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!

· Good exegesis of the Ezekiel text eventually leads to joyful revisiting of your earlier-in-life studies of Hebrew and Greek, yes? What IS “spirit” and what IS “wind” for the writers of Scripture? Go for it, because there’s something in the wind! Something powerful.

· Normally, bones are not helped by win. In fact, the reason why perfectly good bodies get dried up is the wind. In desert societies, the wind hastens the dying and enables the drying. The wind is not normally the friend of bodies or their framework of bones.

· So, there we are – piles of bleached and dried bones doing basically nothing but getting drier – and along comes another wind, one with zip and zest in it. One that gives back what the previous winds have taken away.

· The answer – you already knew this, right? – is that the very Spirit of God Almighty is in this wind. IS this wind. Instead of diminishing, deteriorating, aging, bleaching or stealing substance from bones, this wind carries the atoms of life, the chemicals of regeneration, the spark from which life-force begins.

· People who are dried-up – because of the effects of hunger or the effects of constant working against hunger – can be comforted by the motion of “wind” in their lives, the reality that their seeming death is not the whole story, that they still hold within themselves the possibility of receiving life back from God’s Spirit.

· Another possibility: The wind that comes from “every direction” (CEV) is not unlike the kind of international aid that comes to people who are poor, literally from every direction of the wind. By your participation in ELCA World Hunger, then, you become part of God’s life-breathing wind – first born at creation – that comes from everywhere to bring life to dry bones wherever they may reside.

· Just in case you didn’t pick up on the light/darkness (day/night) emphases from last Sunday, some slight iterations follow. (Or perhaps you want to make this Sunday Part Two of a two-part sermon on this subject?)

· “Watchmen” – soldiers on guard duty – are not unlike folks who take seriously their calling to look over the horizon, past what’s obvious, into the dim outlines of what is yet to come.

· When it comes to matters of hunger and justice, these kinds of people can sometimes work in splendid isolation – who wants to “stay up all night and watch for possible danger”? They can also spend their most splendid moments waiting for signs of hope – morning – or signs that the danger of night has passed. They might blow bugles to signal fearsome possibilities, but they also play the sweet melodies of hope and rejoicing.

· One of the functions of these kinds of people in your congregation – you? – is that they help add safety and wisdom to the life of your members. When it’s time to “watch out”, they speak up or speak out. When it’s time for rejoicing, they are the loudest singers. Both functions are necessary, and because of the work of these people, danger is thwarted and deliverance celebrated.

· ELCA World Hunger offers the same kind of assistance for your congregation, if only to alert you to what’s not safe in the world around you. (The causes of hunger among people who are poor will eventually be the causes of great difficulty in your own locale!) Because of its many-faceted objectives – see “What We Do” as part of the URL www.elca.org/hunger -- ELCA World Hunger keeps you abreast of the specifically sinister evils that threaten the world’s economies and the people in the world who are poor. Because of its worldwide reach, ELCA World Hunger also finds the many places where watchful observers are finding causes of joyful gratitude, celebration of what God has done to deliver people from injustice.

· Today might be a good day – it’s still a joyful Lent, right? – to think about and thank the congregation’s hunger committee for their “guard duty” work, for their warnings and their invitations to joy. It might also be a good day to think about and thank people who, in their daily vocations, also work to eliminate the dangers of hunger or poverty.

· And the thanks might start with God, whose dawning always dispels the danger of darkness, and whose son suffered along with the world’s poor, the watchpeople and those they guard.

· If one kind of desires rules minds in the wrong ways – selfishness, fear, greed or ignorance of others’ realities – then what governs/rules minds in the way God desires? That’s the question posed by the Second Reading.

