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 passage opens with an appeal for God to save. The biblical authors have no problem asking God to act. The world is in need of a lot of saving. The rising cost of grain, the global recession, and natural disasters threaten the lives and livelihood of billions of people, many of whom are looking for God’s saving activity. How will we as the church participate in God’s work?

The passage goes on to describe the return of God’s people to the land of promise. It is key to note that those who are blind and lame, and women who are pregnant or in labor will be among the throng. In other words, those who (in the biblical ethos) were weakest and most vulnerable are included in the remnant. How are we including those who are poor and vulnerable in the life of our church?

This passage is filled with promises of redemption (much like the refrain of today’s Psalm—those who sow in tears will reap in joy). Those promises were yet to be fulfilled, yet the hope is still there. Today, the people of God are still waiting for the fulfillment of God’s promises. In the meantime, how will we do God’s work with our hands?

For the last several weeks we have been reading through the central teaching section of Mark’s Gospel. While much of the Gospel narrates episode after episode, this section slows down as Jesus teaches on the nature of true discipleship. The section opens in Mark 8:22 with a telling of Jesus’ “two touch” miracle (narrated only in Mark’s Gospel). In that passage Jesus shows that he will continue to work to give sight, even if he is not successful in the first try. Today’s passage bookends the section, with the blind man, Bartimaeus, calling to Jesus to restore his sight. His persistence leads Jesus to respond. When Bartimaeus is healed, he follows Jesus “on the way.” This sly turn of phrase points to Bartimaeus’ faithful discipleship, which Jesus had been at pains to describe (and his closest disciples, for whatever reason, have been unable to grasp).

Mark 8-10 has much to say about poverty and our role as disciples in tackling it head on. We are called to welcome those who are vulnerable (9:33-37; 10:13-16). We are challenged to live simply and give generously (10:17-31). We are told that to be great we must become servants of all (10:41-45). How will we live out this high calling? Will we have the courage, like Bartimaeus, to follow Jesus “on the way”?

This passage invites reflection on issues of hunger and poverty and justice. The passage is unique to the early chapters of Isaiah in its apocalyptic outlook. It is a clear critique of the way things are, and the only hope is for God to somehow rectify the situation. This perspective is helpful in that it offers an unequivocal appraisal of the status quo. The present world system is fundamentally broken. The stock market continues to rise, and jobs continue to decline. Hunger is increasing.

In spite of this, the author of today’s text confesses his hope in God to make things right. When God come to rule, God will provide a feast with “rich food” and “well-aged wines” for all peoples. Even the “last enemy,” death, will be swallowed up. Death is not just physical death. Rather, “Death is all that circumscribes a life, that limits the life-space of humanity, that diminishes well-being, and that prevents community with human person or God” (Wildberger, quoted in Walter Brueggemann’s commentary on Isaiah 1-39).

Revelation 21:1-6a
The passage from Revelation, like the Isaiah passage, affirms that things are not quite right. It also looks forward to the time when God will make it right, when God will wipe away every tear. Again, the passage is full of hope—hope that things can be better. How will we act as God’s agents while we wait expectantly?

In the lectionary context of Isaiah 25 and Revelation 21, this week’s passage from John’s Gospel gives us a clear example of God’s power over death. This is the last and most spectacular miracle of John’s “Book of Signs” and it tells the reader unequivocally that Jesus is God’s agent.

While the story underscores Jesus’ divine power to raise the dead to life, in this passage, Jesus is also remarkably human—Jesus weeps when he sees the Lazarus’ sister and he is deeply moved when he arrives at the tomb. That Jesus, as God’s agent, is so deeply moved by human suffering gives us a glimpse of God’s deep care for those who suffer. What is our response to the pain and hurt in the world? What sort of action will we take in response?