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!

· Somewhere during Epiphany it makes sense to note that all the good news in the world will be of no account unless it’s unleashed into the whole world. And maybe this Sunday would be a good time to do that, with the Psalm for the Day as backdrop.

· I’m often struck by the witness of our maps of world hunger and global mission work. When we Lutherans add together our specific witness – missionaries and specifically Lutheran projects – we cover a good share of the world. Even more satisfying is any map that shows our cooperative work with other denominations and faith communities. We cover almost the whole world.

· But not just the easy places. Mostly NOT the easy places. “Ends of the earth” used to mean “faraway”. But now, “ends” could also be places where no one else ever goes.

· Not us. We’re not like that. Since the beginning of this church’s hunger work – Berlin and Palestine – we have operated with the proposition that hunger and injustice require our presence in places where danger persists, where lives hang in the balance, where “good” and “right” may be luxuries.

· When you look at a map of the world’s hotspots, then, and overlay it onto the map of our combined hunger efforts, you get the goose-bumpy realization that at this very moment someone not unlike you is on the ground in some war-torn, disease-prevalent or famine-ravaged place in the world, putting her or his life on the line so that God’s work gets done.

· You’re part of bringing God’s saving power to the ends of the earth. You and your congregation extend the undeserved privileges of God’s blessing back out into the world God loves, to the tendril tips of the world’s farthest reaches.

· Your generosity lessens danger, combats disease, fills stomachs and renews spirits. Your prayers and words sustain the lives of care-givers out there. Even the ones way out there.

· And some of you . . . . Some of you even join them out there. At the “ends of the earth” as far away as Africa or as close at hand as your local Lutheran Social Services agency.

· If you’ve been reading these Sermon Starters for awhile, you know that I favor sight lines about God that come from the eyes and mouths of people who are poor. In today’s psalm, a bedraggled and bedeviled David is the one who is poor. He’s the one who speaks as a mud-covered example.

· Although there’s just a little hint of self-justification in David’s psalm here – “I’m a good guy, right, God?” – there’s also a strong hint that this humbled man is at the end of his royal ropes and in need of any kind of rope thrown to him by God.

· In the muck and mud of his existence – perhaps NOT a metaphor? – David prays for rescue, and hence connects us to the notion that we ought to pay attention to the prayers of those who are poor.

· What might we learn if we listened to prayers from muddy pits, or those whose graphically horrific lives haven’t been washed up and made pretty? How would the muck-prayers of an AIDS-laden African grandmother instruct you? How might the gasping pleas sound of a dust-covered survivor of Darfur’s horrors? What might the dirty/gritty expressions of sorrow from a child in rural Nicaragua do to inspire your actions? How could your state of mind turn to outrage if you encountered the still blood-spattered anguish of a mother whose child was killed by armed soldiers in a civil war?

· And how do your own prayers still hold close to them the mud and muck, the unwashed truth that at this moment, children and women are dying needlessly, that oppressors are sucking their fingers clean of delicious morsels of ill-gained food, that US lifestyles are keeping the world’s economies oriented toward materialistic consumption of the world’s resources?

· Mud and muck? It’s the stuff our ancestor Adam was made from. It’s the stuff we need to pay attention to. In some ways, it’s more healthy than we know.

· It’s sometimes hard to distinguish the work we Christians do to obliterate poverty and hunger from the good work done in other places, by equally kind-hearted individuals, groups or agencies.

· It would be sad, though, if the name of Jesus were not included in our work. Not as talisman or magic symbol, but as a kind of “brand identity.” (Yes, I’m being careful about this word and concept.)

· “Branding” is one way of focusing attention. Because attention is the (limited) commodity we all seek in order to accomplish God’s will, it’s important in our hunger and justice work that we point at the Attention Getter, the God-in-Christ who deserves the attention.

· It’s not our work, after all, or our world that needs shaping up, saving, renewing. It belongs to God, and to God’s loving Son. This Jesus man/god is the center of our identity, the reason why we sacrifice ourselves and our institutions. It’s his brand to which we call attention.

