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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!
June 17, 2007
Time after Pentecost – Lectionary 11
First Reading: 2 Samuel 11:26-12:10, 13-15
Psalm 32
Second Reading: Galatians 2:15-21
Gospel: Luke 7:36 – 8:3
STARTER ONE: PREACHING THEMES
Thou art the man!
· A sorry fact: In any story about the causes of world poverty, we live inside the “rich man” in Nathan’s parable told to David.
· Like it or not – of course we don’t like it! – our economic and political decisions (for our “way of life”?) affect the economies of the world. Even our smallest decisions reverberate around the world until they eventually land at the feet of poor people just trying to stay alive.
· In the First Reading, David is brought up short by the fact that his lust – a sin not confined to sexual desire – might have affected another, poorer person so adversely. In his mind, he was taking what was rightly his, to give him what he rightly deserved: pleasure.
· Still, he understands “justice” in the abstract well enough that, when confronted by Nathan’s bony finger pointing in his face, he realized that “sin” is not merely a concept but actions (and inactions) that ripple through the circles of cause-and-effect.
· We live like kings and queens in this time and place, even though we might be unaware of that reality.
· For many in the world, “we are the men (and women)” who steal from the poor to enrich themselves.
· David’s repentance could easily become our own. Perhaps, too, his punishment? Certainly, also his forgiveness.
On being the castle’s prophet
· The First Reading portrays a prophet who seems to be on retainer for the king. Not a bad job for a prophet – some of them were like the scruffy wild men Elijah ran with and Saul danced with – but certainly not without its risks.
· In this case, without any invitation from the king, Nathan shows up with a story – ostensibly calling on the king’s great wisdom as a judge, jury and executioner of justice. Although “God sent him,” in our time we might more accurately say, “Nathan decided to do something about this injustice.”
· Strangely, Nathan’s truth-telling works. (Think about what sometimes happens to people who tell the hard truth to someone in power.)
· The whole forgiveness cycle—accusation, confession, penitence, seeking forgiveness, being granted forgiveness—takes place in this one incident. Prompted by a man who dared to tell the truth to someone in power.
· The advocacy ministries of this church body – and other like-minded partners – does the same thing: truth-telling in difficult circumstance.
· At its heart, our advocacy work is NOT “lobbying” but truth-telling as we have agreed among ourselves it should be spoken.
· Right now, that advocacy is primarily legislative, but the ELCA also engages staff and time in “corporate social responsibility” as well. Further down the road, perhaps, might be advocacy that helps all of us approach anyone – in any castle – who could benefit from hearing and seeing God’s bony-yet-loving finger pointed in their direction. Who could have the opportunity to confess and be forgiven.
Women in ministry
· A sometimes overlooked reality: The women who followed Jesus may have been the primary financiers behind his ministry. “Followers” who were actually the leaders!
· These are not “ordinary” women in any way. Mary Magdalene – who is NOT the crying, perfume-spilling sinner of the previous story – is known by the city where she lived, this a sign of influence. Joanna is married to an official of King Herod’s court, which signals her power as well. In the CEV version of this text, these women “owned” thing – property, homes, fields, etc.
· The notable thing: That we may ignore the powerful place of women in the workings of Christ’s ministries today. Women who may have been victims of oppression or violence but now are leaders in their countries or church bodies or organizations. Women who do more than teach and nurse and care. Women of power, influence and wealth.
· Would this be a day to note and celebrate those ministries today – perhaps your local WELCA chapter – in a way that moves beyond mere thanks, towards naming the significance of what women do to obliterate hunger from the face of the Earth.
Gracious and self-giving hospitality
· The “sinful woman” – we can surmise the nature of her sinning – is probably repentant as well as grateful for forgiveness.
· From those attitudes comes her gracious and self-giving hospitality toward Jesus, more than a social obligation in Jesus’ time.
· She is almost profligate in her use of perfume to wash Jesus’ feet. Jesus is almost profligate in calling attention to the importance of her actions.
