LISTSERV 16.0 - HUNGERSERMONSTARTERS Archives

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!

· Sadness of the biblical captivity stories is that national identity – a protecting cradle for God’s people to prosper and to serve God – is destroyed and disappears.

· Around the world today -- including this country? --the collapse of civil societies sobers us. Are we descending toward individualisms that obscure our responsibilities for each other, including those who are poor?

· Any of us loves our country as God does: A collection of people who obey God’s will, who accomplish God’s will – mostly for justice among all people – and who worship God alone.

· The psalmist remembers God’s power in the events of the Exodus, a massive refugee resettlement program. Miracles abound because of God’s power, because of God’s love.

· Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service has been working with immigrants and refugees for decades, among people whose personal exoduses were also made under duress. Their deliverance was no less miraculous than the First Exodus.

· This might be a good Sunday to note and celebrate the presence of immigrants in your community and in this fellowship. Visit www.lirs.org for further information about the immigration and refugee services of this church body.

· When it comes to our ways of living, some of us may think that we can escape the consequences of profligate lifestyles, purposed ignorance of others’ poverty, studious avoidance of action to combat injustice. We act as though we don’t have to pay – now or in the future – for what we’ve done.

· By God’s grace and because of the Holy Spirit, the consequences of our living on earth can accrue towards wonderful things --- e.g., helping one another, doing good, etc. – that don’t disobey any law.

· A bit of a stretch, but I see small hints in the Gospel and the Galatians text of the truth that personal involvement – in what’s good and in what’s evil – is the root of all societal change.

· Our global mission folks call this “accompaniment” and they also speak of sustaining relationships as the core for long-lasting change in the world. For them, proclaiming the Gospel is NOT just about planting seeds, but also about preparing the ground and about sticking around to weed and aerate the soil and water and prune.

· When I see and hear active verbs, I know that the hunger program of this church affects people who, in turn, help others change. When I hear ideas or passive verbs, I wonder whether folks are avoiding the necessity – also the privilege and the joy – of face-to-face encounters with people who are poor.

· That’s the challenge and good news of this idea: When you get involved personally with the people that God loves so dearly, you follow the example of Jesus, who came to be among us, who lived with us and died as we will die.

· I’m struck with the central place of peace-blessings in Jesus’ instructions to his advance men and women. He wants them to go into the home and give a blessing of peace – a big word for Jesus, way beyond “not noisy” or “not violent.”

· I’m also struck by the central place that peace ministries in this church might play in the way we do hunger ministries. A good example is Lutheran Peace Fellowship (www.lutheranpeace.org), for whom “peace” is also a big word.

· You’re still experiencing the afterglow of another July 4^th, and it’s totally legitimate to ask questions on this day about the relationship between Jesus’ instruction and the way our nation conducts its foreign policy, the way we treat each other in a Land of Freedom, or the way we react to each other in personal encounters. How do “blessings of peace” characterize our first greetings, our attitude about others, our best wishes for their wellbeing, or own role as God’s servants?

1. Teach the children a song or a blessing that includes a greeting of peace. If your congregation engages in a greeting of peace during the worship, comment on that matter, and tell the children about places in the world where Lutherans and other Christians have brought God’s own peace, by helping refugees, helping people forgive, getting relief aid to people, helping people work together for common ends. Look at the most recent hunger packet to find a sheaf of stories that might illustrate these possibilities.

2. As a variation, use anointing oil to bless children’s hands for doing the work of combating hunger. This might coincide with the collection of an offering, the start of a congregation’s immersion experience or volunteering for disaster relief. Children might receive the blessing (on their hands) and then help pass the peace – with this same ritual with oil – to other members of the congregation.

3. As you read the Galatians text to children, ask them to imagine themselves living through a normal summer day acting in positive and helping ways. After they open their eyes, ask children to tell you what happened as they imagined themselves at home, by a pool, taking a walk, playing on the sidewalk, being with friends, on vacation, taking care of their siblings or being home alone.

