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NEW FEATURE: TWO SUNDAYS AT ONCE!

SCROLL DOWN TO SEE BOTH MAY 27 AND JUNE 3 STARTERS

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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!

May 27, 2007

Day of Pentecost

First Reading: Acts 2:1-21

Psalm 104:24-34, 35b

Second Reading: Romans 8:14-17

Gospel: John 14:8-17 (25-27)

STARTER ONE: PREACHING THEMES

Our very own languages

· The people who were linguistically delighted on that first Pentecost were religious pilgrims, fervent believers in place of the Law in their lives.

· A goodly number may also have been merchants, traders or brokers of goods, given the position of Jerusalem as a hub of commerce at that time of year.

· Galileans were apparently not known for their linguistic capabilities, or perhaps their erudition, at least by the “they’re drunk” mockers. A little classism, perhaps?

· It’s likely that the crowds gathered to hear Peter’s sermon (only the first part shows up in this lectionary) included people of Jerusalem who were poor, artisans and daily laborers, perhaps some servants and slaves.

· How did these poor people hear Peter’s sermon? How did the rich folks, the wheeler-dealers and the devout Jews?

· Another way to think of this: When the Spirit of God fills people today, how does that message get translated into both various languages, but also into the “languages” that only people who are poor are able to hear?

· Languages of liberation, hope, discernment – these lie close to the heart of God’s people who are poor. And we proclaim God’s love in those languages through our hunger work in this church.

· The famous church father – Augustine? – had it right: Proclaim the Gospel; if necessary, use words. But he would be even happier to know that “languages” and “words” also include the mindsets by which we approach the people we claim to love, the people to whom we proclaim, the people already loved by God!

· What languages do the people of your congregation speak? Who knows how to translate “God loves you” into the words and phrases – the body language and the look in one’s eye and the deeds – that could be understood in Africa, the slums of Mumbai, drought-plagued stretches of this country or the dull, grey cities of the former Soviet bloc?

Something’s left out

· In the psalm for this day, the usually inclusive Lectionary Choosing Guys apparently made a small mistake in leaving out verse 35a!

· Herb Caen, the sainted columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, used to portray this missing verse with the mythical bumper sticker, “Kill them all and let God sort it out!”

· In the middle of all this psalm’s praising – and pandering to God? – comes the stark, final “Oh, by the way, God”: Wipe out the wicked forever.

· What do any of us gain by leaving out this realistic and sometimes desperate plea from our praising?

· How do the surprising and joyful gifts of the Spirit get wrapped together with this mystery missing verse? Could it be that Peter’s dark vision of the end of the world – the FIRST part of the sermon, preceding the news about Jesus – is the heart of the message, that God’s judgment will certainly come upon the world unless repentance is forthcoming? Is it possible that “good news” this day might also include God’s answering our private or silent prayers to deal with the wickedness of the evil people?

· What might happen to our messages of grace and forgiveness when we overlook the presence of evil: grace gets cheap, we set aside our strengths, we sideline our responsibilities for justice. We might easily stop our response to hunger and justice at the point of feeding hungry people and never get down and dirty with the systems – government, industry, social/economic, relational – that make people hungry in the first place.

· Horror of horrors, by leaving out this verse, we might just excuse ourselves or pull ourselves out of the category of “wicked”.

· And how can the Spirit fill us – for proclamation and action – if our souls are still filled with unrepentant gluttony, secondary oppression, willful ignorance of the poor. How can the Spirit confront and comfort us if we’re willing to hide our great and ugly need for transformation?

· Just asking . . . . .

Comforter, Encourager, Defender

· Jesus and the Father are one, and they send the Spirit. But who is the Spirit?

· The translation of the Greek here could yield “Comforter” and so we rejoice in the comfort that comes to the world’s poor because of the work of the ELCA Hunger Program, and our worldwide partners.

· Another possible translation is “Encourager,” and so we thank God for the presence of a Spirit who fills us with courage. (We all know enough about the matters of hunger, and we do not lack knowledge about actions we might take to alleviate and eliminate hunger and all its causes.) What we desperately need – especially when we realize that our lifestyles are the primary engine that drives the world’s economies – is the courage to translate the languages of God’s will into the actions of our daily lives.

· “Courage” is more than coaxing us from a comfortable nest to risk flying. Courage also include the gutsy capability to stand up against what is wrong, to admit that wrong in our own selves, to learn from others – people who are poor? – whose poverty accuses us.

· A third meaning for the Greek term for “Spirit” in this Gospel might be “Defender.” Here again, the Hunger Program of this church chimes in loudly. Together with like-minded believers in other denominations and in other parts of the world, we use words, shame, guilt, laws and public exposure to keep the clutches of evil away from the innocent and afflicted. In this translation of “Spirit” suddenly this wispy, windy presence of God become forceful, dangerous (to evil) and insistently strong. The Spirit ain’t no dove, Sonny.

