SCROLL DOWN FOR FEBRUARY 3, 2013
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!
February 3, 2013 Fourth Sunday after Epiphany
Jeremiah 1:4-10
No one wants to be the radical. No one wants to be the zealot whom everyone avoids at parties. And, apparently, no one wants to be God’s prophet either. Moses didn’t. Gideon didn’t. Isaiah didn’t. And Jeremiah didn’t either.
“I’m too young! I don’t know what to say!,” he cried to the Lord.
Neither of Jeremiah’s excuses is enough to stop the Lord’s call. And, I’m guessing, our excuses (whatever they may be) to the Lord aren’t enough either.
You know what your excuse is: “I’m too old/young/introverted/busy/new to the faith/inexperienced with kids/frightened, etc.”
That last one in particular—“I’m too afraid”—is one that the Lord takes seriously. The Lord knows our fear and cautions us not to let it rule us because he knows that our fear can cause us to forget God’s faithfulness to God’s promises. God promises to give Jeremiah the words to say and promises to accompany him.
God has given us a message too: a message of hope for the hungry and suffering in the world. God is doing extraordinary things in the world through God’s church to embolden and equip people to sustainable programs to prevent hunger and treat life-threatening illnesses.
This is your message. God is with you. And remember, God chose you to deliver it—with your style and your timing. You don’t have to be the wild-eyed, crazy haired zealot that scares everyone away. Be yourself and be present and attend to others in such a way as to build trust. Share your questions and your struggles with matters of justice. Honor others and take them seriously as persons, and meet them where they are. And the time will come in the relationship when you feel you can offer the truth of your faith with clarity and honesty and with love.
Go, now and share!
Psalm 71:1-6
This Psalm of lament reveals the psalmist’s anguished spirit. The psalmist cries out for protection and deliverance.
While this Psalm can voice the pain of individuals who feel abandoned or persecuted, it can also serve as a communal lament of a people living in a fallen and broken time and place. “The wicked” (71:4) can be anyone or anything that stands against God’s kingdom and God’s people. What unjust and cruel systems or forces are people experiencing in their lives?
One of the major themes of our day is a deep sense of anxiety about money and our financial future as a country. Some have lost their jobs; many feel stuck in jobs they don’t find fulfilling. Businesses have closed. Many have lost investment value.
Because our God is a “rock of refuge” (71:3) we can face our future with a deep sense of peace. For already, congregations and faith-based institutions are finding that in situations of real need, surplus emerges from scarcity. And many who suffer a loss of income are rediscovering who they are outside their work roles. Living simpler and lighter is en vogue. Younger generations are asking their grandparents to teach them the lessons of the Great Depression. While some are hoping that economic recovery will return our society to its previous state of extravagance and excess of a few years ago, others are now having different visions. And, most importantly, we face our future with hope because we have a God who is faithful, a God who is with us in the midst of suffering, a God who is “our hope and our trust” (71:6).
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Love does not insist on its own way, Paul writes. Certainly this applies to friendships and familial relationships, though it also could apply well to our relationship with those we are in partnership with to alleviate hunger and poverty. Whether they live around the corner or across the world, our partners in this work deserve our respect and our regard.
Perhaps this ode to love could be rewritten with our partners in poverty and hunger alleviation work in mind:
Love does not have an agenda. Love does not assume they already know the best way to achieve a goal. Love does not manipulate numbers so they look good on a grant application. Love does not disparage opponents of this work. Love does not despair.
Love listens. Love endures. Love works for the good of others. Love is hopeful.
Luke 4:21-30
‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’ (4:22), the amazed and disbelieving crowd around Jesus murmured. You can imagine their whispered conversations:
“It’s just Jesus, an ordinary guy…like us. Right?”
“He’s a carpenter, not a wise man; a woodworker, not a miracleworker!”
“He should prove the rumors we’ve heard and preach to us!”
And preach he does! Jesus preaches them a sermon that tells them about all of the things God has done: how God’s mercy and healing is available to all people—including those outside of the covenant community. In their fear and disbelief, they drive Jesus away, intending to kill him.
It makes me wonder: who is God speaking through today? Whom do we take for granted? What wisdom, what deeds of power are we missing because we make judgments about how and through whom God’s work can be done?
The question for us one day might be: Is this not Russell, the kid who skateboards? What is he doing writing grants to feed hungry kids in his school? Are these not Linda and Pat, the sweet little ladies who serve coffee on Sunday morning? What on earth are they doing occupying the street corner where the drug dealers usually stand?! Is this not the church that once locked its doors against the neighborhood, now welcoming homeless families to stay the night?
May God give us spirits that are open to the new things God wants to say to us and to do through us!
Rev. Kendra Wilde
Associate Pastor, Our Redeemer's Lutheran Church, Helena, MT