4. If you haven’t taken my suggestions in previous weeks about thoughtfulness about refugees, use today’s momentary reference – in the psalm – as the jumping-off point for sharing stories of congregation members who were once refugees of one kind or the other. HINT: Don’t forget folks who escaped the devastation of the Gulf Coast, and are also refugees. ANOTHER HINT: Don’t forget the stories of older adults, people who escaped their homelands decades ago, fleeing from war and worse.

1. Because the texts suggest action, individually and corporately, could you spend time with conversation participants examining how each of you plays out the directives of Jesus – bringing peace blessings – and the imperatives of Paul in the Galatians text, in the ways you live.

2. As a variation, ask participants to close their eyes, rewind back to the previous day – at home or at work – or to fast forward to next week. As they imagine themselves into a setting full of relationships, how might they find themselves accepting the invitation and invectives of today’s lessons in specific situations during their life? The difference from Item 1 here: More specificity.

3. According to Luke, Jesus’ ministry is played out from his basic understanding of the imminent coming of the Kingdom of God. No small matter, this “kingdom” thing, and Jesus is insistent that it requires attitudes and behaviors that are substantially different than those we normally engage in. Talk together about your own sense of the coming of God’s kingdom, especially the parts about coming to judge the world in righteousness.

I’m on vacation as read this, and I’m deeply aware that for most of the people of this world there is no vacation, no rest, no letup from hard and difficult work. Unemployed people, people with no apparent reason for hope, people in the maxi and mini wars of the Middle East, the so-called working poor. I feel privileged to have this blessing, and hope you do, too, anytime you can rest without being hassled or losing ground or the good favor of people around you. A Sabbath is good for all of us. Would to God that all God’s people could rest from their labors, and long before their time of eternal rest! A thought.

· Most of the time we speak of the Christian life as an outgrowth, a direct result, of the Spirit’s gifts. An understandable, albeit understated, response to God’s goodness.

· Sometimes, though, we do what’s right just because we’re commanded to do so, compelled by the mandates of God, the example of Jesus, our accountability to the family of faith.

· In the first lesson, the Deuteronomist gets just a little silly --- now THERE’S a word picture! – as he pretends that someone can’t fathom obeying the commandments because they’re too far away or too unreachable.

· It’s equally silly to think that all of us can hide behind Gospel and grace, relishing our freedom like a good meal, burping our way toward somnolence while professing deep gratitude to those who provided and served the meal.

· Doesn’t work. Not when you factor in the concepts of brain science that suggest that we respond to the power of suggestion perhaps more readily than to the power of self-stimulated gratitude.

· Starting with our own lives, we obey and do what we’re told. Why? Because this Teller knows more than we do, because we are still not minor gods come to Earth to write our own commandment tickets. God loves these people who are starving for their rights, their children, their wellbeing -- and this God is not pleased at all with our disobediences.

· “Life journey” imagery might suggest that the Psalmist” version of “path” has to do with our sense of ultimate guidance toward a desired end, about choosing how we will serve, about not straying, about following someone else down a life course already determined or at least scouted.

· “Paths as habits” also takes us toward something important: The idea that we build our paths by our behaviors. Our habits compel us, and we need to be honest about those that lead to destruction or futility, and those that lead to dynamic living.

· When it comes to hunger and justice, it seems to me that there are only two major highways or two major sets of habits: One highway/set is about the near-idolatry of taking care of Number One; the other highway/set is about giving our lives away for the sake of others.

· Still, we need always to pay attention to the possibility that even in our most other-centered life journeys we are actually moving toward satisfaction of our basic needs, using others along the way.

· When that happens, we need to stop right in the middle of the highway/habit examination and confess our sins. Before we head down the wrong path, before the wrong habits rule us like a corrupt county sheriff.

· Please understand my deep appreciation for your personal and congregational participation in the funding of the ELCA World Hunger Program through the ELCA World Hunger and Disaster Appeal. You have other choices, but you’ve chosen to be part of this specific way of doing God’s will.