· The Lazarus story suggests both kinds of mindsets. On the one hand, Mary and Martha, each serving and giving away their lives in one way or another. (Hosting the controversial rabbi from Nazareth was more than a tad risky in a society that ran on guilt and shame.) On the other hand, the Jewish leaders, real or imagined religious/political elite hiding behind the terrifying might of their Roman occupiers. On the one hand, desires close to God’s own desires – learning, giving, hosting, weeping. On the other hand, desires right out of the bilges of the human psyche – fear of powerful others, the wish to be right/righteous in one’s own eyes, power over rather than power with.

· We should make no mistake – our minds are not always our own (is “free will” really free?), which requires of us circumspect answers about difficult questions: What/who do we allow to rule our desires? Which base instincts – animal or otherwise – are easily called up when we are in stress or tempted by fear? With what layers of supposed objectivity do we hide our more destructive desires from others’ discovery?

· It is no small matter to understand this about ourselves: We can be easily manipulated by the worst in human thought, the worst inside our own minds. And it is an equally significant matter that we have options other than to yield to those baser desires. Because of Christ’s redeeming death and his example, we have another choice than to be stupid-and-selfish. Because of the Spirit’s gifts, we can learn other ways to react to the stresses of life. Because of the assurance of our bodily resurrections, we can choose to give away our lives – literally or figuratively – for the sake of others.

1. If you can, find a skeleton (or facsimile) and talk with children regarding their ideas about “dry bones”. (Good sources: High school or grade school science classrooms.) Why would bones be dry? What good are dry bones? What can dry bones do? What can’t they do? Why not? What would it take for the bones to come back to life? (This will be stumper, justifiably so.) After this brief discussion, tell children about the prophecy of Ezekiel, and what it means about God’s ability to bring life to what seems really, really dead.

2. A good comparison from hunger ministries: A photo of a well that’s installed in a completely dry area of the world. The unlikelihood of life coming to this setting is similar to the situation with dry bones. Here, though, the “wind of God” is the spirit of generosity – in people like these children – that compels and makes possible the miracle of a well (or any other life-giving relief and development project).

3. “Interview” a faux “Jewish leader” to get his/her viewpoint about why this Jesus guy is really, really dangerous. (The leader is NOT jealous or a bad person completely, just trying to keep order in a country ruled by someone else.) Among the questions: Why is it dangerous for people to be paying attention to Jesus and his teachings? Finally, the question, “What do you think needs to be done?” gets answered by the maxim that it’s better for one man to die than for the whole country to suffer. After the interview is over, wrap up the presentation with words about Jesus’ shaking up the present state of affairs in his world, and how the hunger ministries of this church body might do the same. (For reference, see the ELCA Web site or current news briefs to see ways and places where the ELCA challenges the presumptions of contemporary society or current affairs.)

1. The “wind of God” is more than a euphemism for adults who understand “the winds of change” to be as real as status quo. After reading the Ezekiel text to participants who listen with their eyes closed – as though imagining themselves as observers of Ezekiel’s narrative – ask participants about the winds of change – social change – that seem to be blowing in today’s world. Think how God brings life back to tired and seemingly-dead congregations, to people without hope, to countries ravaged by war. Think about entertainers, sports figures, politicians and leaders who become God’s agents for change, God’s life-giving Spirit. What kind of “winds” are coming together at this moment to affect God’s will for justice in the world? How are the people of this congregation part of God’s life-giving wind?

2. Talk together about the concept of “ruled minds” (above), especially in the matter of the visible and invisible forces that shape opinion, compel action, prevent change or corral people into identities that prohibit them from doing what’s right. What does it take to recognize the forces that shape our identities away from carrying out God’s justice? How can we step aside from society’s influences? How can we be shapers of opinions and actions that match God’s “mind”? What might be the consequences of our running against the grain of contemporary society?

3. With some advanced preparation or research, get participants to talk about Lazarus’ position as change agent, as wind-bringer. (Check for legends about what the further life of the resuscitated Lazarus added to the witness of Jesus, or the likely state of mind in which he found himself.) What does it mean to be that kind of person today, especially when it comes to challenging the social order that keeps people oppressed or hungry? (The analogy isn’t all that hard – some possible prophets are locked in isolation away from society, safely buried away from the sight and sound of others. Jesus’ healing releases them from death and from ineffectual lives.) Think together about people who have suddenly found themselves alive again, given a new chance to save the world or do something important for others. Perhaps those people live in this congregation.