· Per Paul’s letter to the rambunctious Corinthians, Christ deserves the praise, and it’s Christ’s wisdom that we seek and proclaim. Without Jesus, we’re left with only enlightened self-interest as the best motive for changing the world. Without Jesus’ words and example, our models for lifework would be extremely fragile and eternally suspect. Without Jesus’ victory over death, our work would be marked by futile toil toward questionable ends.

· How does your congregation’s hunger work echo Jesus’ words? How does Christ’s name show up in your witness about poverty and injustice? How do you invoke the power of Jesus the Son of God in your prayers and in your motivations toward action? How filled with Christ’s Spirit are your thoughts, your emotions, your identity?

· This got me to thinking about the place of Third Person theology in hunger and justice work. Yes, I know about the concept of post-conversion good works, and yes, I know about the Spirit’s gifts. (Generosity and other-mindedness must certainly be among the listed and unlisted gifts.)

· Beyond these ideas, the Gospel for this day intrigues me with the possibility that there’s something visible/tangible -- dove or no dove -- about someone marked by the Spirit of God. Perhaps it’s something that only desert mystics can see, or perhaps only a remembered metaphor that sticks around after the memory of an experience loses detail.

· On the other hand, I’ve seen and talked with transfixed people who’ve come back from experiences with people who are poor, here or in other lands. I’ve seen fire in the eyes of advocates and outraged teens. I’ve known justice-and-peace people who came darn-well near to having auras about them. I’ve met nuns, priests, pastors and lay folks whose quietness telegraphed Spirit-filled insistence on justice.

· Could John have seen in post-washing Jesus the determination of a person bound for a new lifework that was to be dedicated to the liberation of people who were poor? Could Cousin John have noticed now something radically different from his earlier contacts with Jesus? Could the forerunner have finally seen in Jesus what he (John) had been hoping for decades?

· And what’s tangible/visible about your congregation when it comes to justice and peace concerns? Any people with deep-set gazes? Any teens wise beyond their years? Any elderly ones whose every word bespeaks godly wisdom? Any auras? What would happen if you named those folks, or talked about what you see in them as folks on whom the Spirit has settled (like a dove)? How could your vision of their vision help others see?

1. After you’ve told the story of a child who is poor, ask children to help you construct a “mud-filled prayer” per today’s psalm. Ask children: What do people who are poor pray for? How do you know (or how can you imagine that)? Write children’s ideas on newsprint or another format visible to the congregation. Offer the children’s constructed prayer, now or during the Prayers for the Day, as an example of how we speak to God alongside poor people.

An option: With resources from the most recent ELCA Hunger Packet, show how the prayers of children who are poor might be answered in some of the work that happens because of the generosity of people in your congregation.

Another, gritty option: With some preparation – parental approval, ground-covering, etc. – cover the hands and arms of a couple of children with real mud, cold mud, sticky mud. Smear it around on their hands, and tell the rest of the children about children in the world who today will have spent their day covered in dirt, working in mud, desperate to find/grow food, or fighting mud to get any kind of water at all. Talk with children about what mud-covered people would most want and how ELCA World Hunger helps those prayers get answered.

2. Get out some big world maps, some pins or PostIt Notes or some other ways of highlighting ALL the place where ELCA-related hunger work is taking place. (You can gather this information from the ELCA Global Mission Web site, www.elca.org/globalmission.)Before or during your time with children, spotlight a number of these places. (HINT: Don’t forget some pins and places in North America!) Talk about “ends of the earth” as both physical and metaphorical reality.

An option: Start with today’s international news, and see how many of the places where this church body (and its partners!) are doing hunger-related work in places where it’s dangerous or difficult.

1. Spend some time on “Spirit-settled” or “Spirit-filled”, especially as these concepts apply to hunger-and-justice work, or to people who exemplify a way-out-of-the-ordinary devotion to combating the world’s evils. Think together about what John saw in Jesus, what made Paul such a compelling writer, what makes Isaiah believable to his peers. How do participants feel Spirit-led in their own lives, especially the parts of their lives that compel them towards altruism, generosity, genuine love for others? On whom does the Spirit settle in your congregation and how can that be seen?