· Thanks for keeping your eyes sharp and your ears sensitized to both the sins of injustice and the hopes to eliminate it. You could just be negative or just gloss over injustice, but you don’t.

· You have my admiration as you try to discern what is God’s will for your life, your leadership, the way you live out your faith every day of your life. You could ignore this whole God-rules thing and just soak up beer or goodies while burping your way through life.

· I thank God when I think of you because I know your life changes the lives of others. I can’t do that from this computer (now perched on my lap at home on a steamy Friday night in Wheaton, IL.) Without you doing your good and godly work, I’m just another bureaucrat and our thanking together is just self-congratulatory institutional apple polishing. You help God change the world, and so I thank you.

· I’m struck – I say that a lot because it’s true a lot when I get surprised by what pops out of God’s Word right into my amygdala – by the idea sloshing around in today’s texts that we can pray for each other. In gratitude, mostly, but also in acknowledgment and appreciation. We can hold each other in prayer, tagging along in each other’s lives, imagining ourselves into daily routines that we share as blessings from God.

· I’m struck by this not because I am a Prayer Proponent – prayer has become salvific in some quarters, has it not? – but because I understand Paul’s gush really well. Maybe you do, too.

· Think of it: Five million of we Lutherans here in this country, another 63+ million scattered around the world. Growing churches, historic churches. Lives changed, nations held together, forgiveness embedded into constitutions, mercy and justice poured into the lives of people with great needs and great capabilities. Way over 1 million volunteer hours contributed to disaster relief in the Gulf Coast, worth about $20 million in wages, were that kind of help to be paid in wages and benefits.

· More: Every day your congregation members go to work, serving God in ways that cut evil into little pieces, defend the weak, offer help in silent-but-effective ways, preserve the environment and please God as only God can be pleased. More than points of light, these lively ministers in daily life turn the world right-side up, towards God’s will.

· You have leaders and “ordinary workers” in your congregation; some of your folks exercise considerable power, most lead by example and daily witness. They don’t like injustice and they say so. They put their (God’s) money where their mouths are. They muscle up to hard work on behalf of God’s mission. They believe what you proclaim and make it come to life in their daily deeds of mercy, truth-telling and facing down evil.

· So how do we pray in those circumstances, especially when we fit “hunger ministries” into the picture? We gush out prayers of thanks. “Every time I think of you” shows up here, probably as literally as it does in Philippians.

· Like love-struck companions, we can’t get each other out of our minds. Like merciful and loving parents, we can’t get out of our heads our family members around the world. Like memory storehouses, we can’t ever forget what good things happen in the world because of the people for whom we pray/gush.

· Okay, okay, this is the part where the Gospel is way-too obvious, and you already know that sermon and so do your people. And it’s a good one to preach. But if you want to push at some things a little more weirdly – sometimes my middle name here in these Starters – let’s revisit our good friends in this mind-boggling parable of Jesus. Follow along, please . . .

· The guy on the road had been robbed. Brigands populated that stretch of the road, and travelers were fair game. This is not just flat-tire time. The Good Samaritan is helping someone in physical and economic duress. Our Helper Man is up against some industrial strength problems. He applies industrial strength solutions. Not unlike how we help diminish the problems that poor folks face today, all over the road.

· In the foreground of this parable, we’re talking about what’s clean and what’s unclean. About what contaminates people and possibly makes them sick. I’m not talking about tainted hamburger. In this parable, very pious folks have to wrestle with the possibility that the core of their spirituality or their livelihood will be ruined by one act of mercy. Perhaps their identity? The Samaritan steps over that question with his stooping down and picking up.

· This may be like what happens when we get mixed into the lives of people who are poor. Our well-scrubbed sense of spiritual wholeness suddenly gets messed up, our identities come unraveled when we see injustices around the world intertwined with the very economic systems that benefit us. Staying clean, staying pious, staying devoted to God – all these could be at risk when we walk alongside of – or learn from – the world’s poorest people.

