Welcome to Hunger Sermon Starters!

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!

October 7, 2012 Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Genesis 2:18-24

This creation narrative highlights a partnership that God hopes for humans, with the interpretation that this relationship began at creation and extends from there into the future. The project is set in motion by the thought that being alone is not good and a suitable partner for the man is needed. Even though this narrative has been interpreted through the lens of this relationship, the theme of aloneness is profound one today.

How might this passage apply when we consider our local setting? How do we share the message of a God who does not want us to be alone with those who are economically isolated and left behind?    

Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12

The position of creation being subjected to humankind (cf. Psalm 8) may be worth exploring here. There is an implicit hierarchy involved, like that of submitting to a greater authority (notably Romans 13:1), which changes the dynamic in a particular relationship (creation-humankind). But the other aspect of this is the giving over of it in the first place—what does it mean that God has set an order, and then God has chosen to enter into the world as well? 

There are many theological paths we can pursue with this question, but for the issue of hunger and poverty in the world we may want to apply this to resources. What does it mean for us to live with one another and in the world knowing that so many resources are subjected to us? Dwelling in the meta is not entirely helpful, so maybe a more specific connection will need to be made. For instance, we have an economic system that is subject to human control and so what does it mean that our money is made subject to us? The argument can be made that this connection is beyond the bounds of the meaning of creation in this text, but rather than trying to parse what creation means, the question attempts to address what it means for us and how we relate to the poor and vulnerable among us once we know that God continues to enter into our lives. 

Henry Martinez