know your life changes the lives of others. I can’t do that from this computer (now perched on my lap at home on a steamy Friday night in Wheaton, IL.) Without you doing your good and godly work, I’m just another bureaucrat and our thanking together is just self-congratulatory institutional apple polishing. You help God change the world, and so I thank you.

· I’m struck – I say that a lot because it’s true a lot when I get surprised by what pops out of God’s Word right into my amygdala – by the idea sloshing around in today’s texts that we can pray for each other. In gratitude, mostly, but also in acknowledgment and appreciation. We can hold each other in prayer, tagging along in each other’s lives, imagining ourselves into daily routines that we share as blessings from God.

· Think of it: Five million of we Lutherans here in this country, another 63+ million scattered around the world. Growing churches, historic churches. Lives changed, nations held together, forgiveness embedded into constitutions, mercy and justice poured into the lives of people with great needs and great capabilities. Way over 1 million volunteer hours contributed to disaster relief in the Gulf Coast, worth about $20 million in wages, were that kind of help to be paid in wages and benefits.

· More: Every day your congregation members go to work, serving God in ways that cut evil into little pieces, defend the weak, offer help in silent-but-effective ways, preserve the environment and please God as only God can be pleased. More than points of light, these lively ministers in daily life turn the world right-side up, towards God’s will.

· You have leaders and “ordinary workers” in your congregation; some of your folks exercise considerable power, most lead by example and daily witness. They don’t like injustice and they say so. They put their (God’s) money where their mouths are. They muscle up to hard work on behalf of God’s mission. They believe what you proclaim and make it come to life in their daily deeds of mercy, truth-telling and facing down evil.

· So how do we pray in those circumstances, especially when we fit “hunger ministries” into the picture? We gush out prayers of thanks. “Every time I think of you” shows up here, probably as literally as it does in Philippians.

· Like love-struck companions, we can’t get each other out of our minds. Like merciful and loving parents, we can’t get out of our heads our family members around the world. Like memory storehouses, we can’t ever forget what good things happen in the world because of the people for whom we pray/gush.

· Okay, okay, this is the part where the Gospel is way-too obvious, and you already know that sermon and so do your people. And it’s a good one to preach. But if you want to push at some things a little more weirdly – sometimes my middle name here in these Starters – let’s revisit our good friends in this mind-boggling parable of Jesus. Follow along, please . . .

· The guy on the road had been robbed. Brigands populated that stretch of the road, and travelers were fair game. This is not just flat-tire time. The Good Samaritan is helping someone in physical and economic duress. Our Helper Man is up against some industrial strength problems. He applies industrial strength solutions. Not unlike how we help diminish the problems that poor folks face today, all over the road.

· In the foreground of this parable, we’re talking about what’s clean and what’s unclean. About what contaminates people and possibly makes them sick. I’m not talking about tainted hamburger. In this parable, very pious folks have to wrestle with the possibility that the core of their spirituality or their livelihood will be ruined by one act of mercy. Perhaps their identity? The Samaritan steps over that question with his stooping down and picking up.

· This may be like what happens when we get mixed into the lives of people who are poor. Our well-scrubbed sense of spiritual wholeness suddenly gets messed up, our identities come unraveled when we see injustices around the world intertwined with the very economic systems that benefit us. Staying clean, staying pious, staying devoted to God – all these could be at risk when we walk alongside of – or learn from – the world’s poorest people.

· It’s possible that the “road down to Jericho” was the road “away from Jerusalem,” meaning that these religious professionals were on their way to a well-deserved R&R at the priestly retreat house down in Old Jericho. Dates and figs, warmth, the river, no prying eyes, a vacation – it’s possible that what kept our walking-by friends trucking was their weariness in well-doing or their heading for deserved pleasures.

· Not unlike what may happen when we see people who are poor. We’re tired, we’re looking forward to having some well-deserved fun, we want to keep life from becoming dull and brutish – so we eliminate poor folks from our vision in order to preserve some small scrap of enjoyment in life. The poor, you see, are capable of dragging us down.