· It’s possible that the “road down to Jericho” was the road “away from Jerusalem,” meaning that these religious professionals were on their way to a well-deserved R&R at the priestly retreat house down in Old Jericho. Dates and figs, warmth, the river, no prying eyes, a vacation – it’s possible that what kept our walking-by friends trucking was their weariness in well-doing or their heading for deserved pleasures.

· Not unlike what may happen when we see people who are poor. We’re tired, we’re looking forward to having some well-deserved fun, we want to keep life from becoming dull and brutish – so we eliminate poor folks from our vision in order to preserve some small scrap of enjoyment in life. The poor, you see, are capable of dragging us down.

· Check this out to see if I did my homework: The Samaritan may have been despised for his ancestors’ ancient apostasy or land-grabbing at the time of the Return from the Exile; he was also probably a guy whose racial profile was not exactly Jewish. Could he have been an Arab or some other supposed interloper in the supposed “holy” land? And who would this guy be today?

1. With children, re-enact the Good Samaritan story. Some children can be robbers, some the person(s) robbed. The Samaritans might turn into a whole group of folks. What if you made your whole sanctuary the setting for the story, moving from the scene of the crime to the scene of the kindness to the inn, and perhaps back to Jesus and the Guy With the Tricky Question. Move the story quickly, perhaps “interviewing” the characters about the reasons for their actions.

2. Pretend that your sanctuary consists of a series of paths – the aisles? – and that children are heading down paths toward doing what is right regarding people who are poor. There are dead-end paths, circular paths and “the right path.” Have guides along the way to the right path. Reference or read aloud the psalm as a background.

3. Perhaps you’ve done this before, but it’s a good activity/experience to repeat. “Pray the world” by bringing a large globe or large map into children’s vision. Using stories from the ELCA World Hunger packet – it came to your congregation about two weeks ago – spotlight the place in the world where the stories take place and involve the whole congregation in instant prayer for the people involved in the stories. HINT: Don’t make all the stories about how WE are always Good Samaritans and THEY are always needy.

1. Explore a little more this dialectic between pleasure and duty when it comes to helping those who are poor. How do pleasure and duty compel us to be helpful, and how do they keep us away from helping others? Imagine yourselves into the minds of contemporary priests and Levites trying to discern the spiritual or identity costs involved in being mindful, helpful and respectful of people who are poor. What are the spiritual or identity costs when we do NOT engage people who are poor in any way, or in merely paternalistic ways?

2. Use Bible Conversation time as an experience or training time in either “praying the world” or “praying the newspaper.” Find stories – see No.3 above – or headlines in the newspaper. Make your prayers specific and focused on God’s action. Try silent prayer, breathing prayers, prayer starters. HINT: Don’t make all your prayers about “them” as though everyone is so poor and we are so helpful. What can we learn from the example of people in other parts of the world? What do we need to confess?

3. Here’s the start for an interesting time of sharing: What would be participants’ response if this congregation announced – on good authority and with some teeth in the announcement – that all congregation members would now be required to submit to a helping-others fund the amount of $1000 per family or 3% of family income, whichever was the highest amount? And to make the matter even more interesting, the same announcement also outlined a weekly requirement for at least one significant helpful encounter with a person who is poor? Ask participants their reactions AND the reasons for those reactions. Reference the Deuteronomy text as the discussion/sharing progresses.

You can probably hear them right through the phone lines: gazillions of 17-year cicadas that have hatched in the past four weeks, buzzing and vibrating their ecstatic invitations to others for a wonderful fling before it all ends pretty soon. Even if you can’t hear them, you can probably imagine along with me what it might feel like to live underground, eating roots for seventeen years, then having a one-month above-ground, flying-in-the-sun, pleasure-filled vacation before collapsing onto the sidewalk or turning into squirrel food. I don’t know if you can understand this, but sometimes I think I understand their lives. I am curious if there are any Good Cicadas among all the noisy ones, helping out their injured fellow tree-climbers. I also wonder whether anyone in this part of the country is working “cicada-like” into this week’s sermon . . . . .