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 narrative is framed in such a way that the eunuch is moved by Philip sharing the scriptures and telling the story of Jesus. Yet the author of Acts finds it important (if not polemical) to share with the audience what the eunuch was reading. If the eunuch was somehow moved by this scandal of injustice we will never know. We can imagine there are people in our congregations who, if not moved by the injustice shown to Christ, are moved by the injustice they see or experience in our world. The preacher’s task then involves framing our response in the story of God’s action in the world.

The eunuch was inspired to baptism, and this may well inspire today’s hearers also. For the baptized, affirming our baptismal promise includes “care for others and the world God made, and work for justice and peace.” (ELW 228) When moved by the injustices of hunger, poverty, etc., we need only seek to live into our baptismal life and seek it with such eagerness as did the eunuch.

As noted in an earlier sermon starter, the opening verse of Psalm 22 is uttered by Jesus on the cross in the Gospels of Mark and Matthew (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”). In verse 24 of today’s Psalm, we are assured that God hears the cry of the afflicted and does not abandon them. In verse 26 we are told that the poor will eat and be satisfied. God’s work is to feed those who are hungry (see also Matt 6:25-33). By God’s grace we participate in that work with our hands.

Like the reading from last week, the author continues the exhortation for the community to love one another. Here vv. 20-21 offer an insight into how this love is to be lived. The author sets up a clear example for the audience, demonstrating that if God’s love is to abide among them it cannot be private. With 1 in 7 people in the United States living in poverty and 1 in 5 children, (http://www.bread.org/hunger/us/facts.html), it is likely that in our weekly lives we will encounter brothers and sisters in need. Drawing on the passage from 1 John last week (especially 3:17-28) and the exhortation to love God here, how can we not act?

Abide is the reoccurring word. The reading from 1 John connects well with what it means to abide in the love of God. What does it mean for those who abide in the vine to bear fruit? Considering the teachings of Jesus and commandment right before this passage (John 13:34-35), it is conceivable that our ability to love others is one of the fruits of abiding in the vine. The remainder of this passage (the gospel for next week) connects well with being in Christ and loving one another.

The readings from last week and this week devote specific attention to Christian love. It is clear in these passages that this love does something, and it is not just held or believed. Instead, the love we are called to live is practical, having visible characteristics. The epistle reading and Gospel makes some bold claims about love that should challenge us.

This passage depicts a scene that is as much for Peter as for the early Christ-confessing community. Earlier in this chapter Peter meets Cornelius, a Gentile, and comes to truly understand that “God knows no partiality” (v.34). Then, in a movement echoing Pentecost he witnesses the scene of Gentiles reception of the Holy Spirit by the Gentiles. The inclusion of the Gentiles was crucial to the theology of the emerging church. We may well ask what is crucial to our theology as we explore Christian discipleship, witness, and the action of God in the world. We do well to make connections between theology and our daily lives.

Throughout this epistle the author has lifted up the love of others as the commandment by which the followers of Christ must live if they are to abide in God. In this passage the plural commandments may seem like a subtle switch, but it comes back to the theme of obedience as a marker of knowing God. Here can be an important opportunity to once again make the connection between belief/trust/faith and loving others. The inclusion of obedience reminds us of how important it is to connect trust/belief with action. This is perhaps more explicit in today’s Gospel passage.

Given the placement of this passage in the gospel and its content, it seems as if the entirety of this passage and the next is a good bye speech. In verse 12 the commandment to love one another is repeated (from 13:34), and we see that Jesus has invited his followers into his life not merely to teach them some good principles to live by, but so that their joy may be complete (v.11) and that they may bear fruit (v.16). The “love one another” command has been getting a lot of air time in the lectionary readings the past couple weeks, and there is always the risk that it becomes something obvious and sentimental rather than a life practice and struggle. This would be a good opportunity to make some clear distinctions between the kinds of love we see and hear about in the media (even the ones we normalize), and the kind of love that God calls us to live.