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!

This week’s reading tosses us right into the middle of a story. Peter and John healed a man crippled from birth in the name of Jesus at the gate called “Beautiful.” The man gets up and goes about “walking and leaping and praising God,” causing a bit of a stir. The reading begins with Peter’s explanation of what the healing means. One key point to note is how God cares about the whole person. We sometimes separate the physical from the spiritual, but the two are in fact intricately intertwined. God calls us to care for the whole person. Note also how this all takes place in the Temple. How can we be like Peter and John in caring for the whole person? How can our places of worship better care for those who are spiritually, emotionally, and especially physically needy?

In this passage, the author marvels at the love that God has for us, that we should be called children of God. Raymond Brown, in his commentary on the Johannine epistles (pp. 388-91), explains how being a child of God is both a beautiful expression of God’s grace and love, and also carries definite moral connotations. He surveys OT and intertestamental literature that may be useful in your preparation, showing how divine “childship” brings a moral obligation to live for justice and to care for those who are most vulnerable.

When Jesus presents himself to the disciples, he offers the simple phrase (often repeated in our liturgy), “Peace be with you.” Peace in the bible implies wholeness, peace for the whole person (as we already saw in the first reading from Acts 3:12-19). Again, I think it can be underscored that God wishes that humans be whole, and this includes the needs of the physical body.

One thing that the present passage underscores is the physicality of Jesus’ resurrection. True, the physicality is somehow different that what we are used to (Jesus simply appears in their midst, they think they are seeing a ghost, the still disbelieve and wonder). But by narrating how Jesus ate, the author shows that Jesus was physically raised. This has implications on how we think about the physical needs of others. Just as creation and creatureliness was declared good at the beginning, so too God’s raising of Jesus fundamentally affirms our humanness.

There is something rotten Denmark when the healing of a person in pain is cause for an inquisition, but that is exactly what is taking place in Acts 4. The representatives of the religious system of the day are concerned about order and authority. They are the ones in charge of godstuff. Now, outside of the traditional lines, healing happens.

This text is about the wild and loving Spirit of God that shows up most tangibly in the place of human suffering and need. Our work on behalf of those who suffer hunger in the world is done in light of this great theological revelation. God will heal. God will bless. God cares because in the final analysis, God is love.

The most challenging verse of scripture is part of the second lesson for today. 1 John 3:17 states, “If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?” This is the true litmus test of our ministries. Do we talk about care for the poor or do we actually give ourselves, our time and our money? Can it be that the authority to preach about the love of God is contingent on our actions of love towards people in need? This verse would indicate that the renewal of the church must go through the door of social justice.

Couple these amazing passages with Psalm 23 (usually read only at funerals) and John 10 and it should be a fun Sunday to preach. The good news is plain. God is love. God heals the brokenness of the world. God does this in partnership with God’s gospel people. We find our hope, our call and our mission in these images.