[Note: The July 5 entry will be available on June 30.]
Welcome to Hunger Sermon Starters!
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!
June 29, 2008
Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
Jeremiah 28:5-9
Romans 6:12-23
Matthew 10:40-42
· Hearing the gospel text, I cannot help but think forward to Matthew 25 and the parable of the sheep and the goats. Our hospitality for others truly matters.
· Who needs a cold cup of water?
· We need the cold cups of water in baptism to pour over us in grace.
· We need the cold cups of water to be filled with the Holy Spirit to refresh our souls.
· We need the cold cups of God’s grace to awaken us from our grogginess and apathy
· We are called to give a cold cup of water to those in our midst
· We are called to give a cold cup of water to those who thirst for righteousness.
· We are called to give a cold cup of water to those who thirst for their lives.
· As the summer heat begins to set in, a cold cup of water is the epitome of hospitality and love for the neighbor and the stranger.
· In slavery to sin we are parched with selfishness, in slavery to righteousness we are flooded with grace.
· This cold cup of water that we is given is not only an image for spiritual waters, but is also a call to meet the needs of those who are displaced, disenfranchised, and disdained.
· Cold cups of water are needed for the 1 in 6 people in this world who lack safe clean water to drink.
· Cold cups of water are needed for those who lack adequate water sources in order to farm the land.
· Cold cups of water are needed in every corner of the world. Our cistern is full so that we might give abundantly to our new brothers and sisters.
Pastor Ben Sheets
Associate Pastor, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