STARTER TWO: CHILDREN’STHOUGHTS AND ACTIVITIES

Lots of thoughts and themes to play around with today. Pick any of these or try some of your own making. Remember that “children’s sermons” are only part of the learning that can come from a Sunday’s texts. How, for example, do these texts head home, to mealtimes, conversation times, going-to-music-lesson times?

1. To explore the “different languages” theme, collect together as many linguistic variations on “Thank you” that you can. Display or learn them so that children can see or hear these words of gratitude. With a world map, show where the languages are spoken. (Don’t overlook the fact that close around you, these same languages may very well be heard and seen, too!)

Tell stories of how the hunger work of your congregation might cause people who speak these languages to express their gratitude. Don’t leave out English. But also tell stories of how we learn and benefit from the example of people who speak these languages, people to whom we owe our thanks. Examples: For the kids who made our tennis shoes, for the people who we helped make a living off the coffee beans that, in turn, help us enjoy that beverage each morning. For the people of South Africa or Rwanda, who teach us about forgiveness and reconciliation, for poor people who tell us about our sinful consumerism. We need to know how to say “Thanks” to these people, as well as to hear their gratitude.

2. What if there were no wicked people? Make up a story – from the viewpoint of a kindly animal narrator -- in which ALL the bad and nasty people were suddenly wiped off the face of the Earth. Include in the story a bunch of desperadoes and despicable folks who oppress poor people – “stealing food”, not sharing, being greedy and taking advantage of poor people. Keep up the listing of sinful folks until the last moment, when God DOES answer the “Wipe them off the world” prayer. And then? And then NO PEOPLE are left on the world’s surface or in the air or hanging off trees! Why? When it comes to being “sinners” and “evil” we all have it within us. We are also the cause of poverty, and deserve God’s punishment for our actions and inactions that harm others. The good news? We’re forgiven and given the Spirit’s gifts by which to be changed, converted, transformed, motivated. (I’d love to be a church mouse and hear your story!)

3. Using three separate puppets – perhaps all looking exactly the same – to explain how the Spirit is Comforter, Encourager, Defender. Use hunger and justice themes (and stories from the ELCA World Hunger packet you just got in the mail) to give examples of how the Spirit does these three kinds of work, these three roles, that the Spirit takes.

4. “God feeds all.” It’s buried in the psalm for the day. Even Leviathan – the symbol of evil in this psalm – gets food from God. Talk with children about people from all over the world provide food for us, and how we provide “food” for people throughout the world through the ELCA Hunger Program.

5. Saying “Daddy” or “Mommy” to God. What’s it mean to be “God’s children?” The Romans lesson claims that the Spirit helps us do that. And what characterizes the response of children to parental love more than obedience? How do “good little girls and boys” respond to the command and invitation of Jesus to consider people who are poor? If we call God as our beloved parent, what next? (No, I don’t know how to translate this into kid-talk, but I trust your ability to do that! Maybe the puppets in No. 3 above have a conversation with you?)

STARTER THREE: BIBLE CONVERSATIONS

1. Today might be a good day among Bible conversationalists to tackle theodicy again. “Evil” shows up in these texts just enough to deserve some consideration. (The “missing verse” from the psalm keys me to this possibility.) Focus on the scandal of world hunger and its causes. Why does God allow this to continue? What part of the scandal do we cause, and why does God not punish us? Or IS God punishing us – in slow degrees, and silently – for our profligate lifestyles, our eyes easily averted to the sight of poverty, our supposed deservedness regarding our present lifestyles. Why does God allow us to continue to be evil?

2. Make the “Comforter/Encourager/Defender” conversation – from the Gospel for the day – really personal by asking conversation participants how, in the matters of justice, they experience the Holy Spirit’s comfort, encouragement and defending. Switch the direction of the conversation to examine the same personal matters as though participants were people in dire need, oppressed by economic forces that ground them into the dirt. Don’t forget about people who we remember this weekend as the departed dead in all our wars. They, too, may have been “poor”.

3. Here’s a connected question for conversational chewing: How does “hunger ministry” in this congregation get past its nicey-nice aspects (comforting) to its gritty, tough work (as in encouraging and defending)? HINT: Advocacy, personal or legislative, does both of those tasks.

4. Another topic: How does the work of the Holy Spirit – see above – work with the example/words of Jesus to alleviate hunger and injustice in the world? HINT: The Gospel and the Second Reading might be helpful here.