2. Depending on the events of the past few days – world news changes hourly, I know – you might want to focus your Bible conversation time on the Psalm for this day. On the mud and muck any of us brings to our lives of service. Of the deliverance we need, compared with the deliverance we want or the deliverance we think we deserve. Talk together honestly about the feelings and self-image of people whose lives are literally spent in muddy pits. Start with natural disasters involving water, but then branch out to people who work in unsanitary conditions, people whose “drinking water” comes from muddy pits. What are their prayers and how does God answer those prayers through your congregation?

3. God’s saving power extends to the ends of the earth, so says Isaiah. Have some fun with some story-laden resources from ELCA Global Mission or ELCA World Hunger. See where you can find, literally or metaphorically, “ends of the earth” work that brings God’s saving power to places far removed, geographically or otherwise. Distribute stories among pairs or participants with this direction, “See if you can determine how ‘God’s saving power’ might be evident in this story.” Another possibility: What makes this situation an “end of the earth” story?

1. Make a bulletin board centering on a map of ELCA-related hunger and justice work throughout the world. As a kind of reality check, post current news clippings about some of these places, with connecting string or yarn. Seek viewers’ comments with Reply Here cards. Variation: Do the same thing, but on your congregation’s Web site.

2. Leaf through your congregation’s worship book to find any hymns or prayers or liturgical elements that connect with today’s lesson. Assemble your thoughts into an article for the congregation’s newsletter.

3. Find the name and address of an ELCA missionary who’s doing hunger-and-justice work in some place that you might consider an “end of the earth” location. (See www.elca.org/globalmission for links with this information.) Write this person a note of gratitude and ask others – in your prayer group, small group, women’s circle – to sign the note. Send the note with some prayers, too!

4. Keep a tally of the instances when the name of Jesus is included in your congregation’s communications about hunger-and-justice concerns. If the tally evidences frequent connections, write a thank-you note to those who communicate. If the tally shows infrequent invocations of the Christ-centered nature of hunger ministries, ask those who lead these efforts how they might correct this matter.

As I write, I’m tra-la-lahing away the Old Year, spending yet another late December night thinking about my own mortality, the tenuous hold on life that will greet one-third of the world’s population on January 1^st, the forces of war and terror that threaten the world’s supply of generosity and love. I’m also thankful that the peace of God comes, wistfully perhaps, with the quiet toasts and eye-to-eye contact among year’s-end revelers, the words and looks that say: “Let’s you and me make this a year of getting done what God really wants, okay?”

· This text is repeated – except for the part about The Child being born – from its Advent home for a reason: It’s still winter and things may still be dark. We join with people who are lost in darkness of all kinds in shared wishing for more than flickers of candles.

· And when light hits – a super-nova of truth – we rejoice because we’re not knocking about in the dark like lost souls. Super-bright light shines on the falsehoods of economic or political presumptions that strangely favor only the rich. Rays of bright penetration pierce evil people who try to hide their intent with dark arguments of individuality or supposedly beneficent corporate greed.

· Justice stands like a beacon in a world consumed with fear of others. “What’s fair” spreads into the dark corners of human interaction so that no one can get away with thinking of themselves as most- or first-deserving of fairness.

· In its education and interpretive functions, ELCA World Hunger shines a part of God’s great light on the nature, causes and solutions of hunger and poverty in the world. By your contributions and your insistence on shared learning, you help dispel ignorance about hunger – “Poor people are just lazy” – and help each other gain courage to do what’s right inside of what’s light.

· On Saturday the nation’s press will dutifully report on the goings-on of Punxatawny Phil – reportedly a Lutheran groundhog – whose antics are locked inside the lore of weather prediction akin to that of The Farmer’s Almanac.

· But briefly famous groundhogs may have something to teach us – as does today’s psalm – about the matter of safety and danger, and about our reactions to it.

