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!

· In your case – as well as the members of your congregation – God’s “what’s next?” will compel you to more than what you’re doing now, to another plateau of excellence or initiative. The answer to your next question will be another, better question. You’ll wear the commissioning of your baptism like the uniform of a service technician. You’ll move past your wilderness experiences to greater significance, more-focused life-giving, more serenity.

· Know anyone who hears God’s voice? Not psychotics or overly imaginative folks, but those who claim the source of their activity as a heard experience, with God as speaker. No?

· Think again: God’s voice is all around, sometimes quiet and sometimes loud. Sometimes it’s the sound of crying, sometimes the sound of pleasing praise. Most often the voice of God comes in another language, the vernacular of poverty, the lilt of unknown tongues.

· What is God saying? God is pleased with Jesus, and those who follow him. All the way to the cross, all the way along dusty and difficult paths of disregard. God is crying out for justice, demanding obedience, inviting you to accomplish his will. God asks you to confess and repent, to amend your sinful lives. God speaks comfortably but with steady insistence: Get to work while there’s time.

· God is pleased to know that you and your congregation have shown your willingness to hear his voice. God wants you to hear what God so dearly wants: The salvation – here-and-now as well as eternal – of God’s people.

· So who will your congregation listen to today? What stories/voices of people living in poverty? What stories/voice that tell of faithful obedience, of successful ventures that diminish hunger and poverty? What testimonies of those who have given time, money and attention to help restore the lives of Gulf Coast residents? What neighbors close at hand? What immigrants/refugees some denigrate as “illegals”?

· It starts with washing – in first century times a rare event except for the super-rich – and moves to no-nonsense commissioning to service. (“I am pleased with my dear Son because now he has a real job!”)

· In Jesus’ case, baptism moved him to give away whatever he had or could have been, and instead to risk death for what he believed, said and did.

· Baptism washes away “pretend” and pretense about God’s will for the world. Scrubbed clean, we head out into the world to get dirty again. Gloriously inspired, we risk inglorious service to others.

· What does God want of you or your people? For what uncomfortable, risky or dirty service will you give up everything? What transforming force will you succumb to? What new direction towards what new temporary wilderness?

· God wants the poor to be served and freed. God wants the mighty to be cast down from their thrones. God wants the world to be fed. God wants injustice to be punished or rendered feckless. God wants a million small deeds of kindness, advocacy, insistence, generosity to amass into a world-changing force.

· What God wants is what the ELCA hunger ministries want. When you join yourself to the larger enterprises of this church body, you can do what God wants for the world, what God wants with your life. Right now, you know what that means, and all you need is a nudge. This could be it.

1. Spend time at the font, no matter what size it is. Without resorting to re-baptizing simulations, let children put their fingers in the water and learn how to make the sign of the cross on their foreheads. Use the words, “God is well-please with you, (name)” to send them back to their pews with a blessing. Or maybe an early, “Go in peace and serve the Lord” or “Go in peace; feed the hungry.”

2. If your sound system allows this possibility, and if you can find another off-stage co-dramatist, engage in a “conversation with God” about kids doing what God wants. Feeding the hungry, caring about people who are poor, speaking up on behalf of those whose voices are silenced. Write the “drama” yourself, or ask a family in the congregation to do so.

3. Do an “And then . . . .” exercise regarding the gifts children give to ELCA World Hunger. Using your own knowledge of this church’s hunger ministries and/or materials you’ve gleaned from the most recent hunger packet, imagine a chain of events that starts with the contributions being collected (in coin boxes?) on this day until the money ends up buying something (or the services of someone) that serves people who are poor. End with the phrase, “And God was well-pleased.” (You can also adapt this causal chain idea to the idea of “what’s next?”)

1. Ask participants to talk about their own baptisms. The date, place, circumstances. Be sensitive to folks who were baptized as infants – they may have no knowledge and certainly no memory of the event – as well as participants baptized as teens or adults. For all participants, talk about the idea of “remembering your Baptism”, especially as a commissioning to do God’s will. Especially with regards to poverty and injustice. When it comes to “daily baptizing”, what do participants wish could be washed from their souls each day? How would that happen? How would that effect God’s call to end hunger?