1. Go to the ELCA Hunger Web site – www.elca.org/hunger -- and click around until you find a link to the listing of hunger staff. (You might do the same with global mission personnel, using the annual missionary listing.) Select a prayer topic focused on one or more of these people and include them in your formal and personal prayers for a week. If you wish, inform them of your prayers. They will be life-giving!

2. If you have a skeleton around your home – Halloween leftover? – put some clothes on it, give it a name tag and hang it somewhere you can see it often. The lesson? With clothes on, the skeleton is able to get God’s work done. Just like you.

3. Use the same skeleton as a changing sculpture: On PostIt Notes or colorful card stock or light-colored wrapping paper, write short phrases about the lively ways in which your congregation brings hope and energy to people who are poor, hungry, oppressed or otherwise prohibited from fulfilling God’s potential in their lives. Attach the notes to the skeleton until it has been completely covered by these colorful, hopeful symbols of God’s action among people who are poor. Place the skeleton sculpture where it can be seen and read. Give it a name.

This is traditionally a Sunday when the reading of the Gospel supplants the time slot usually reserved for the sermon. You will find here a sermon starter suggestion that takes the no-sermon option into account, as well as another starter that presumes that a sermon is preached, albeit shorter and more focused.

· Spend sermon preparation time finding news clippings, Web-stories, squibs and storylets from hunger-related materials – all of them telling of people in contemporary days who experience treachery and suffering similar to that faced by Jesus the Christ. Think of people who are homeless, people facing starvation, individuals fleeing war or environmental disaster, people looking for a second chance, victims of torture, political prisoners, women who are victims of domestic violence, beggars. For balance (and hope), also include stories about relief workers, governmental officials trying to do the right thing, anonymous benefactors or philanthropists trying to alleviate suffering, individuals whose lives have been saved.

· As the Gospel narrative is read, position another read at the opposite end of the sanctuary, who will read from these contemporary texts the accounts of people who suffer needlessly the same kind of injustice that Jesus faced.

· The reading/sermon might end with a short sentence or two, such as: “Christ’s suffering extends into our world today, needlessly so,” or “Christ suffered for our sins. Still the world groans under similar sufferings today, as though we had not learned from Christ.” Another good ending: Some selected verses from the Psalm.

· Although we count his suffering and death – and Resurrection – as redemptive, we can also learn from the lives of others who have borne the weight of undeserved punishment, despair, cruelty or oppression. We can resolve to be part of God’s continuing redemption for people who suffer endlessly.

· Those people live – sometimes poorly, sometimes barely – in our world today as well. On this day we would do well to recount some of their stories, to remember them in grateful prayer, and to gain courage in our own struggles to live justly in a selfish and greedy world.

· If time allows, relate name and faces and story snippets of these contemporary examples. Be sure to include the names and descriptions of some hope-filled and hope-bringing individuals. (Check www.elca.org/globalmission for stories in this ilk.)

1. This might be a good time to acknowledge that part of the story of Jesus is downright scary. Here was someone who tried to do what was right, and all he got was horrible punishment by very important people. If children are able to handle the explicit horror of this day’s Gospel, show them a large cross, large spikes of nails, a whip or thorns plaited into a circle. This is what killed Jesus. Contrast this object lesson with a bowl of dirty water, a tattered piece of clothing, a bowl with only traces of old food, a machete or large knife, or a piece of rope or chains. THESE are the instruments or devices by which people today are killed, some of them innocent victims or war, political intrigue, racial or tribal hate, or the “natural disaster” of the lack of potable water or edible food. Suffering abounds, even today.