· The psalmist – presumably David here – is almost groundhog-like as he pokes his head and his spirit into varieties of safety-seeking semi-questions. Who saves you after all? What doesn’t save you? Who doesn’t save you? What do you fear? What does protection look like?

· You can almost see David sticking his literary head back into tried-and-true axioms, protective cloaks for his sense of self: God protects from enemies, from the cold winter of dangers, from one’s own self. God has been doing this for quite awhile. God knows best how to protect.

· While Phil is left to the imagined task of weather prediction, his real work is self-protection. Being no fool, our little furry friend knows what to do if dangerous light reveals dangerous shadow: RETREAT! (Or, in Pythonesque speech, “RUN AWAY!!”)

· The metaphors beg mixing here: Light protects – and redeems – those who have lived in darkness. (And yet a precocious near-rodent fears light as the cause of danger!) The people who see the light get to rejoice, while a dim-witted animal plunges back into its dark burrow. Light saves and light scares.

· Hunger and justice? These matters are, for many people in the world, not metaphors or the stuff of whimsical fillers for newspapers. For people in war-torn regions of the world, the light of day is a dangerous time, filled with marauding gangs or militia. Darkness brings safety.

· For others, the light – powered by electricity or kerosene or solar-powered flashlights – is a salvation from terrors of the night and a key to meaningful and sustainable jobs. For them, light enables, and light protects.

· Back at the Metaphor Ranch, “light” can be a marker of “truth” and here the meaning is clear: God is god, and does God’s holy protective work with no if’s, and’s or but’s. God’s truth cuts through the darkness of ignorance – read here “See how ELCA World Hunger helps establish schools and spread learning across the globe – and people understand more fully what before had been only dangerous mysteries.

· Is it my imagination, or is Paul in the Second Reading showing us a kind of written mumbling, as he gets off the subject just a little bit? (His “Oh, by the way” seems to be interrupted by other sidelining “Oh, by the ways”.)

· A connector, albeit slim – to hunger-and-justice: How big are the words we use to describe this outrageous condition in the world, and how easily apprehended are our verbal constructs that explain this sinful reality and its amelioration? (And yes, I count myself among those whose shame includes using too many big words.)

· Could today be a sermon filled with terse, direct, little-worded statements about hunger and justice? Here are a few: The Gospel of Christ had better be good news for poor people, too. By the way we live, most of us here might be a major cause for the hunger of others. We can beat poverty if we want to. People who are poor are people who are hungry are people who are sick are people who live desperate lives. Jesus did not want the poor to “always be with us.” As long as one other human is hungry, the whole world is hungry. We fight hunger because Jesus invites us. None of us deserves anything; none of us earns our way of life. Poverty is not a punishment or a sign of weakness. No one chooses poverty or hunger for themselves. We who are rich are responsible for those who are poor.

· The big words that get in the way of the Gospel are side-tracking arguments – like who baptized whom among the Corinthians – or over-complications that tempt us to groundhog-like inaction, deep in the burrows of our comfortable homes or arguments about economic theory or ethics.

· After his baptism, Jesus chooses NOT to go back to his obscure-town lifestyle. He takes up residence in Capernaum, on the Sea of Galilee closer to the scenes of commerce and action.

· His relocation – to a Gentile-infested area of Palestine – is certainly prophecy-fulfilling, but it’s also a sign that he wanted the attention of a large number and a large variety of people.

· His preaching – not confined to careful explication of the Torah – was radical and unique. Not unlike his cousin, Jesus was speaking about God’s sweeping hand turning the world upside down (or rightside up). Social systems, economic inequities, class and racial prejudice, false religiosity, the primacy of the Temple – all came under Jesus’ withering verbal attacks.

· The time is coming – a theme we ought to be paying attention to. Not just during dutiful Advent times, but now as we approach the repentance and sorrows of Lent. Many social critics point out that the world’s systems are nearing their breaking point, as environments and economies head toward entropic endings.