2. The idea of “What’s next?” can be compelling for participants of any age. Look at the Isaiah text again, and think together of how participants come to ask that question, and how they seek God’s answer for their lives. Given the preponderance of life-altering circumstances and events – e.g., stages of life, economic downturn, niggling urgings to risk wisely, difficult or trying times – how are participants drawn toward the question and its eventual answer? In what ways does the question gets asked, and how might “combating hunger and injustice” be one of the answers?

3. An interesting sidebar in the Matthew text: Jesus talks about just doing this baptism thing because it’s the right thing to do now. Using some of the same questions as in Items 1 and 2 above, talk with participants about the times and ways in their lives when they felt compelled to do something good “just because it’s the right thing to do.” How might Jesus have felt that way? Why might he have felt that way? Where did his decision(s) take him next, and where long-term?

4. Think together how the good work of ELCA World Hunger helps people living in poverty to answer their own “What’s next?” please with God in new and hopeful ways.

1. If you keep a journal, focus your entries for one week on questions associated with “What’s next?” If you don’t keep a journal, think about the question in your quiet moments for this coming week. Talk about what you write (or think) with someone who knows you well.

2. If you have a mission statement, revise it now, with some of this week’s ideas in mind. If you have no mission statement, write one right now. Visit http://www.franklincovey.com/fc/library_and_resources/mission_statement_builder for one example of a helpful process.

3. Listen for “God’s voice” this week. Be especially observant for quiet or surprising evidence. Take note of what you hear. Make sense of it with a friend.

I was baptized on October 11, 1942, with Karen Nielsen as the other baptized-one that day. I’ve lost track of her – this was California and a long time ago – but I haven’t lost track of my baptism. Although I don’t experience the nearly mystical essence of baptism that some report, I understand “washing” pretty well. In fact, because I have no hair at the topmost part of me, when I wash my entire face I get to remember a lot more, if only because that cleansing water goes from the front of me to the top of me. How about you? What happens when you remember your baptism? Something worth sharing with your hearers, perhaps? Just a thought . . . .

· Somewhere during Epiphany it makes sense to note that all the good news in the world will be of no account unless it’s unleashed into the whole world. And maybe this Sunday would be a good time to do that, with the Psalm for the Day as backdrop.

· I’m often struck by the witness of our maps of world hunger and global mission work. When we Lutherans add together our specific witness – missionaries and specifically Lutheran projects – we cover a good share of the world. Even more satisfying is any map that shows our cooperative work with other denominations and faith communities. We cover almost the whole world.

· But not just the easy places. Mostly NOT the easy places. “Ends of the earth” used to mean “faraway”. But now, “ends” could also be places where no one else ever goes.

· Not us. We’re not like that. Since the beginning of this church’s hunger work – Berlin and Palestine – we have operated with the proposition that hunger and injustice require our presence in places where danger persists, where lives hang in the balance, where “good” and “right” may be luxuries.

· When you look at a map of the world’s hotspots, then, and overlay it onto the map of our combined hunger efforts, you get the goose-bumpy realization that at this very moment someone not unlike you is on the ground in some war-torn, disease-prevalent or famine-ravaged place in the world, putting her or his life on the line so that God’s work gets done.

· You’re part of bringing God’s saving power to the ends of the earth. You and your congregation extend the undeserved privileges of God’s blessing back out into the world God loves, to the tendril tips of the world’s farthest reaches.

· Your generosity lessens danger, combats disease, fills stomachs and renews spirits. Your prayers and words sustain the lives of care-givers out there. Even the ones way out there.

· And some of you . . . . Some of you even join them out there. At the “ends of the earth” as far away as Africa or as close at hand as your local Lutheran Social Services agency.

· If you’ve been reading these Sermon Starters for awhile, you know that I favor sight lines about God that come from the eyes and mouths of people who are poor. In today’s psalm, a bedraggled and bedeviled David is the one who is poor. He’s the one who speaks as a mud-covered example.

· Although there’s just a little hint of self-justification in David’s psalm here – “I’m a good guy, right, God?” – there’s also a strong hint that this humbled man is at the end of his royal ropes and in need of any kind of rope thrown to him by God.

· In the muck and mud of his existence – perhaps NOT a metaphor? – David prays for rescue, and hence connects us to the notion that we ought to pay attention to the prayers of those who are poor.