· Many of us have experienced the gracious and self-giving hospitality of people who are poor, as they share abundantly with visitors or guests from their meager stores of food, time, energy.
· We can learn from these actions, and perhaps be humbled by our own fears – of people who are poor, downtrodden, sick, or dying—into confessing inhospitality of any kind as a sin.
· In the ELCA Hunger Program, we strongly encourage face-to-face experiences with and among people who are poor, so that humility grows, so that we learn from others, so that we confess our culpability in systems that promulgate poverty. Sometimes this is called “accompaniment.”
Chief of sinners though I be
· Go ahead and sing the song. And when you’re done, come back and check out all of today’s lessons for their thematic solidarity: Confession and forgiveness are necessary once we understand our abject sinfulness. Willful or otherwise, we are chiefly sinners. (Also saints, but that’s another sermon starter . . . . )
· What, in the whole field of hunger and injustice, can we rightly name as our own sin? What actions do we take that eventuate in the destruction of someone else’s life, livelihood or environment? What actions do we avoid, powerful actions that would ameliorate or obliterate the effects of poverty?
· How might the psalm for this day remind and comfort us, about the joys of confession and forgiveness in the matter of hunger?
· When all sins are counted and we end up holding most of them in embarrassed silence, we are rescued not by our own actions but by the actions of Jesus the Christ.
· We get to start over, redeemed and blessed and made holy by Christ’s sacrifice. Christ, who took on himself our pile of chief-sins, our own presumptions of being kings and queens of all we see.
STARTER TWO: CHILDREN’STHOUGHTS AND ACTIVITIES
1. With some preparation – and some Web access and some LCD projection – you can offer a child-friendly exploration of the Web site, www.globalrichlist.comI, which takes information about annual income and compares it to the income of all of the globe’s inhabitants. Children could watch as you plug into this interactive site various income levels, then watch the projected image change as they realize how many of the world’s people are much, much poorer than them. The point: To explain to children – and those participating with them – how rich they really are.
2. The Dr. Suess book, Yertle the Turtle deals with the question of a ruler/king/boss who considers himself beyond the realm of ordinary concerns or responsibilities, who thinks of himself/herself as “ruler of all I see.” Talk with the children about unbridled ego-mania – yes, use different words! – and its eventual end. David’s narcissism regarding Bathsheba was seen in other places in his life, and David’s repentance is well-considered as a necessary corrective for this kind of self-centeredness. Children may already know the story, and for sure they can understand what lesson Yertle learned from all of this!
3. Nathan’s story told to David certainly has some contemporary coordinates and analogues. How might you retell the story as though Nathan were talking to a ruler today, say one who stole money from widows and orphans and poor people to fuel his own ego, or a person who stole from his workers’ wages in order to live high off the hog. Perhaps you just pick up a newspaper and read the headlines? Talk with children about the story, and make sure that you indicate the possibilities for confession and forgiveness. Otherwise, the story is just about “them” and not about “me” and “us.”
STARTER THREE: BIBLE CONVERSATIONS
The lessons all focus on sin, confession and forgiveness. This would be a good Sunday to focus hunger-related Bible conversations on the same matters. Here are some possibilities:
1. Pull out any story of horrific injustice or widespread hunger and poverty anywhere in the world. Dissect its possible causes – even if you all have to conjecture in some places – by asking questions like: Why did this occur in the first place? What keeps this injustice going, fueled, vibrant, ugly-alive? Who benefits from this evil continuing?
2. Spend time in Psalm 32, where the writer – David? – gets very personal about the benefits of confession and forgiveness. If you know each other well enough, make the discussion more personal. For example: How do you pray like this? What hunger-related distress in the world might cause you to pray this way? Who in the world wishes you would pray this way? Why? What happens after a prayer like this is prayed in a heartfelt way? How do you know?
3. In the Galatians passage there’s the sense of all of salvation being wrapped into just a few verses. Connect this passage with participants by asking:
- What favor does God show us, undeservedly?