· Jesus meant his message to be hopeful, too. He wanted more than fearful groundhogs to follow him into an Essene-like existence in some desert retreat. He asked for confession and repentance, adherence to the Law’s most basic precepts. He knew that the coming kingdom of God would be full of rescue, protection, the righting of wrongs, casting off oppressors, devotion to God. All hopeful things.

· We may stand at a similar juncture in history, where we are called to proclaim the coming of God’s punishment and God’s hopeful rescue. Prophetic at best and fearful at worst, we may be called to join with people who are poor in critiquing the current social system, asking hard questions, insisting on justice where there is only charity.

1. Candlemas will occur this week, a time historically given to the celebration of light. You might echo the “bringing of light” theme for children by burning the baptismal candle, amassing into a glorious bundle five or six strings of multicolored Christmas lights or filling the church with a candle-lighting similar to that of Christmas Even. (What? You threw away those candles? Aaaargh!) Talk with children about the “greatness” of light in a world that may lack light. You can go symbolic or literal here, either talking about Christ as Great Light, the light of truth or the equally real joy of people in places in the world where electricity first becomes available. In ELCA hunger ministries, we work at both meanings!

2. Spend some fun time with a “Big Words Made Little” semi-lecture to children (and those who pay attention to them). Prior to your time with children, write several big-word concepts about hunger ministry onto a sheet of newsprint. (Examples might include: injustice, famine, poverty, starvation.) With children present, define all these presumably big words into language that children can understand. Yes, you’ll have to think how to do this! Perhaps you could tell definition-stories?

3. Without milking the Groundhog Day theme too much, spend some time with a groundhog-like puppet explaining false and correct notions of safety and danger and protection. Perhaps the puppet could come to some understanding of how God protects in spite of danger. Perhaps the groundhog puppet could learn to trust God from some world hunger stories. Perhaps by the end of your time together, both children and puppet could be less fearful, more grateful and more hopeful?

1. Danger, safety and protection can also be adult-specific themes. Think gated communities, anti-theft devices and systems, the devolution of parts of the legal system into a protector class. Compare David’s seeking of protection from God – remembering that David is the KING! – with Jesus’ nearly nose-thumbing form of preaching. Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians are also interesting when viewed through the prism of danger/safety/protection. What do participants know about dangers that poor people face? What happens to the human spirit when people live with constant fear? What happens to the human spirit when people over-protect themselves, perhaps even from people who are poor?

2. As a connector to the daily newspaper, look at the Matthew text’s proposition that Jesus’ actions fulfill prophecies. Then ask how “prophecies” from the past – from Scripture? – are coming true in today’s world. What “times are coming” for participants? What might “the kingdom of God” mean for people who are poor? For people who are rich? Where do the warnings and the hopes intersect? How dangerous is the world today? What DOES God have in mind?

3. As an exercise in guided peer learning, ask participants to come up with a list of shining-light truths about hunger that are Scripturally based or true to the spirit of Scripture. Today’s lessons may suggest some starter thoughts. No big words allowed, by the way.

1. Collect new or slightly used books for a local homeless shelter or transitional housing enterprise. (Yes, homeless folks read and think about important subjects.) Stay eclectic. Think of the books as great lights. Don’t forget children’s books. Yes, Bibles are books . . . .

2. Fold a piece of paper lengthwise. On the left-hand side, write all the things, people or eventualities that make you want to burrow into your home and never come out except to buy groceries, go to work and worship. On the right-hand side, write anything, anyone, any truth, any memory that dispels your fears. Compare the lists, and draw lines that connect a danger with its diminisher. What’s next?

3. With some friends, resolve to be “protectors” for people around you this week. Think of how your words and actions might ward off real or imagined danger, how you can dispel fear, how you can challenge dangerous people or conditions. Next time you’re together, talk about the experience and see what you’ve learned.

This is the final Hunger Sermon Starter that I will write as Director for Hunger Education for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. After more than a quarter century working for this church and its predecessors, I’m hanging up my spikes and walking back to the dugout of retirement. Spring training is just around the corner, though, and I expect to play some metaphorical baseball on some other fields, in some other leagues, with some other players.