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!

God has reassured Abram in the past. God has provided in the past. God has protected him. And yet, sin shortens memory and Abram is getting desperate for his heir to be born. His desperation is understandable. Abram is rapidly aging and so is Sarai. Reality must be faced! Biological facts cannot be ignored! Something must be done! So when God reminds Abram to remain calm, Abram prickles and pipes up: “How can I not be afraid when I have no heir?!”

Perhaps we, too, at anxious times in our lives have shouted a similar, “Do something, God!” We may feel this way when someone we love becomes seriously injured or ill. We may feel this way when we hear of natural disasters that leave vulnerable people without heat or water or shelter. We may feel this way when unimaginable violence strikes innocent people. These situations certainly make me want to shout back at God, “How can this be?!”

In response, God issues the promise that Abraham most wanted to hear: “Look toward heaven and count the stars…so shall your descendants be” (15:5). And it came to be at last for Abram and Sarai. But you know what? This covenant involves you and me too! We are numbered among the stars. We are those longed for descendants. We are inheritors of God’s promise that those barren at the beginning are fruitful at the end, those abandoned will be cared for, those downtrodden will become royalty. This story reminds us of a whole new future—one that was unforeseeable and impossible at the outset. God has a future in store for us that we could never imagine for ourselves. God is faithful!

It seems the Psalmist is overwhelmed by foes: evildoers assail me (v. 2), an army encamps against me (v. 3), and enemies surround me (v. 6). The reader can almost imagine the Psalmist huddled in a cave anxiously scanning the horizon for signs of his enemies.

With evil all around, what is the Psalmist’s prayer? It seems the Psalmist alternates between a confident thanksgiving for God’s protection as in verse 5 (“he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will set me high on a rock”) and a plea for God’s presence as in verse 9 (“Do not hide your face from me. Do not turn your servant away in anger, you who have been my help. Do not cast me off, do not forsake me, O God of my salvation”).

What matters is that the Psalmist is focused on God—not on his enemies. Even though the enemies surround him and plague his thoughts, the Psalmist remains focused on God—even if that means pleading and crying out to God! The Psalmist recognizes the reality of his enemies, but he does not focus on them. We do not hear a detailed description of their armor or weaponry. We don’t get a recap of the nasty things they say or do. Instead we hear the Psalmist focus on God.

Justice work is often fraught with those who feel like “foes”: uninformed politicians, apathetic churchgoers, self-interested neighbors, corrupt business leaders. Yet, with the Psalmist, we keep our focus on the Lord. Even as we wait, even as we fear, even as we hope, we keep our focus on God.

It is part of the spiritual practice of many Christians to “give something up” for Lent. Though I have heard giving up Facebook or driving, most often people give up food. Some people fast from chocolate or soda or meat.

While people’s waistlines—not their relationship with God—is what often motivates them, I think it is still a valuable practice. I have heard it said that fasting is the spiritual practice needed the most by US Americans because it runs contrary to consumerism and the all too pervasive idea that our worth is tied to our ability to consume. Perhaps we are captured by Paul’s description of the enemies of the cross: “their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things” (v 19).

Whether we are fasting from food or needless spending or mindless TV, fasting urges us to place our reliance upon God and release our attachment to the things of this world. Fasting can also cultivate compassion for our brothers and sisters around the world who experience hunger on a daily basis—and not just for the season of Lent.

Jesus gives us a powerful image for God here: a hen gathering her brood under her wings (v. 34). This image shows us God’s desire to draw God’s people in a close and protective embrace. Indeed, God has sought to embrace, welcome, and love God’s children from the very beginning—no matter what.

In other words, we are created so that God might give love to us—even if that meant suffering. This love is steadfast and enduring. This love loves what is small and mean and unlovable in us (at least by human standards, anyway). This love laments Jerusalem’s unwillingness to be gathered under God’s wings (v. 34).

And when we are awash in this love, we begin to love with this type of love. We love others because they are God’s beloved—not because they are loveable, not because they can do something for us, not because they are nice. We love people who suffer the effects of hunger and poverty not because loving them helps us distract God from the other junk in our hearts, not because they make us feel good about ourselves, not because we like their culture. But we love them because our hearts are awash with God’s love and all that matters is their identity as God’s people, so they’re our people too.