· What might we learn if we listened to prayers from muddy pits, or those whose graphically horrific lives haven’t been washed up and made pretty? How would the muck-prayers of an AIDS-laden African grandmother instruct you? How might the gasping pleas sound of a dust-covered survivor of Darfur’s horrors? What might the dirty/gritty expressions of sorrow from a child in rural Nicaragua do to inspire your actions? How could your state of mind turn to outrage if you encountered the still blood-spattered anguish of a mother whose child was killed by armed soldiers in a civil war?

· And how do your own prayers still hold close to them the mud and muck, the unwashed truth that at this moment, children and women are dying needlessly, that oppressors are sucking their fingers clean of delicious morsels of ill-gained food, that US lifestyles are keeping the world’s economies oriented toward materialistic consumption of the world’s resources?

· Mud and muck? It’s the stuff our ancestor Adam was made from. It’s the stuff we need to pay attention to. In some ways, it’s more healthy than we know.

· It’s sometimes hard to distinguish the work we Christians do to obliterate poverty and hunger from the good work done in other places, by equally kind-hearted individuals, groups or agencies.

· It would be sad, though, if the name of Jesus were not included in our work. Not as talisman or magic symbol, but as a kind of “brand identity.” (Yes, I’m being careful about this word and concept.)

· “Branding” is one way of focusing attention. Because attention is the (limited) commodity we all seek in order to accomplish God’s will, it’s important in our hunger and justice work that we point at the Attention Getter, the God-in-Christ who deserves the attention.

· It’s not our work, after all, or our world that needs shaping up, saving, renewing. It belongs to God, and to God’s loving Son. This Jesus man/god is the center of our identity, the reason why we sacrifice ourselves and our institutions. It’s his brand to which we call attention.

· Per Paul’s letter to the rambunctious Corinthians, Christ deserves the praise, and it’s Christ’s wisdom that we seek and proclaim. Without Jesus, we’re left with only enlightened self-interest as the best motive for changing the world. Without Jesus’ words and example, our models for lifework would be extremely fragile and eternally suspect. Without Jesus’ victory over death, our work would be marked by futile toil toward questionable ends.

· How does your congregation’s hunger work echo Jesus’ words? How does Christ’s name show up in your witness about poverty and injustice? How do you invoke the power of Jesus the Son of God in your prayers and in your motivations toward action? How filled with Christ’s Spirit are your thoughts, your emotions, your identity?

· The Spirit settles on Jesus, or so reports John in his reprise of the baptism story. Not so much an actual dove, but still something visible/tangible.

· This got me to thinking about the place of Third Person theology in hunger and justice work. Yes, I know about the concept of post-conversion good works, and yes, I know about the Spirit’s gifts. (Generosity and other-mindedness must certainly be among the listed and unlisted gifts.)

· Beyond these ideas, the Gospel for this day intrigues me with the possibility that there’s something visible/tangible -- dove or no dove -- about someone marked by the Spirit of God. Perhaps it’s something that only desert mystics can see, or perhaps only a remembered metaphor that sticks around after the memory of an experience loses detail.

· On the other hand, I’ve seen and talked with transfixed people who’ve come back from experiences with people who are poor, here or in other lands. I’ve seen fire in the eyes of advocates and outraged teens. I’ve known justice-and-peace people who came darn-well near to having auras about them. I’ve met nuns, priests, pastors and lay folks whose quietness telegraphed Spirit-filled insistence on justice.

· Could John have seen in post-washing Jesus the determination of a person bound for a new lifework that was to be dedicated to the liberation of people who were poor? Could Cousin John have noticed now something radically different from his earlier contacts with Jesus? Could the forerunner have finally seen in Jesus what he (John) had been hoping for decades?

· And what’s tangible/visible about your congregation when it comes to justice and peace concerns? Any people with deep-set gazes? Any teens wise beyond their years? Any elderly ones whose every word bespeaks godly wisdom? Any auras? What would happen if you named those folks, or talked about what you see in them as folks on whom the Spirit has settled (like a dove)? How could your vision of their vision help others see?

1. After you’ve told the story of a child who is poor, ask children to help you construct a “mud-filled prayer” per today’s psalm. Ask children: What do people who are poor pray for? How do you know (or how can you imagine that)? Write children’s ideas on newsprint or another format visible to the congregation. Offer the children’s constructed prayer, now or during the Prayers for the Day, as an example of how we speak to God alongside poor people.