5. What do you do after you say “Daddy/Mommy” to God? Or is that enough? Is it possible to stay immature – as Christians or as Spirit-filled people – and goo-goo our way through life. (Now THERE’S a language we understand.) What’s it mean to call God as a parent, when we’re supposedly grown-up and mature? What wishes of our parent does the Spirit help us fulfill? What legacy are we bound to carry forward, so that our parent(s) never get forgotten?

THE SENDOFF

Wow! Lots of things to think about, and lots of Law/Gospel playing around in your head. I held back this week – yep, I did – because these lessons felt like rocks hitting a pond. I hope some of the splashes got you wet. Some of the lessons are compelling enough for you to pick up your own rocks and make your own waves. Preaching does make waves, doesn’t it? Just asking . . . .

Bob Sitze, Director

Hunger Education

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Welcome to Hunger Sermon Starters!

June 3, 2007

The Holy Trinity

First Reading: Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

Psalm 8

Second Reading: Romans 5:1-5

Gospel: John 16:12-15

STARTER ONE: PREACHING THEMES

Holy Trinity Sunday! At once an exclamation about the Trinity and also an expression of possible exasperation, “Holy Trinity!” comes to my mind as I imagine you saying to yourself, “And what am I going to preach about on this Sunday, especially if someone comes to church with ‘So what?’ on their mind?” What I offer here are my hopes that you’ll preach well on this Sunday, answering the needs and hopes of your parishioners. “So what” indeed! Holy Trinity in deed!

With God and with the creation

· Wisdom (the Spirit or a feminine designation for God?) accompanies a hard-working God at the time of creation.

· Whoever “Wisdom” is – a subject in its own right! – the work of this supernatural being or quality of God is foundational. Pillars, the canopy, the basic framework of creation is set up like the tent in which a wonderful circus will perform.

· At this time of year, the God of creation – and the accompanying Wisdom -- stares out at us with wonder at our sometimes stupid understanding of the created world.

· How are we wise enough to be “with God and with the creation” in our daily living? How do we build wisely on the foundations? How much do we tear them down? (Pollution tears down, sustaining actions build up.)

· If we presume ourselves to the gods of creation – and therefore within our rights to tear it down – where is our wisdom?

· If we presume that our supposed godliness requires responsibility towards the inhabitants of creation, how can we countenance the degradation of the environment that feeds them, that destruction largely brought about by our own lifestyles? (Do a carbon usage analysis?)

· At this moment, Wisdom still circles the planet with God, preserving, encouraging, enlightening.

Get out the gittith, Mother; it’s God at the door!

· Background: The gittih could be an eight-stringed instrument, a specific harp that David brought from Gath (a Philistine city) or a form or style of music. A fun word.

· Why get out special music or instruments on this day? Creation is praise-worthy, and so is the God who made it all! God is here with us today!

· As you worship this morning, millions of other people around the world are thinking the same thing: Wow! Let’s praise God, if only because all of creation is a wonder. Crops grow, our lives are sustained, these really cool creatures give us food and delight, we breathe and we discover beauty. At this moment, we are part of a very, very large choir that praises God about God’s creation. God watches and is pleased.

· The details are important: Look what the psalmist sings about – on his gittith or in a gittithish manner – and you can find elements of creation that sustain life. God sings along.

· That’s what we do together in the ELCA Hunger Program: Praise God – with gifts, with daily life, with mutual encouragement – because creation sustains life everywhere. We participate in God’s work in preserving the creation, if only by reminding each other about God’s awesome nature. And the awesome nature God has created. God blushes, but accepts our praise. God likes gittithy praise.

God at work

· The Romans text could be described as an entry from God’s diary. “Got up this morning, got dressed, went to work, etc., etc.”

· This is hard work, this “being God” thing. But God does it well.

· God goes to work – God stays at work, 24-7 – for a purpose framed in deep, undeserved kindness.

· God goes to work – all Three Persons – because there’s suffering out there, folks! Enduring suffering, even.

· At this moment of worship, millions of people are praising God even though they’re smack-dab in the middle of hardship, oppression, suffering beyond words.

· And there’s God alongside them, the Spirit of love.

· God is at work, sleeves rolled up and dispensing love and favor as quickly and assuredly as the suffering that drives millions of people towards God-centered hope.

· We who sometimes think ourselves gods can falsely see ourselves as the center of our own hope. Not so for people who will eat nothing today, or earn less than $1.00.

· Instead, we travel with God to those suffering places, dressed for work like God, and attach that suffering at its roots.

· We work alongside God, wisely and with great effect, through the ELCA Hunger Program and its many international partners. The ELCA Hunger and Disaster Appeal funds that godly work, but God makes it effective.

Full truth

· Many current writers --- Anne Lamott, Al Gore, Anne Basye, you – have noted that we live in a world in which “full truth” is sometimes lacking.

· Fear, misogyny, greed and distractibility – all keep us away from truth-seeking.

