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!

This week we continue our journey in Lent, a time of penitence and self-reflection. The season thus lends itself to reflection on injustice in the world and the role that we play in perpetuating unjust systems and structures.

The so called ten “words” (see Exod 20:1) in this passage focus on God’s covenant with Israel. The Mosaic Law reminds us that as God’s people we have duties to both God (vv. 2-11) and fellow human beings (vv.12-17). The Gospels (and other ancient Jewish interpreters of scripture) summarize the Law in the affirmation that the two greatest commands are to love God and love people. If we frame the ten words in this way, we find a natural connection to our Christian call (duty?) to walk alongside those who are most vulnerable in the world, always remembering that it is our relationship with God that empowers us to live out that call. What does loving your neighbor look like in the face of widespread poverty and hunger? How is love of neighbor worked out in that context?

In this opening passage to the Corinthians, Paul draws out the distinction between human wisdom and the wisdom of God. In speaking of the crucified Christ, Paul asserts that “the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” While this is a fundamentally theological, or more precisely, a Christological affirmation, I think the idea can also apply in a moral sense as well. Christians are called to act in ways that do not always align with popular wisdom: love our enemies, turn the other cheek, give without expecting anything in return. In our stressful financial context, when conventional wisdom would tell us to hunker down for the long haul and to protect our own assets, would it not be complete foolishness to give generously for the good of others? Could unfettered generosity be one way in which the power of God will be revealed in our time?

This episode (recounted in all four Gospels, though uniquely in John at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry) can make us a little uncomfortable. What religious rites and rituals do we practice that Jesus would feel compelled to “cleanse” today? Similarly, what well-meaning church practices today make our places of worship a “marketplace”? (Note that the Synoptics use the much more disparaging phrase, “den of robbers.”) Implied in this critique is the idea that worship (perhaps even some forms personal piety) can be oppressive.

The texts this week deal directly with the problem of sickness and death. While the understanding of sickness and death in the passages may make us a bit uncomfortable (see the comments in the passages below), the promise in each of them is that God is gracious (in the words of this week’s Psalm, “God’s steadfast love endures forever”) and offers new life in the face of death. May we cling to that hope in our struggle to be God’s hands and feet in a world marred by hunger and poverty!

This is one of those texts that can be used to keep us from work among those who are poor and sick. Implicit in the account is the idea that God brings disease and death on people as punishment for sin. If people are ill or dying on account of their own sin, then they are simply receiving their due. Fortunately, this is not the only text in our Bible that deals with the problem of evil. Other books (e.g., Job) and passages (e.g., Matt 5:45) stand in tension with this perspective and offer helpful correctives. What is especially beneficial from this passage is that God heals those who are sick, that sickness and death is something over which God has power. Healing is God’s work; we have the joy and privilege of partnering with God in God’s healing activity by advocating for and seeking the healing of others.

Psalm 107 in its entirety reminds God’s people that God’s steadfast love endures forever. Verses 17-22, which are assigned for this week, have a clear echo of the serpent story in Numbers. The Psalmist (perhaps somewhat paradoxically) underscores that healing from sickness, even if it is a divinely orchestrated one, is yet another evidence of God’s covenant fidelity. Furthermore, it advises those who have been healed to thank the Lord and tell of God’s deeds. How does knowing of God’s healing and faithfulness inspire how we look on those around us who are in need of healing and wholeness?

The passage from Ephesians provides an excellent hermeneutic through which to read the serpent account from Numbers. It highlights God’s saving activity that is graciously granted to all of God’s people. In a hunger context, I especially appreciate verse 10, which ties God’s grace to our active response. God has graciously prepared for us good works in which to walk. What good works is God calling us to today? When we think of God preparing these works as “our way of life” how does that help us think about God working in this congregation and in this church?

This text can be easily misheard or entirely unheard on account of its familiarity. It is, of course, a profound statement of God’s care for and consequent action on behalf of the world. The reference to the serpent on a pole and Jesus’ own being “lifted up” is a motif throughout the Gospel of John that may be worth exploring in your sermon preparation (the motif is repeated in two places: John 8:28 and 12:32-34). In this passage, we are reminded again that God is in the business of saving, in the most holistic sense of the term.

In terms of hunger, verses 20-21 underscore how believing and doing are one and the same (much akin to what James, who penned that wonderful “epistle of straw,” meant when he wrote, “Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith.“). In a world with so much need, and our own sense of security being threatened, in what ways do we need to show our faith by our works?

Related to this text (and all the texts this week) is a short prayer from Bread for the World. You may want to use the prayer in your service or give it to your parishioners to pray and reflect on throughout the week. It reads, “O God, you lift up your Son Jesus on the cross so that the whole world might be saved. Sustained by your steadfast love, may we not grow weary in seeking an end to hunger. Amen.”