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!

On All Saints Day, we remember and celebrate those who have died and now rest in the Church Triumphant. The day undoubtedly brings to mind images of the eternal salvation in heaven with God. However, we must also remember that salvation has a daily component as well. Each Sunday we pray that the kingdom might come – on earth as in heaven. The dominion of God is here and now as well as in the hereafter.

Isaiah speaks of the feast which God will prepare for God’s people. Remembering that we live in a foretaste of the feast to come, how does the image of feasting affect the way we live in relationship with one another each day? Here and now. How do we live in hospitality to all – neighbors known and unknown? How do we feed our neighbors? How do we work with God to prepare and to serve this feast of rich food and well-aged wines?

The psalmist reminds us that “the earth is the LORD’s and all that is in it, the world and all who dwell therein.” (v.1) What a simple reminder that all are God’s people – there is no division among us. There should be no distinctions – no poor, no rich; no hungry, no full; no red, no blue; no divisions. And yet we live in divisions all the time. Especially on this All Saints’ Day, when we remember all the faithful departed – no matter their social status, political affiliation, skin color, ethnic origin – we remember that we are called by God to be God’s people, all of us.

The new heaven and new earth – is this the age to come or is this the current age? Too often the hope of a new earth had been used as an excuse for complacency – and worse! – in the current age. But people are hungry right now, they are thirsty right now, they need hospitality right now, they need clothes right now, they are sick right now, they need freedom from oppression right now. For, “the home of God is among mortals” – God dwells with us in the person of Jesus, empowering us to bring about the new earth right now.

Jesus calls to Lazarus by name. So Jesus calls to each of us by name. We should do the same. When we speak to one another by name, we acknowledge the other’s humanity and their chosenness as God’s child. When we speak of “the poor” or “the hungry” or “the sick,” we run the risk of dehumanizing them. We can put people into categories and more easily forget that people are people – our brothers and sisters, all created in the image of God. We should be mindful of our language and how we speak of and to one another. We can speak of “our sisters and brothers who are hungry” or “people living in poverty.” We learn from Christ’s example, and we call one another by name.