- When it comes to the “oughts” of eliminating injustice, how might we be tempted to save ourselves from certain punishment? Another way to ask this: Can we avoid being punished for our ignoring the poor of the world? Still another: Why would God want to save us?
- Why is “dying to ourselves” a necessary attitude, skill or behavior if we are going to combat hunger with all diligence? What would that look like?
4. Look at the details of the Gospel lesson and see how they contribute to a deeper understanding of this story:
- Why would Jesus eat in the house of a Pharisee? (Think of who the Pharisees were, how they considered others, what their view of “righteousness” was, why “forgiveness” stuck in their craws.)
- What does it mean for Jesus to eat in the home of someone whose religious beliefs may have been diametrically opposed to his own?
- Of what significance was it that this woman was a forgiven sinner?
- Why is she crying?
- Why did the Pharisees insist on “purity” so heavily? Why didn’t Jesus?
- Why does Jesus name the hospitality-errors of Simon?
- Why did Jesus bring up the subject of forgiveness (instead of talking about the nature of hospitality or the place of women in society or his own coming death)?
5. Each of today’s texts invites this basic question -- this one always works with people who are honest with themselves and each other: “Where do you find yourself in this story/passage? Why?”
THE SENDOFF
Some of us wallow in our disregard for people who are poor; others of us wallow in our sinfulness when it comes to poverty. All of us need to confess our sins, specifically and repeatedly. Without confession, our pleas for mercy are baseless. Without our humility, God has no reason to lift us. Without our emptying ourselves of pretense and arrogance, we remain committed to the idea that “helping poor people get food” is enough. And so it goes . . . .
Bob Sitze, Director
Hunger Education
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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!
June 24, 2007
Time after Pentecost – Lectionary 12
First Reading: Isaiah 65:1-9
Psalm 22:18-27
Second Reading: Galatians 3:23-29
Gospel: Luke 8:26-39
STARTER ONE: PREACHING THEMES
It’s not nice to fool God with the way we live
· The Isaiah text is a bit quirky: Is the prophet bothered by false obedience to the Purity Codes, or just bothered by hypocrisy?
· In either case, the intent is to fool God, as though the words of the devout are enough. As though God didn’t know about the actions of people worshiping other gods.
· When it comes to eradicating hunger in the world, many of us might confess that we use good words and have good intents, but in our daily lives exhibit behaviors that contradict what we say we believe.
· How can we, for example, decry the poverty of people in countries whose economic well-being is altered by our choices of what to consume? How can we give money so that people will be fed while at the same time spending much more money on ourselves?
· How can we claim that, in Baptism, we are all equal before God and yet drench ourselves in self-care that way outpaces the care we give to others?
· God is not impressed with our words if our actions aren’t consistent. God is not fooled, and God is not happy.
· What to do if we find ourselves caught in the wringer of our own hypocrisy?
Rich and poor bowing down to God
· The psalm for today scurries around in usual praise, but also carries the notion that both rich and poor bow down to God. (See verse 26 in the CEV.)
· In the context of the psalm, the bowing down is about praising God.
· But in another way, the bowing down is a sign of humility in the face of a pre-eminent truth: God is almighty and ruler of the universe. Both rich – those who have enough to eat – and those who are poor – those living on less than $2 a day – have reason to acknowledge their dependence on God and not themselves.
· Strangely, though, it’s those among us who are richest who have the hardest time admitting our dependence on God. A quote from poet Maya Angelou: ”I find it interesting that the meanest life, the poorest existence, is attributed to God’s will, but as human beings become more affluent, as their living standard and style begin to ascend the material scale, God descends the scale of responsibility.”
· In the hunger program of this church and congregation, we also engage each other – as among the world’s richest – in order to remind ourselves of our privileged status – we eat regularly – and to take responsibility for those who do not.
· It is not enough to merely acknowledge the source of our blessings – that’s the “bowing down” part – but also to take action when all the bowing and scraping are finished.
· If most of us took responsibility for the other, poorer bowers-down, THAT would also be a reason to praise God.
