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!

Advent is often referred to as the “Little Lent.” While the days grow shorter and shorter and darkness increases, we look forward to the light. We take time to be aware of our own sinfulness and the need for God to restore and empower us to be his faithful people. The texts today speak of an impending judgment and the need for fidelity and wakefulness. With texts like these, it is helpful to think through just what exactly faithfulness will look like. Very often we frame it in personal piety, which has its place. We can also think in terms of our communal life and our commitment to justice. Use this “Little Lent” to reflect on God’s call to us to be God’s hands and feet and to recommit to living faithfully to that call.

The reading from Isaiah continues in the theme of repentance, though it offers a clear picture of hope. We look forward to God’s advent, when he will feed and care for his flock. As seen in the Gospel reading, Christians read this as a prophecy about Jesus, and see Isaiah’s promise as already having been fulfilled. We need to live faithfully into the way of Jesus, feeding and caring for those who are poor and vulnerable. We need to work for the justice and reign of God that John the Baptist proclaimed and Jesus lived fully into.