· Check this out to see if I did my homework: The Samaritan may have been despised for his ancestors’ ancient apostasy or land-grabbing at the time of the Return from the Exile; he was also probably a guy whose racial profile was not exactly Jewish. Could he have been an Arab or some other supposed interloper in the supposed “holy” land? And who would this guy be today?

1. With children, re-enact the Good Samaritan story. Some children can be robbers, some the person(s) robbed. The Samaritans might turn into a whole group of folks. What if you made your whole sanctuary the setting for the story, moving from the scene of the crime to the scene of the kindness to the inn, and perhaps back to Jesus and the Guy With the Tricky Question. Move the story quickly, perhaps “interviewing” the characters about the reasons for their actions.

2. Pretend that your sanctuary consists of a series of paths – the aisles? – and that children are heading down paths toward doing what is right regarding people who are poor. There are dead-end paths, circular paths and “the right path.” Have guides along the way to the right path. Reference or read aloud the psalm as a background.

3. Perhaps you’ve done this before, but it’s a good activity/experience to repeat. “Pray the world” by bringing a large globe or large map into children’s vision. Using stories from the ELCA World Hunger packet – it came to your congregation about two weeks ago – spotlight the place in the world where the stories take place and involve the whole congregation in instant prayer for the people involved in the stories. HINT: Don’t make all the stories about how WE are always Good Samaritans and THEY are always needy.

1. Explore a little more this dialectic between pleasure and duty when it comes to helping those who are poor. How do pleasure and duty compel us to be helpful, and how do they keep us away from helping others? Imagine yourselves into the minds of contemporary priests and Levites trying to discern the spiritual or identity costs involved in being mindful, helpful and respectful of people who are poor. What are the spiritual or identity costs when we do NOT engage people who are poor in any way, or in merely paternalistic ways?

2. Use Bible Conversation time as an experience or training time in either “praying the world” or “praying the newspaper.” Find stories – see No.3 above – or headlines in the newspaper. Make your prayers specific and focused on God’s action. Try silent prayer, breathing prayers, prayer starters. HINT: Don’t make all your prayers about “them” as though everyone is so poor and we are so helpful. What can we learn from the example of people in other parts of the world? What do we need to confess?

3. Here’s the start for an interesting time of sharing: What would be participants’ response if this congregation announced – on good authority and with some teeth in the announcement – that all congregation members would now be required to submit to a helping-others fund the amount of $1000 per family or 3% of family income, whichever was the highest amount? And to make the matter even more interesting, the same announcement also outlined a weekly requirement for at least one significant helpful encounter with a person who is poor? Ask participants their reactions AND the reasons for those reactions. Reference the Deuteronomy text as the discussion/sharing progresses.

You can probably hear them right through the phone lines: gazillions of 17-year cicadas that have hatched in the past four weeks, buzzing and vibrating their ecstatic invitations to others for a wonderful fling before it all ends pretty soon. Even if you can’t hear them, you can probably imagine along with me what it might feel like to live underground, eating roots for seventeen years, then having a one-month above-ground, flying-in-the-sun, pleasure-filled vacation before collapsing onto the sidewalk or turning into squirrel food. I don’t know if you can understand this, but sometimes I think I understand their lives. I am curious if there are any Good Cicadas among all the noisy ones, helping out their injured fellow tree-climbers. I also wonder whether anyone in this part of the country is working “cicada-like” into this week’s sermon . . . . .

· This theme reveals kindly disposition in both the First Reading and the Gospel. “Hospitality” is worthy exploring in our culture, in which “visiting folks at their homes” continues to be non-existent or difficult. For example, do you know a congregation that does every-member visits as part of any of its programs, or anyone who does door-to-door anything (except the Jehovah’s Witnesses?).

· Note that the hospitality in both these instances takes place rather quickly. The strangers and Jesus must be welcomed well, and so food is prepared, the day’s routines come to a halt, people gather around the visitors. Hospitality equals “stop what you’re doing.”