2. If you choose a dramatic version/reading of “sermon” for this Sunday, ask children to follow along, literally, as the story unfolds from place-to-place within the sanctuary. Interrupt the flow of the reading for brief moments when you invite children to look at what’s happening now (or next), or direct them to come along to the next scene or next travesty of justice.

3. Give each child an artifact, as though reminiscent of Jesus’ suffering. A twig with large thorns, a rusted spike or nail, rough wood cross, a piece of leather thong with a piece of metal tied to it (part of a whip). You might also provide artifacts that remind children of the travesty of hunger in the world. Small, dirty bowls, battered cups, pieces of rope or chains – all can symbolize the evils of hunger and poverty in the world. Perhaps each of these items comes with a card that explains the meaning of the artifact, or that encourages children to bring offerings that will help alleviate the sufferings of people who are poor.

1. Sometimes the sufferings of Jesus are sanitized into symbolic sadness. For him – and for those who suffer injustice in today’s world – the sufferings were real. Take the time to do some research about the cruelty of crucifixion, the loss of blood in a whipping, the effects of sleep deprivation. Be explicit with participants, and don’t spare the gruesome details. Now do the same thing, only this time with the very real sufferings of people who are dying from hunger, people who are tortured in slow degrees as they use most of every day just trying to get their next meal. Be explicit and don’t spare the gruesome details. Use the Web, sending your search engine looking for “biology of starvation” as a starter. (For an older reference, see Jim Bishop’s The Day Christ Died.)

2. If applicable – and if participants are comfortable talking at an emotionally honest level of discourse – talk about participants identification with David’s lament in Psalm 31. In what ways have they experienced the same feelings (or situations) as they tried to do the right thing? How do they understand David’s thoughts? What rescue(s) have they experience or do they desire? How are the sufferings of Christ different or similar?

3. Ask participants to recall the Gospel reading for today, with this thought: What perhaps-small detail did they notice, one that actually has great significance when you think about it for some time. (For example, the amount that Judas was paid to turn Jesus over to the religious authorities, or the meaning of Judas’ name compared to his deeds.) How do these small-but-significant details connect to the small-but-significant details of hunger and injustice here and around the world? What can we do to keep these details from disappearing in the swirl of information of our habituation on hearing the Passion Story?

1. Fast this week -- however that works out for you -- as a visceral reminder of the fact that Jesus did not eat from Thursday night until the time he died on Friday. As you fast, think of the millions of people in the world who regularly eat less than Jesus did!

2. Organize a series of simple (potluck?) meals that take place inside the homes of selected congregation members. (Members invite whom they wish – or those assigned to them – for a shared meal.) Provide a simple liturgy, or prayers or hunger-related stories for use during the meal. Encourage hosts to make the mealtimes thankful and appreciative for the food that is shared.)

3. Change the standard greeting on your personal phone answering machine or service this week to reflect some small nugget of this week’s Scripture messages. Focus on the alleviation of hunger or injustice.

· On this night, the mandates – maundate, hence “Maundy” – of Jesus yield one institutionalized holy act: The Sacrament of the Altar. It offers forgiveness of sin to penitent sinners, the grace of God embodied in bread and wine.

· But what if the holy act that carried through all of history had been, instead, the washing of the disciples’ feet, along with the abundant Scripture passages to complement this central teaching of Jesus? What if actual, ceremonial and symbolic foot-washing were also evident in the kind of self-giving service that this act suggests? What kind of world would it be today?

· What if Christians had, for all of modern and post-modern history, taken this sacramental act as seriously as the distribution of Holy Communion? What if the church was institutionalized in its views of ordination toward the Sacrament of Holy Foot-Cleaning?

· The facts bear out, of course, that the church has counted both Thursday night activities by Jesus as central to its identity. Forgiveness, free and clear, as well as service, humbly and often. Random acts of kindness with the targeted grace of God. The taking of life blood alongside the giving of life blood for the sake of others.

