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!

The Hebrew Scripture passage contains one of the verses that stood at the heart of the Reformation as Luther struggled with Paul’s use of it in Romans and elsewhere, “And he (Abram) believed the Lord, and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.” A preacher could explore this territory, and perhaps add in a hunger and justice emphasis by exploring the fuller meanings of the Hebrew word tzedaqah (righteousness). The word is also synonymous as “charity” and Jewish practice includes a home having a tzedaqah box, where family members place change and money to be given to the poor.

The psalm contains many familiar passages that have been adopted into song which could be used in worship planning in place of a chanting or recitation of the psalm. If a preacher wished to explore any passages from the psalm in connection to the other readings, an interesting connection to feminine imagery of God occurs in verse 10 of the psalm, “If my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up.” The passage is not made inclusive only in NRSV translation, the Hebrew text carries both the father and mother words. The implication that God supersedes both father and mother is an interesting wrinkle on divine imagery.

The second reading contains a challenging message about peace and justice and church in society with the phrase, “But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” One observation that could be made is that citizenship in Paul’s time was a different concept than it is in our time. Citizenship in the Roman Empire was not something every person living in the Empire possessed. One could attain citizenship by birth in the more central parts of the Empire, or by service to the Empire, but regular people in Philippi to whom Paul addresses this letter didn’t have citizenship. One could explore what life is like without citizenship, and how the words “our citizenship is in heaven” would have sounded (and may in fact sound for many today!).

The Gospel passage presents one of the most original and creative images in Scripture, that of Jesus stating, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing.” The use of feminine caring imagery associated with birds is found elsewhere in scripture, such as in Deuteronomy 32:11, “As an eagle stirs up its nest, and hovers over its young; as it spreads its wings, takes them up, and bears them aloft on its pinions…”

A preacher could explore the meaning of metaphor and divine imagery. Even as some metaphors for God used in scripture may seem challenging, it may be helpful to note that the metaphor of God as suffering servant in the crucifixion, while now familiar to us, was bizarre and impossible to the listeners of Jesus time, as when he spoke in the reading, “Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.”

God of the covenant, in the mystery of the cross you promise everlasting life to the world, Gather all peoples into your arms and shelter us with your mercy, that we may rejoice in the life we share in your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Many of this week’s passages speak about water—Isaiah 55 offers a call to all who may thirst, the psalmist speaks of his thirst for God, and Paul recounts God’s care for the people of Israel in the desert. Since Lent is also a time of preparation for baptism, it may be an ideal week to speak about global water issues. Some facts worth noting:

X People (usually women and girls) in Africa walk on average 3.6 miles to obtain water. This stat is directly related to development—girls cannot go to school if they spend hours a day fetching water.

X 3.575 million people die each year after getting sick from water that is not clean. This does not count the millions of others who get severely sick from dirty water and lose significant productivity as a result.

X Water problems are not limited to the Global South. In the U.S. there are serious water rights and water contamination issues in several states, including Montana and West Virginia (for a story on the work of ELCA World Hunger in West Virginia, cut and paste the following link into your browser: http://www.elca.org/Our-Faith-In-Action/Justice/Poverty-Ministries/Domestic-Hunger-Grants/Feature-Stories/West-Virginia-s09.aspx).

X Internationally, every $1 spent on water and sanitation generates $8 as a result of saved time, increased productivity and reduced health care costs (see ONE.org).

Isaiah calls to all who are thirsty to come and drink freely. The water issues noted above tie in nicely. Many are thirsty, both in a physical and a spiritual sense. Isaiah offers a picture of the reign of God, when all are fully satisfied.

This passage from 1 Corinthians is part of a larger argument (encompassing chapters 8-10) in which Paul is giving his perspective on food offered to idols. The gist of Paul’s argument is that table fellowship, in which all are welcome (and, dare I say, comfortable), is so vital to Christian community that squabbles about what one may or may not eat must take the back seat. This is a lesson to us in our welcoming of the stranger to our Eucharistic table.

In the present passage, Paul makes an interesting turn. He allegorizes the real food and drink that God provided the Israelites as a spiritual food and drink, i.e., Christ. Paul in this way ties the physical and spiritual together very closely. We often tend to think of the two as distinct but perhaps they are more closely linked than we usually allow. In what ways can giving or receiving food or drink be a spiritual experience? How are both the giver and the receiver enriched by sharing?

In the first five verses of this passage Jesus tackles the notion that one’s physical health and well-being is directly tied to their piety. The passage falls in the context of many exhortations to watchfulness for God’s eschatological kingdom. The gist of the passage is all are equally wicked and in need of repentance. The last four verses allude to the fruit that is borne out of repentance. Implicit in the passage is perhaps a critique of violent zealotism—Galileans were notoriously restive, the fig tree is often a symbol for national Israel, and so on.

The clear message is to live our lives in such a way that they reflect God’s values. A key component of this (of course!) means caring about the plight of those who are poor and vulnerable and struggling with them for justice. The part that may be lacking from this passage is the message of God’s gracious empowerment. We know what we ought to do, but we struggle to live into the reality. May we seek God faithfully as we strive to “bear fruits worthy of repentance”!