God’s love for the poor and oppressed
· The lessons for today hint at what many of us might fear: God loves the poor and oppressed very much. Much more, in fact, than do most of us.
· Why fear? If the prophets rail against injustice – and if we are complicit with those who cook up and serve injustice like brats at a picnic – and if we don’t love poor people as God commands (and prefers), we stand the strong possibility of being punished.
· The other fear? Way down deep, many of us worry about losing our way of life, our control of the worlds around us, our grip on reality. When that happens, WE will become poor or even poorer.
· Is this why we most fear terrorists? Perhaps that they remind us of the inequities of power, corruption or evil that can be remedied only through hateful, violent actions?
· One sidenote: In Psalm 22 – widely seen as prophecy or presaging of Jesus’ own suffering – the once-mighty David talks about his present state of affairs. He’s hounded by enemies, barely holding the kingdom together, dealing with family difficulties, and probably still reminded of his arrogant sins. THIS is the man who writes a psalm for deliverance. The rich guy gone bad. How might we pray this psalm, not for our own sakes only, but for the sake of the world?
Putting on Christ along with everyone else
· Why DO we care about people who are hungry or oppressed? Pity seems to be a prime reason in the church, and that’s a place to start. Common humanity might be another; a sense of what’s fair and right, perhaps.
· But Paul thinks of another motivation, a metaphor that you might play with: When we put on Christ – like clothing – we become like Christ.
· Metaphor-musing: What if we became our clothing, really? Like it grew onto us and infused us with its properties. And then we would be known as L.L. Jesus or Old Jesus or Jeshua Jeans or Heaven’s End. Would people recognize our style or our label? What kind of catalogs would we get? How would we avoid style snobbery if the labels all said “Jesus” on them?
· Because clothing can be egalitarian, we Jesus-wearers would be a large, large company of people around the world. We would become our clothing and then we’d all become each other.
· Not like we’d all join hands and sing “We Are the World.” But at least we’d start seeing community in Christ. We’d do what Jesus did, think like he thought, give away our lives like he did.
· So how do your clothes fit?
The crazy homeless guy wins; pigs lose.
· I spend time in homeless shelters as a volunteer, so I know that lots of these good folks are tormented by the contemporary demons of mental illness. (And stay tune: Post-traumatic stress syndrome victims from THIS war will start filling homeless shelters just like the veterans of Viet Nam and the first Gulf War.)
· The demoniac in today’s Gospel – THERE’S the King James for you, hmmm? – is a mentally ill homeless person. And in this story – in this contest – the score turns out this way: Mental Guy, 2 zillion, Pigs, zero.
· There’s more than winning and losing in the story, though. Also embedded: A little lesson in Jesus’ economics.
· Apparently the demons prefer pigs to being homeless; apparently Jesus doesn’t mind upsetting a thriving economic enterprise – the pigs are in a herd, not free-range; apparently the pig-raisers were scared that a miracle for the good of one person was paid by the price of their economic well-being.
· At a metaphorical level, the power of Jesus here is focused on one man’s well-being, NOT on the well-being of the local pig farmers. (Nothing against pig farmers, folks; they produce food, for heaven’s sake!)
· But the point can be taken that Jesus’ preference for one sadly-deranged man transcends economic consideration.
· Why’s this important? We who are rich – whatever we “raise” in our daily work – may be called upon to affect that same kind of healing among people who are homeless right here in our own locale.
· How do we avoid NIMBY – “Not in my backyard” – as we consider how best to serve people who are homeless, especially those afflicted by modern-day demons?
· How is Jesus’ example – of love and conversation and healing – a good place to start?
STARTER TWO: CHILDREN’STHOUGHTS AND ACTIVITIES
1. Children understand hypocrisy really well. (Why? They have to deal with we adults all the time.) They can spot the incongruities between stated values and actual behavior; they can see a mile away when the shield of our supposed integrities get more than a little thin. Older children talk about “posers”, whether skateboarders or others, who pretend to be good at something but really aren’t. So what do you do with this asset/sensitivity? Talk together about the Isaiah lesson as evidence of people who say they love God but do something else. Ask children to think about how they might pretend to be good or nice when they’re not. Tell a story from your own life. And encourage children that their actions toward poor people are evidence of their belief that God loves all people.