· That’s what the hunger and global mission efforts of this church body accomplish: Sacred acts, in the name and with the example of Jesus. Somber and sober recollections of his final night on earth along with joyful, gritty and grimy pouring out of love in measurable acts of generosity.

· The Exodus is, after all, a big story. Big numbers, the ruin of one whole civilization for the benefit of another, the freeing of an entire semi-nation from slavery – large-screen stuff, all of it.

· However you unfold its story, the Exodus is eerily similar to the mass exoduses of displaced persons in today’s world. Many congregants will remember the WWII displacement of war refugees to this country. Recent memory recounts Palestinians, Ethiopians, Rwandans, Central Americans, Somalis, Chadeans, residents of the Gulf Coast and even Bulgarians and Romanians. Refugees not only because of wars, but of economic necessity.

· A stark difference: Increasingly the mass migrations of our time are countered with walls, real and symbolic. Walls that prohibit free movement, that gather danger around them like the lint trap in a dryer. Walls that keep people on one side from knowing – and loving? – people on the other side. Semi-righteous have’s prohibiting semi-starved have-not’s from justice in their back yards. Fearful people imagining and inventing fearsome people on the other side of the barriers. Walls with names, and walls without.

· In the Exodus, God propels people out of captivity like they were shot from a fire hose. In the Exodus, God sends people toward a place and an identity promised to them centuries earlier. In the Exodus, God gives people an identity.

· In today’s exoduses, though, the imagined protection needed by one group of people can shut out the distressing needs of another group of people. Immigrants criminalized, xenophobia elevated to the level of theology, fear wrapped in national interest.

· What to do? Certainly celebrate the work of agencies and enterprises that help refugees escape from certain death in their own countries. But also to work towards immigration laws that draw people toward protection and relief from the grinding poverty that ruins the whole world. Perhaps congregations can adopt and help re-settle refugees in a way similar to post-WWII and post-VietNam. Perhaps thank God for the work of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. (www.lirs.org)

· Some social theorists have concluded that attention is the primary commodity in today’s information over-stuffed world. Anyone who pays attention to anyone else is giving that person a gift. Rare as it is, full and loving attention is precious for any who receive or give it.

· So it is, then, when we realize that, because of God’s attentive care for our sorry state as sinners, we have the opportunity to extend – to become – God’s attention to those who are poor. We can learn to know their names, listen to their stories, understand their feelings, counter their self-deprecating self-images and reflect their capabilities back onto them.

· In the hunger program of this church, attention is shined on the lives of people who are poor, not because of pity, but because of God’s grace. Love has to find its destination somehow, and in our attentiveness to people who are poor – not sidelong glances or quick dispersals of temporary aid – we embody the direct gaze of Jesus on those he loved – even those who betrayed him. We become God’s attention when we listen to the voices of those who are poor, when we learn the names of people stricken by poverty, when we understand deeply that “they” are part of “us”.

1. Give each child an inexpensive wash rag, and ask him or her to take it home as a symbol – a useful tool, actually – for cleaning someone’s face. Yes, NOT feet, but faces, which reflect hearts and souls. Talk together about what it feels like to have a new face, to move with that new face into a new way of acting, to start over, and to always want to have a clean face. You might even demonstrate this new “holy act” by using baptismal water to wash the face of one of the children who are listening to you.

2. IF you engage in footwashing as a part of the observance of this holy night, ask children to do all the washing. Then talk about the experience from the viewpoint of an adult who learns from children what obedient and faithful service might be. Tell the stories of some of these children, the work they do to help others, the way some of them have given of themselves to help people who are poor. Footwashers as teachers . . . .

3. “Re-enact” the Exodus with the entire group of children. “Escape” and try to find a better place to live. Like Mary and Joseph seeking suitable lodging – Los Posadas? – go from place to place in the sanctuary, looking for someone who will take you in – into their pew? – and welcome you. Talk about the people in the world who, this very day, are trying to escape their countries and find a better place to live. Tell children stories of congregation members who have been refugees, or who have helped refugees in the past. Be specific. Be thankful.