· But God – especially God’s Spirit – is about the whole truth.

· The whole truth is not pretty, and in our world today sometimes not fully revealed by those who know the whole truth.

· One ugly reality: A higher-than-tolerable percentage of the world’s people will not eat anything this day. They suffer from disease, famine and neglect.

· Another: By our economic decisions – about “our way of life” – we determine how the world’s economies will play out: who will grow, produce or manufacture what, who will consume and who will most greatly benefit.

· When we don’t pay attention to the full truth, we don’t pay attention to the Spirit who brings the full truth.

· What to do? Confess that we are NOT gods and rarely godly. That we are culpable in the lies that weave together to keep truth at bay. That we fail to seek or to listen to God’s truth, God’s judgment, God’s promises. That we can as easily be part of the solutions to hunger as we are easily the causes.

· What to do? We can insist and persevere in hard-questions, deeper truth-digging, soul-searching, accountability. Not just to elected officials, but in our families and friendships and natural encounters with co-workers, bosses, decision-makers whom we know.

· Part of the whole truth: We are sinners, all of us. Another: We are beggars, all of us. Still another: We are forgiven sinners, all of us. Last: We are blessed, gifted and commissioned stewards, all of us.

STARTER TWO: CHILDREN’STHOUGHTS AND ACTIVITIES

1. There’s this wonderful children’s song, “All God’s Creatures Got a Place in the Choir”, that pretty well describes Psalm 8. Sing it with kids, bring out a panoply of creaturely puppets to sing along and talk about their contributions to the created world. Have fun praising God about the wonders of creation.

2. Find a “gittith” from today’s world – an autoharp, a mouth harp, a harp! – that children may not know very well. (Others: A gourd, an ocarina, an instrument from another land) Make some kind of “music” as though praising God. After the laughter dies down, offer this observation: Each of the children is also a “strange instrument” of praise to God. Somewhere, though, God hears this music and is delighted. Part of the audience, too: People in other parts of the world who want to praise God alongside of us. With their voices and their instruments. Including kids who are hungry and live in danger. What would be “music” to them? What would it take for their lives to be happy and joyful?

3. You can easily find songs of praise from other lands – the new Evangelical Worship does a good job here – and teach them to children. Maybe some old, old songs. Maybe some songs of lament, too, in keeping with the “suffering” thoughts of the Second Reading. Talk about the words and the reasons for praising God. The question: How do we partner with this Holy and Triune God?

4. Hand out work-themed clothing that kids can put on. Hard hats, gloves, tools, protective gear, nail pouches, etc. The reason: “Getting dressed for God’s work.” If you theme this work toward hunger and justice, include items related to food-production. The story: God goes to work every day, wanting to keep people safe, keep them fed, keep them able to take care of their health and well-being. Through the ELCA Hunger Appeal, we make that kind of work possible in other lands. Other places and situations. All of them places where God goes to work!

STARTER THREE: BIBLE CONVERSATIONS

1. This would be a good day to connect the truth that God is holy and Triune with the matters of environmental care and sensibility. Without devolving into a whining or moaning session – about the degradation of the environment or global warming – talk together about the ways in which this church (your congregation, too) works at getting at environmental matters that ultimately benefit the world’s poor. Consult the ELCA Hunger Web site for starters or starter stories.

2. The concept of “full truth” being at the heart of the Spirit’s work calls to mind all kinds of questions:

The absence of truth in today’s world, today’s enterprises.
The work of finding and telling truth is sometimes overlooked. What about the value of whistle-blowers, high-integrity public officials and church body leaders in matters of structural/invisible evil. How do these godly people follow the example of Jesus and the Spirit’s own work when it comes to matters of hunger and justice? How do we find and support these people? How do we follow their example?
How does “full truth” come into our own lives, into the places in our brains where we avoid the truth that is full in our sight, full in our emotions? (For example, how do we set aside the reality that at this moment of discussion, someone is dying of hunger-related causes every time we blink?)
What does it take to be a truth-teller? A teller of God’s truth?

3. Get at “praising the Triune God” in a slightly different way, based on the Proverbs and Psalm texts: For what do you praise God this way, and how are you joined in similar praise with the rest of the people of God around the world?

4. Think together about this question: How wonder-causing and awe-inspiring is the fact that God is Three Persons in one God? (Think of the separate-but-joined functions of the Godhead.)

THE SENDOFF

Truth be, I’m pleased to be one of God’s people today. One of the folks who, like you, have just enough people around me who pay attention when I tell the truth about this wonderful God we serve. Privileged, too, in being a leader. (You’re a leader if anyone pays attention to you.) Privileged and blessed today, I wish the same on you and your preaching.

Bob Sitze, Director

Hunger Education