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!

In this passage, God promises through the prophet that God is about to do a new thing. God’s people are encouraged to look forward to the redemptive activity of God. God promises to make a way through the barren desert, just as God had previously made a way through the chaotic waters. What new path might God be forging through the chaotic waters of hunger? What new way through barren desert of poverty might God be paving? How can we join God in that work?

Psalm 126 (5)
The second half of the Psalm relates closely to the message from Isaiah. Again, as in Isaiah, new streams of redemption are promised. The end result is that those who go out with seed for sowing will reap with joy. (A great story about seeds and the work of ELCA World Hunger is found at http://www.elca.org/Our-Faith-In-Action/Responding-to-the-World/ELCA-World-Hunger/Stories/By-Region/Africa/Zimbabwe-s09.aspx).

Philippians 3:4b-14
In this passage Paul, like Isaiah, speaks of forgetting the old ways of being and doing. He regards them as rubbish (quite the statement!). Paul saw his old way of thinking as inadequate and now places his hope in one thing—the redemptive activity of God in Christ. What old ways of being and doing do we need to forget? How can we better live into our call to work with and on behalf of those who are poor and vulnerable? How can we join God in God’s redemptive activity?

In the current economic climate, where half of the gains in the struggle made in the last ten years against hunger and poverty have been lost, Jesus’ rather callous statement, “You always have the poor with you,” rings particularly true. In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus immediately follows up this assertion with an admonition to show kindness to them whenever we can (see Mark 14:7). In so doing, Jesus makes a clear reference to Deuteronomy 15:11, where God commands the Israelites “Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.”

The text can also be read through the lens of the rest of the lectionary texts for this week. God is promising to do a new thing. In Isaiah we are encouraged not to think about the former things, or the way things have always been. God is doing a new thing. What if the conventional thinking that we will “always have the poor” is wrong? What if God is doing a new thing and we get to participate with God in that activity? What might streams in the desert of hunger and poverty look like? And what will be our role in doing that divine work?

And there is still yet another way to read this text, courtesy of our brothers and sisters in Latin America. When Jesus says, “You always have the poor with you,” he is not simply offering some dark forecast of poverty until the end of time. Rather, Jesus is giving a command, telling his followers to be sure that they always have those who are poor and oppressed beside them and, likewise, to always be on their side. How can we this week have those who are poor “with us”?

March 28, 2010 (Palm Sunday)

Luke 19:28-40 Procession with Palms
The scene with the throng of people yelling “Hosanna” carries a joyous connotation for many of us today. It is a moment of celebration. The word in the NT is actually a transliteration of a Hebrew word that means “Save now!” (as in Psalm 118:25). The people are coming to Jesus, seeking salvation, which in the Bible implies holistic healing—physical, emotional, and spiritual.

It may be useful to recall that these people lived in an occupied land, with sometimes hostile overlords. Similar situations persist today—Darfur, Palestine, Zimbabwe, to name a few. These are places where those who are poor and vulnerable need salvation. Even in the U.S., systems and structures are in place that keep certain people struggling just to make ends meet. As God’s people, how can we participate with God in salvific acts? What might God ask us to do on behalf of those who plead, “Hosanna! Save us!” What sort of self-emptying might God be calling us to?

Isaiah 50:4-9a
While this text is often read as a reference to Jesus (and it is easy to do so given how it is combined with today’s texts in the lectionary), the first verse could be used as a nice spring board to a discussion of advocacy with and on behalf of those who are poor and hungry. How might we effectively “sustain the weary with a word”?

Psalm 31:9-16 (5)
An interesting exercise would be invite the congregation to reflect on the Psalm as if they were a poor person (another option would be to think about the Psalm in the context of the current economic situation). If you were poor or in desperate need, what would you seek from God in your distress (v. 9)? How would “God’s graciousness” be manifest in your situation? What would it mean to have your “life spent with sorrow” and your “years with sighing” (v. 10)? How are those who are poor and needy a “horror” to their neighbors (v.11)? What would that feel like? In what ways are people who are poor forgotten, as if they were “one who is dead” (v. 12)?

In spite of all these afflictions and all the loneliness, the psalmist still professes trust in God (vv. 14-19). Do we have the same faith?

Philippians 2:5-11
In this hymn, Paul uses the example of Jesus’ ultimate self-emptying (kenosis)as a model for how we are to serve one another. This is radical call. Jesus, whom Paul identifies as divine, becomes a human, but not just any human, a lowly human, a slave who dies a criminal death. If this is our model, what might that look like in our lives? What would self-emptying look like? To what end should we empty ourselves?