· The feeling you get from these stories – and those of guests who are welcomed in other world cultures today – is being made to feel special, honored, even privileged by virtue of the actions of one’s hosts. If you’ve traveled to other lands, you probably have those kinds of stories enshrined in your own heart.

· At its heart, hospitality mirrors God’s own attitude about us. Even though we are strangers – to God’s way of thinking and being -- we are still welcome at the feasts God prepares. We are treated kindly and given a place of respect, even though we might not deserve it. Trust and generosity flow in our direction; we are supported and soothed by kindnesses we don’t expect.

· To keep this simple, I think the lessons of today enjoin us to hospitality – giving it and receiving it. And from the viewpoint of “accompaniment” theology/philosophy, we can learn from those in other cultures how to be hospitable past politeness and despite inconvenience.

· One of the most difficult elements of hunger ministry – personal or in a congregation – is the match between espoused values and actual behaviors. We can say we believe that hunger is a travesty but behave as though it’s okay for hunger to always be with us. We can think of ourselves as strongly committed to peace and justice in all the worlds, but waver in that resolve when it means our job, or our kids’ futures. I’m in the same boat with you when it comes to the possibility that my integrity quotients aren’t as high as I’d like.

· I think this is the hardest part of hunger ministry, in our individual lives and together as God’s people. We somehow find it easier to push a little bit of money at problems without also thwarting the evil that starts the problem in the first place. Speaking up, standing up, turning up when we say we will. Keeping our promises to the people we’ve met in other places; showing our children a righteous example; doing what’s right regardless of the consequences.

· We have to call each other to accountability when we don’t measure up to our professed values. This is not a negative thing, this accountability, because if we truly want to act in ways that are consonant with the deepest identities, then we can thank those that ask us to be consistent, to hold fast to what we believe and what we do.

· One place to keep at this: our lifestyles. If Western lifestyles are at the core of the causes for hunger and poverty, then a primary place to practice integrity is in our daily living, especially in the choices we make with regards to attention, time and money.

· Think of it: We conserve and save things that are beautiful, scenic, wonderful and even necessary for our survival. But if Christ is both creator and -- elsewhere in the Scriptures --redeemer, then he is willing and capable of bringing back, buying back, saving what is otherwise perceived as unredeemable, worthless and even dangerous.

· So our God participates with us in the hard work of reclaiming nuclear waste, rivers and lakes drained dry, depleted fisheries, land rendered useless by overuse, even people crowded together in unlivable circumstance. Christ of the slums, of the dried lake bed, the chemical dumping ground, the burned forest. Christ present in recycler, chemist, nuclear engineer, politician, environmental activist, fish biologist.

· As Lutheran Christians, we participate in that kind of work in places where deforestation is threatening plant and human life. (As an example, play around at www.elca.org/openaworld and see the places where Lutheran World Relief has done this kind of work in Nicaragua. Or visit www.lwr.org and look for Nicaragua in their many stories.)

· Mary listens and learns from the words of Jesus. This represents not only all learning of any kind, but more specifically the viewpoints of Jesus. Mindfulness, careful consideration. Wisdom of a Christly kind. (His words backed up by his actions, by the way . . . .)

· Martha might symbolize a response to hunger that bustles and hustles into action immediately. Not only in the hospitality that specifically grounds this text, but also in the values and emotions that undergird Martha’s response to Jesus. She puts a sweaty face on “love” and sticks “now” into any verb that’s used to describe our reaction to hunger.

· Despite Jesus’ seeming remonstrance regarding Martha’s action, most commentators are willing to cut some slack for both women, as well as Jesus’ words. One way to approach the matter: Both women act in response to Christ’s presence.

· That’s how it can be with us, as we encounter the horrific specter of starvation, the ugly truths of injustice, the piles of secret little lies we tell ourselves to assuage our guilt. When we drink deeply of Jesus’ wisdom and his insistence about injustice, we are refreshed and emboldened to engage in deeds of hospitality and more. We face hunger’s ugliness and get to work.

