SCROLL DOWN FOR OCTOBER 2 AND OCTOBER 9
Welcome to Hunger Sermon Starters!
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!
October 2, 2011 (Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 27)
Isaiah 5:1-7
Psalm 80:7-15 (14, 15)
Philippians 3:4b-14
The Old Testament lesson from Isaiah, the psalm, and the reading from Philippians together reminds us of God’s priorities in the world and our call as the people of God. In the Psalm, the author asks why God has forsaken Israel. Although God brought the vine out of Egypt and planted the vine firmly, God has now broken down the walls that once protected it (8-13). The author pleads with God to turn again to the vine and restore it (14-15).
One answer to the psalmist’s question is offered in Isaiah: the wall protecting the vineyard has been torn down because God expected justice (mishpat) but saw bloodshed (mispach) and desired righteousness (tsedaqah) but heard a cry (tse‘aqah) from those who were oppressed. In short, according to Isaiah, God expected his people to look out for those who were poor and vulnerable but saw violence and injustice. On account of this failure, God removed the protective boundary that was placed around God’s people. (In this week’s Gospel, Matthew uses similar imagery to show how Israel continued to resist God.)
This vision of God can make us a bit nervous. Are God’s promises conditional? Where is the grace of God in Isaiah’s oracle? The passage from Philippians tells us of Paul’s journey. He was once so sure of his ideas about God and he had an enviable pedigree. Yet Paul, by God’s grace, realized that his ideas about God were limited. Righteousness, which really means right relationship with God and people, comes from God, not from our doing.
Where do we need to grow as God’s people? Are there ways in which we are resisting God’s transformative grace? Are we willing to let God work righteousness in us that we may more deeply care for those who are poor and vulnerable?
Matthew 21:33-46
David Creech
Director of Hunger Education, ELCA World Hunger
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Welcome to Hunger Sermon Starters!
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!
October 9, 2011 (Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 28)
Isaiah 25:1-9
Psalm 23 (5)
Philippians 4:1-9
Matthew 22:1-14
Today millions of people in the United States rely on social safety nets to care for their families. While many organizations (governmental, not-for-profit, church, and otherwise) do their best to stem the tide, the current economic climate has threatened the livelihood of too many.
Similarly, in first-century Palestine the flimsy safety nets, mostly alms, were inadequate in providing enough food for families. The unemployed and underemployed fell through these damaged nets and were assailed by hunger and poverty. It is into this context that Jesus tells a parable that proclaims that the reign of God will flip human systems of power upside down. God favors those living with poverty, unemployment and hunger and invites them to the feast. God has blessed us with bounty and calls us to live by those same kingdom values. Whom will we invite to the feast?
David Creech
Director of Hunger Education, ELCA World Hunger