1. If you haven’t done so already, talk about the biblical and theological dimensions of the current debate about “immigration”. Without getting into U.S. policy or the views of political candidates, see if you can discern from any of the lessons today any principles that seem to characterize what might be a Christ-like response to the plight of economic refugees. You can determine the questions by yourself, yes?

2. With participants, talk about the grimiest, dirtiest, most disgusting service-to-others in which participants have ever engaged. (Changing diapers doesn’t even count on this scale!) How did participants come to these occasions of “foot-washing”? How did they feel as they engaged in the work/service? How did they feel afterward? What did they learn from those they served? How did their work correspond to what Christ did in today’s Gospel Lesson?

3. Tell stories of other “holy acts” that participants see happening in today’s world, evidences that Christ’s foot-washing example is being replicated almost everywhere. Ask that the stories be specific, so that the full dimensions of these acts of godly grace are fully understood.

1. Collect and distribute – to a local homeless shelter – washrags and towels for the personal hygiene needs of guests there. Be generous with the quantity and quality of these items.

2. Adopt a local family who have recently arrived as refugees from another country. For references, talk to other churches, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service representatives, your state human services offices, your town council or local service club. Make sure that the “adoption” includes paying attention to these people, NOT just providing food or clothing or money.

3. Take a special offering on this night, and send it to ELCA World Hunger, as a way of celebrating the continual work that your church – and its partner agencies and church bodies in other countries – engages in order to benefit refugees.

· There is no doubt that Jesus fits the description of The Suffering Servant, forethought by Isaiah and emblematic of the entire nation of Israel in its captivities, both pre- and post-Babylon.

· It is also legitimate on this day/night to consider Jesus as highest/lowest model of the person who is poor. That unless we see Jesus at the bottom of his social stratification, subject to the same sociologies that robbed life from beggars and out-of-work peasants, we miss the point: Jesus was not only one who godliness was poured out, but one whose life was lived at the edge of poverty.

· He spoke from experience to those who were being ground in the dust of Palestine by the evils of occupying Rome and the stratified social system that continued to favor those who were oppressively wealthy. (See Herzog, Parables as Subversive Speech: Jesus as Pedagogue of the Oppressed or Jesus, Justice and the Reign of God as good texts for this thought.)

· In his recent work, Poor People, novelist and social thinker William Vollmann factors out the following phenomena by which poverty can be described. Better stated, the characteristics of daily life faced by those around the world who consider themselves poor. (Vollmann’s fascinating work is the result of years of interviews of poor people around the world!) They include these: Invisibility, deformity, unwantedness, dependence (on others’ generosity), accident-prone-ness, pain, numbness, estrangement.

· Look at the texts for this day – as well as those for Passion Sunday – and see how these phenomena are reflected in Jesus’ life, in the prophecies that preceded him and the “emptying out” described by Paul. Can you see what Jesus’ poverty might have meant to him?

· Even more striking is this thought: On this day/night, we might very well observe the pain and suffering that came not only from Jesus’ martyrdom at the hands of well-meaning religious leaders, but also as a result of his rural poverty. An Appalachia-like heritage, followed by a short adult life without work, with no possessions and no other signs of economic well-being.

· It could be said, then, that what we are most distressed by, what most bothers us about Jesus’ needless suffering is that he was poor. Like people who are poor almost everywhere in the world – the majority of the world’s peoples – Jesus exhibited the characteristics of poverty that left him bereft of economic choices, victim of upper classes of his society.

· Perhaps the greatest sadness: That he was not successful in pulling away from the squashing weight of his state of affairs, and by most accounts would have been a forgotten teacher, a flash-in-the-pan rabbi – like so many others – whose impact on his nation and on his followers soon disappeared.

