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 familiar passage Paul reminds Timothy that all scripture is God breathed and useful for teaching and training in righteousness. The point is not so much to have the right ideas about what scripture is as to listen to what the scriptures have to say. Over and over they reveal what the Liberation theologians call “God’s preferential option for those who are poor.” In what ways might the Bible offer teaching, reproof, correction, and training, especially as regards to our attitudes towards those who are poor and vulnerable? What would it look like for God’s people to take seriously the Bible’s teaching on justice?

The widow, powerless and really unable to do anything that would truly impact the powerful and unscrupulous judge took what she had and used it to bring justice. What do you have? It might not feel like much but it can nonetheless have a huge effect. A great example of this is support of water projects: it is estimated that, internationally, every $1 spent on water and sanitation generates about $8 as a result of saved time, increased productivity and reduced health care costs.

The point of the parable, of course, is to encourage prayerfulness. Again, it does not require much of us (and prayers are something that every one of us can offer). If an unjust judge can be moved by a powerless woman’s faithful pleas for justice, how much more will our prayers and intentions influence a good God? Pray for justice that all God’s people may be fed.

If you have the option of choosing between the lesson from Sirach and the reading from Jeremiah, Sirach very naturally lends itself to a hunger themed reflection. Sirach begins with the reminder of God’s grace—it is out of God’s abundance and extravagance that we are able to give generously. In an economic climate such as we find ourselves we can forget the amazing gifts that we have from God. But God has been gracious (beginning with our celebration at the Eucharistic table) and we have much to offer in return.

Sirach then moves on to speak of God as a just judge. Read on its own, verse 16 challenges the typical biblical perspective of God’s preferential option for those who are poor and vulnerable. Sirach goes on, however, in verses 16b and following, to speak of God’s attention to the prayers of those who are wronged; so often, those who are poor and vulnerable have in fact been wronged. It is perhaps for this reason that the lesson concludes with the promise that God will hear the prayers of orphans and the complaints of widows. What about us? Are we listening? Are we acting on behalf of those who are marginalized in our day and time?

This text fits in well with Luke’s general focus on those who are marginalized. The parable is not without bite—how often have we stood on our own piety, felt good about our own righteousness, perhaps even pointing out our good deeds (fasting and giving 10 percent!)? Again, the passage from Sirach helps us understand how all good gifts are from God. It is God’s grace that empowers us to live into our call to work with and on behalf of those who are poor and marginalized.

On a side note, the reflection by Jean Lersch for this Sunday’s Gospel reading – found on the Bread for the World Web site (http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.bread.org/what-we-do/resources/preacher/lectionary/30-sunday-ordinary-time-2010.pdf) – is quite provocative and worth a read.