An option: With resources from the most recent ELCA Hunger Packet, show how the prayers of children who are poor might be answered in some of the work that happens because of the generosity of people in your congregation.

Another, gritty option: With some preparation – parental approval, ground-covering, etc. – cover the hands and arms of a couple of children with real mud, cold mud, sticky mud. Smear it around on their hands, and tell the rest of the children about children in the world who today will have spent their day covered in dirt, working in mud, desperate to find/grow food, or fighting mud to get any kind of water at all. Talk with children about what mud-covered people would most want and how ELCA World Hunger helps those prayers get answered.

2. Get out some big world maps, some pins or PostIt Notes or some other ways of highlighting ALL the place where ELCA-related hunger work is taking place. (You can gather this information from the ELCA Global Mission Web site, www.elca.org/globalmission.)Before or during your time with children, spotlight a number of these places. (HINT: Don’t forget some pins and places in North America!) Talk about “ends of the earth” as both physical and metaphorical reality.

An option: Start with today’s international news, and see how many of the places where this church body (and its partners!) are doing hunger-related work in places where it’s dangerous or difficult.

1. Spend some time on “Spirit-settled” or “Spirit-filled”, especially as these concepts apply to hunger-and-justice work, or to people who exemplify a way-out-of-the-ordinary devotion to combating the world’s evils. Think together about what John saw in Jesus, what made Paul such a compelling writer, what makes Isaiah believable to his peers. How do participants feel Spirit-led in their own lives, especially the parts of their lives that compel them towards altruism, generosity, genuine love for others? On whom does the Spirit settle in your congregation and how can that be seen?

2. Depending on the events of the past few days – world news changes hourly, I know – you might want to focus your Bible conversation time on the Psalm for this day. On the mud and muck any of us brings to our lives of service. Of the deliverance we need, compared with the deliverance we want or the deliverance we think we deserve. Talk together honestly about the feelings and self-image of people whose lives are literally spent in muddy pits. Start with natural disasters involving water, but then branch out to people who work in unsanitary conditions, people whose “drinking water” comes from muddy pits. What are their prayers and how does God answer those prayers through your congregation?

3. God’s saving power extends to the ends of the earth, so says Isaiah. Have some fun with some story-laden resources from ELCA Global Mission or ELCA World Hunger. See where you can find, literally or metaphorically, “ends of the earth” work that brings God’s saving power to places far removed, geographically or otherwise. Distribute stories among pairs or participants with this direction, “See if you can determine how ‘God’s saving power’ might be evident in this story.” Another possibility: What makes this situation an “end of the earth” story?

1. Make a bulletin board centering on a map of ELCA-related hunger and justice work throughout the world. As a kind of reality check, post current news clippings about some of these places, with connecting string or yarn. Seek viewers’ comments with Reply Here cards. Variation: Do the same thing, but on your congregation’s Web site.

2. Leaf through your congregation’s worship book to find any hymns or prayers or liturgical elements that connect with today’s lesson. Assemble your thoughts into an article for the congregation’s newsletter.

3. Find the name and address of an ELCA missionary who’s doing hunger-and-justice work in some place that you might consider an “end of the earth” location. (See www.elca.org/globalmission for links with this information.) Write this person a note of gratitude and ask others – in your prayer group, small group, women’s circle – to sign the note. Send the note with some prayers, too!

4. Keep a tally of the instances when the name of Jesus is included in your congregation’s communications about hunger-and-justice concerns. If the tally evidences frequent connections, write a thank-you note to those who communicate. If the tally shows infrequent invocations of the Christ-centered nature of hunger ministries, ask those who lead these efforts how they might correct this matter.

As I write, I’m tra-la-lahing away the Old Year, spending yet another late December night thinking about my own mortality, the tenuous hold on life that will greet one-third of the world’s population on January 1^st, the forces of war and terror that threaten the world’s supply of generosity and love. I’m also thankful that the peace of God comes, wistfully perhaps, with the quiet toasts and eye-to-eye contact among year’s-end revelers, the words and looks that say: “Let’s you and me make this a year of getting done what God really wants, okay?”