· That’s the essential choice that faces all of Western society right now: Grab and hold – a presumptive “fullness” – or being emptied by a deteriorating environment, the increasing cries for justice from terrorists and social activists alike, the collapsing economies of consumption.

· Square in the middle of those two non-sustainable choices is Jesus’ own: pouring himself purposefully. Splashing and spilling what he had and who he was for the sake of God’s greater purposes.

· His emptying was more than martyrdom – our concept perhaps more than his? – and more than love for the world. He had in mind what God had in mind – that the world needed righting, turning right side up. His mindful giving up of everything that comes with being God was a deliberate tactic, a measured response to his burning wish to change the world toward God’s economy (economia means “plan”, not “household rules”).

· What would it mean for each of you to purposefully give up everything in order to accomplish some piece of God’s will? What would that look like? What words would you use to describe the risk?

· Think of volunteers who retire early, parents who sacrifice their future to care for a child or their own parents, generous givers who put their own financial wellbeing at risk, folks who give up successful careers in order to give themselves to some noble purpose, people who live with few possessions so that their time and financial resources can be directed past themselves. These are “emptied out” people. You know them. You are probably one of them.

· But the Philippians text doesn’t end with valuable water slurped up by a hot, uncaring desert soil. There is the small ending hymn, “Jesus Christ is Lord.” A small-but-important voice that reminds us who’s who, whose we are. In the end, we are not emptied out shells, husks of value scraped clean of worth, crumpled plastic containers at the side of life’s road. Instead, we share in Christ’s victory – stay tuned for this Sunday – and we live assured that we have not followed false and non-sustainable goals. We stop trying to protect ourselves, we stop erecting walls of fear, we stop hoarding and hurrying, we stop worrying about what time it is, what we don’t have, who is out to take from us. We may even stop worrying about the measurable results of our purposed pouring-out.

1. Illustrate the amazing properties of “emptied out people” with a pitcher, a potted plant and a few glasses of water. The water-filled pitcher represents God’s people who empty themselves out for good causes – e.g., the glasses of water and the thirsty plant. But – shock and amazement! – God refills each of us with more water (cue much larger pitcher that has been hidden until this moment, or event a hose?) so that we can keep doing what God wants. Intermediate questions for empty-pitcher people: How’s it feels NOT to have anything more to give, or nothing left? How’s it feel to know that, even though you’re empty, something good as come of the emptying?

2. This is a scary time for kids – the dark, the somber adults around them, the fake thunder sound in the middle of a darkened sanctuary, the symbols of nails, thorns, crosses. Talk about that feeling, but from the viewpoint of someone who is poor. How frightening it must be to face the dark, to be chased and disliked and not wanted anywhere you go. How scary to know that you may be trapped into being poor for your whole life. This is a scary day/night, and perhaps it’s enough to acknowledge that for poor people around the world Jesus’ sufferings and death are very real, very familiar, very sad indeed.

1. Share stories together of people who have “given up everything” in order to accomplish some greater good with their lives. Tell what you know about the reasons for this behavior, its eventual purpose and the development or ending of the story. Now enter into the same discussion with people who have “lost everything” in a natural disaster. What similar feelings and personal learnings occur? What could you learn from these two groups of people?

2. Reread the Isaiah text and the psalm, but from within your imagination, as though you were a very poor person living somewhere in the world where poverty is a common phenomenon. What happens as you hear/read these scriptures from that viewpoint? Quick test: Over time, what group – very rich or very poor – have heard these texts the most? How do you know? (A variation: Given these two categories, which group has the highest number of listeners throughout all of history?)

3. What makes Good Friday “good” for people who are poor, after all is said and done? HINT: Even though the day is somber, the texts hold out great amounts of hope and opportunity.

1. Clean out one part of the congregation’s budget completely. Give or send it somewhere where it will accomplish some great good. (Yes, the ELCA Hunger and Disaster Appeal comes to mind here!) Don’t plan on replacing the money.