2. Show children a bunch of clothing – uniforms or caps? – that are branded. (The “Old Lutheran” line of clothing comes to mind here, for obvious reasons.) Have them put on the branded clothing and ask them how it feels to be known by that name or title. Talk a little about “brand” and what it means to people who are branded or promote their brand. Then note how “putting on Christ” is kindof like that, but that this is an identity different from all others. When we put on Christ, we do as he did, think like he did. And a lot of that is caring about people who are poor, who don’t have any clothes, who would love to be known by Jesus’ brand.
3. Use the Psalm as an introduction to tell children the story of refugees – from war or famine – who are helped by this church’s Hunger Program. This church body has understood the psalmist’s feelings for decades. Not only through the work of LIRS (www.lirs.org) but going back to the famine in Russia immediately following the Russian Revolution. (You can reference or show the most recent MOSAIC about Ugandan Christians and their amazing capacity for forgiveness.) Perhaps there are former refugees in your locale – or in your congregation – who could tell their story to children as well. The point of it all: The pleas of refugees today mirror those of David’s psalm words, and the rescuing God who came to David’s defense does the same thing today, through LIRS and other agencies supported by this church’s Hunger Appeal.
STARTER THREE: BIBLE CONVERSATIONS
1. The story of the Gergesene demoniac – a mentally-ill homeless man – bears some closer study, perhaps because of analogues in contemporary society. Talk together about participants’ experiences with people who are homeless, looking for similarities to the circumstances of the man Jesus heals in the Gospel lesson. The object of the conversation is not to dissect “homelessness” as a factor in contemporary life, but to help participants be mindful of the inner thoughts of people who face homelessness, for whatever reasons. One note, too: Jesus’ healing of this man creates adverse circumstances for one part of the local economy. After this healing, the locals are afraid of Jesus.
2. “Wearing Christ” can also be a form of hypocrisy, just as clothing can be a full-body mask about who we really are. Religiosity – way-too-obvious piety – or noteworthy (and noted) acts of kindness or justice can also cover up what’s not pleasant, what’s not true about us. Think together about how the Second Lesson might interact with the religious hypocrisies Isaiah seems to name. How might we even wear supposed “equality” as a badge of acceptability rather than a true measure of our baptized selves? Note the high significance of “wearing new clothes” in first century culture.
3. The rather odd image in Psalm 22 of both rich and poor people “bowing down” to God – perhaps together? – calls for some conversation as well. How do wealth and poverty intertwine when it comes to our approaches to God? Or how do the bowings-down of those who have plenty to eat compare and contrast with the worship of those who are close to dying because of starvation? Is this realistic, is this desirable, is this a trick of the Psalmist’s poetic utterance? How do these perhaps-new equalities compare with Paul’s view of equality in the Galatians lesson?
4. In several places in today’s lesson, God’s “preference for the poor” stands out pretty noticeably. Look at the texts and find those references and see how they add up. Think together why the writers of the Scriptures would be so consistent (repetitious?) regarding this idea? If you have knowledge of the progression of “liberation theology” toward its contemporary forms, talk about that here, too. Where else in Scripture – both testaments! – do participants recall stories or teachings that show God’s love for people who are poor? And what’s the difference between God loving and God pitying the poor?
THE SENDOFF
As you preach this Sunday, I will be in a “land of mountains” in the Sierras of California. I’ll be singing my praises to God to the same tune as the psalm for this day, “Deer at Dawn.” (I’ll see some deer at dawn, I’m sure, and be amazed and thankful.) I’ll also be thinking of you in front of the people you love, warning, encouraging, thanking and amazing them with God’s wisdom. My prayers are with you.
Bob Sitze, Director
Hunger Education