1. “Welcome” and “You’re welcome” are phrases – and attitudes – we’d like to see children exhibit naturally, without prompting. In this time with children, though, you might engage in a slightly longer time of prompting by “training” children how to say “welcome” or “you’re welcome” in a couple of languages, or set up situations in which children might practice using these phrases, AND understanding what they mean. Several situations might be adaptations of the stories in the recent Hunger Packet you received about a month ago. Scenario: If you were part of this story, who would say “welcome” and when would the “you’re welcome” response seem most appropriate?

2. The story of Martha brings to mind the reality that sometimes we ARE the only ones doing the necessary work. (HINT: Adults will identify with this “children’s theme”, too.) Find a children’s story – The Little Red Hen? – where a stalwart character plugs along at a necessary task, seemingly all alone but actually NOT alone, or for good reasons that eventually reveal themselves. The idea of not being weary in doing good is an important thing to remember as we tackle hunger, ask people to contribute, try to tell people what’s wrong, invite others to join us, think sad thoughts about the state of the world. The good news: Our work makes a difference, AND we’re probably not as “all alone” as we imagine.

3. The Colossians text suggests a simple activity for children: Imagining with you all the beauties and wonders of creation. While children’s eyes are closed, help them imagine the profundities of “simple” things like running water, bodies that can eat and digest food, a sunset, animals, food itself, a fruit tree, or rain. Use descriptive adjectives and adverbs so that children can follow with you in this form of prayerful gratitude.

· Notice the high integrity in both women’s behaviors? Notice that no men are mentioned in the story? (I think a lot about the integrity of guys compared with the integrity of women; maybe I’m wrong for thinking this way.)

· Who serves us food or provides us hospitality, people of whom we’re unaware? (Think of servers in restaurants, the truck drivers who transport food, the workers in meat processing plants, the health inspectors and the legislators/regulators who develop and guarantee food cleaniness.

2. What’s it mean to have Christ as creator? This really, really strikes me as potentially important when we think about the connection between today’s lessons and matters of hunger and justice. Think of it: A god who creates and then loves the parts of the creation – including its peoples – that need fixing, bringing around, renewing, resurrecting! This power of God in Christ does NOT give us license to mess up the creation, but gives us assurance that the natural world can somehow be redeemed. And BTW, we participate in that redemption of creation.

Kindof puts a different spin on the notion that once we’ve fouled our nests – yep, we’re doing that right now! – the whole operation spins down to STOP. What to talk about: Places where redemption takes place in creation, as well as the part we play in that work through our church’s work around the world. (A favorite example for me: Any domestic hunger project that involves urban gardening, where “slums” become urban farms of a sort.) Check out www.elca.org/grantinghope for this year’s listing of domestic hunger grants, or Google “urban gardens” to see how this hopeful redemption takes place in a locale near you.

3. When does “worthless people” need to be applied in our hunger-related work? That’s a phrase that comes from the CEV translation of Psalm 15. The psalmist (David) may have every right to name as “worthless” people who get in the way of God’s commands, but I wonder how that applies today. For example, community organizers – see www.elca.org/grantinghope for the organizations the ELCA Hunger Appeal supports – get very good at working with politicians, business-folks, power brokers and who-knows-who-else as they carve out sustainable solutions to community problems. Some of us might (too-readily?) name some of these folks as “worthless,” but what good does that do? Jesus’ example would seem to suggest a different approach – his followers included folks complicit with the Roman occupiers unjust taxation system, fisherpeople one worm short of a baited hook and rabid rebels. So the question for those of us wanting to fight hunger: Who, really, is “worthless” when it comes to defeating this scourge on humanity? And who decides, finally?

As you preach today, over 2000 ELCA and ELCIC members are meeting for the umpteenth Global Mission Event. Former and present missionaries, hunger activists, church leaders, “ordinary” laypeople, teenagers and children, and wonderfully inspiring guests from partner churches overseas. Pray for them/us as we gather and share courage for action. We’ll be praying for you, too. And thanking God as well. . . . .