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!

Obedience to God is a reoccurring theme throughout the scriptures, but it is not merely a flat demand. The principle is based in the conviction that God is faithful to God’s people and wishes to provide for them. The lectionary passages this week draw us not only to this faithful God, but how we are shaped by God and led into mission in the world.

The question posed in the first verse of this short psalm guides the rest of the passage. The responses that follow are not concerned with internal beliefs as much they are with actions and the public life of the person who must walk blamelessly, do right, and speak truth. If our congregations are tuned into this question, then we turn our attention to the public life and witness of the church.

The verbs “look” and “hear” have prominence in the passage in James. Much has been said about the emphasis James places on action as something we can look at to find evidence of the faith. With the exhortation to be doers of the word, James does not have in mind a faith that is merely a show of works for others. The last verse of this passage illustrates a couple dimensions of an acted faith—as James identifies the care of orphans and widows as a neighborly or social dimension, and keeping oneself unstained by the world as a more personal (or communally introspective) reflection. The latter could almost be interpreted as guarding our motives, and proves vital lest active faith merely be consigned to works.

With the emphasis on both practice and reflective aspects of faith, these words speak to the various outreach endeavors in our congregations as well as to our work as we strive to care for the orphans and widows in distress and those live in fear of hunger. If our work is done without reflection, or our reflections do not lead to further action, then we are fall into the trap James is warning against—an incomplete faith.

In the Gospel text, intentions are under examination by Jesus. This of course caused discomfort among the religious leaders, and surely with those who followed Jesus to this point as well. Tradition is often not a good enough reason for actions taken in faith; a point Jesus makes sure the Pharisees hear.

As we continue to respond to hunger and poverty in our neighborhoods and in the world, let us have our traditional responses and our intentions checked by the words of Jesus. And may we draw ever closer to him as the one who is able to feed all with what we need to see God’s work done here on earth.

Oftentimes it is precisely the differences between the rich and poor that receive attention, and any attempt to draw out a commonality seems to ignore the disparity. But when identifying the LORD as “the maker of them all,” (v. 2) the author makes the connection between obedience to God and economic life (not to say that these aspects of life would have been different for the original audience; the distinction may be more apparent in a contemporary context). The other lectionary verses in this proverb are paired with warning against injustice and descriptions of what justice looks like.

Notice in verse 9 the generous are not identified as such because they give bread to the poor, but they give of their bread (first person singular in Hebrew) to the poor. There is some responsibility that comes with ownership. And ownership becomes a big deal if it is first recognized that God is the maker of them all, because that means all belongs to God.

And then we hear that God pleads the cause of the poor and it takes us beyond the imagery of just putting together a community meal or serving food for the homeless and hungry; not to relegate these, but only to point out the distinction between verse 9 and 23. There is a retributive element in verse 23 as well, that probably gets ignored in a lot of sermons because it is not usually pleasant to think of justice having an aspect of retribution, especially when we talk about our loving God. Perhaps the severity of the language reflects the seriousness of God’s preference for pleading the case of the poor rather than God’s desire to dole out punishment.

Despite writing commentaries on most of the books of the Bible, Luther neglected to write a commentary on the book of James. He made passing remarks where he agreed with the epistle, and was even more vocal in when he felt James had erred. Verses 14-17 may very well have made Luther cringe. Luther could not endorse the connection between faith and works that he thought James was making. This conclusion does not imply that personal action and faith are left to inhabit their own spheres (a common interpretation); just that they not be mingled when it comes to salvation.

James warns against a faith which is expressed only in prayer, and Luther warned against a faith that was primarily expressed in works. They may have been arguing past each other at this point. But the contemporary challenge is addressing James, particularly his insistence on a faith with works as it pertains to responding to the poor and hungry, and interpreting any distinctions between traditional and contemporary Lutheran theology.

This exchange between Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman has yielded far more than just theological crumbs for commentators. This unnamed woman comes to Jesus in need, and with some witty word play and persistence talks Jesus into responding to her with mercy. For once it looked as though he may not have done so, and we can only speculate as to why he responded the way he did.

Similarly, the hungry and poor of the world confront the church. As people of faith we bear witness to a God who gives out of abundance. This good news should be proclaimed in word and deed to those who receive only crumbs from the table of this world.