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!

We often don’t expect much from the common or lowly. Jesus is rejected in his hometown. He is that guy down the street, son of Mary and brother of many (four brothers AND an unknown number of sisters?!). Paul in the letter to Corinthians wants to boast in his many great experiences. But God reminds him that power (or God’s power, depending on your read of the variants) is “made perfect in weakness.” In the same way, we see how God chose to be revealed in the world: as that guy down the street with all these siblings, to a single mom, in the backwoods of the Roman Empire. Is this still how God is revealed today? Is power really revealed in weakness? What would it look like to truly believe this? Would it change how we engage those who are poor and marginalized?

God called Amos to speak an unfavorable message. He was told to prophesy against his neighbors in Israel. In other passages in Amos, we learn that the prophet spoke against Israel because they did not look after those who were most vulnerable (see, e.g., Amos 5:6-15, 21-24; 8:1-8). In the present passage, Amos speaks against the king of Israel, predicting that God will rise against Jeroboam with the sword (7:9).

We also learn from this passage the incredible bravery of Amos—though he was a simple herdsman and “dresser of sycamore trees” (7:14), he nonetheless spoke out against the injustice he saw in Israel. In this way, Amos becomes a model for us to follow. What uncomfortable truths are we called to proclaim? What can we do in our work—as teachers, mechanics, lawyers, bankers, plumbers, mothers, fathers, or whatever—to speak out against the horrible injustices of our day?

Today’s psalm offers a vision of God’s kingdom. Peace, salvation (in the fullest sense of the term, which means health and wholeness), righteousness (which is a cognate for justice). These mark God’s kingdom. How can we do God’s work with our hands?

John the Baptist is another prophet who spoke courageously as one of God’s mouthpieces. Like Amos, he spoke out against what he perceived to be an immoral union. What do we need to speak out against? How do we need to adjust our lives so that they will better reflect God’s values?