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!
MARCH 30, 2008
John 20:19-31
The Sunday after Easter is known for two things; attendance is low and the pastor is often out of town on vacation. Of course, I get the reasons why. The big day takes lots of energy, and a little down time afterwards is needed. Yet, the texts on this Sunday are rich and full of potential for preaching. Maybe you will want to put off that trip for another week.
Acts 2:14a,22-32
The second chapter of Acts begins with the wondrous gifting of the Holy Spirit to those disciples gathered in the Upper Room and ends with a community deciding to live differently as a result of God’s grace in Jesus Christ. Barbara Lundblad in her sermon “Pentecost ends too soon” points out that we focus our attention on the gift of the tongues, and 3,000 souls added to the church that day, but neglect the part in which the disciples held all things in common and distributed to any as they had need. We like the magic of the cacophony of languages, but we often don’t see the beauty of a community living cooperatively as another sign of the Spirit.
In between these two texts, we find today’s lesson. It portrays a bold Peter retelling the events of Jesus’ death and resurrection to the crowd. This is the same Peter who denied Jesus during the time of his trial and by the grace of God, the same Peter who was restored on the shores of
Peter always spoke plainly and he continues to do so as he addresses this group of people. The fear that paralyzed him a week ago is gone. It has been replaced by the courage that comes from an encounter with the resurrected Lord and the power of the Holy Spirit. Now he can do what he could not do earlier. He can speak truth to power. He can tell the story of Jesus without fear of the consequences (which he will eventually have to endure). There is nothing as threatening to the systems that oppress people as a person rooted in love who no longer fears death.
In my ministry, I am ashamed of the times in which I have not spoken plainly and boldly when I see events unfold that hurt the poor and destroy our hope for peace. I let the fears outweigh the greater gifts of compassion and hope. Resurrected, Spirit-filled living has no time for baseless fears. Our new life in Christ invites us to live and speak boldly about the injustices we see, especially those perpetrated in our name. I know many fellow preachers who feel the same way and are ready to join Peter in his bold proclamation.
John 20:19-31
Again we find followers of Jesus locked in fear. They are literally locked in a room because of their fear of persecution. They just witnessed the dramatic events of Jesus’ arrest, trial, torture, and crucifixion. Only that morning had they heard the shocking news that Jesus’ body was not in the tomb, but some were saying that he was resurrected to new life. Practically and emotionally speaking, they had shut down.
Enter the risen Christ. He shows them his wounds and breathes on them the Holy Spirit. Then he empowers them with the ministry of reconciliation.
Thomas shows up (it is not clear at all why he was not present earlier) and hears this amazing story. Perhaps it was one too many amazing tales for him to accept for one day. He asks for what the others had already received—an encounter with the risen Lord.
A week later that is exactly what he gets. Jesus appears and shows Thomas his hands, his feet, and his side. Thomas is convinced, and then, as in an aside to the hearers of this text, Jesus says that those who have not had such a physical encounter and yet still believe are blessed.
This text is multilayered. It is a resurrection account that demonstrates the power of God over death. It tells of Jesus’ compassion for his followers and his willingness to provide what they need to move from paralysis to action. For our work with the poor, it can be a story in which we are called to face and name our fears and call upon the risen Lord Jesus to come and free us from our fear-filled living.
President Roosevelt told a nation in a fireside chat that the only thing we had to fear was fear itself. Now we live in an age in which fear has been used to manipulate people into handing over their civil liberties, blessing torture, and endorsing a war that meets none of the Just War theory criteria. The funds and energies spent on the War on Terror have a direct link to the lack of funding and attention given to the 1 billion people living on less than $1 per day.
Isaiah reminded the people of a vision in which swords were beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. There is a link between implements of war and tools for farming. We cannot adequately fund both. The Gospel calls us to live beyond our fears and into the compassion of God made manifest in Jesus Christ. I believe that this Upper Room story can be a parable of the church in
Pastor David Nagler
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April 6, 2008
2nd Sunday of Easter
First
Psalm 116:1-4,12-19
Second
Gospel: Luke 24:13-35
Of all the resurrection appearances, this one is my favorite. Jesus meets two despondent disciples on the road as they trudge home on that first Easter day. They are grieving and confused. They have lost their hope in any kind of bright future.
Jesus walks along with them incognito. Why they don’t recognize him is unclear. Is he intentionally keeping himself hidden? Are they so lost in their own dark worlds that they just can’t see? Regardless, Jesus talks with them and unpacks the scriptures in a new way that allows them to see recent events in a new light. That only leads to the great “eye-popping” discovery that will happen in their home.
They get to their house in Emmaus, and Jesus walks on ahead as if he is going on. That kills me! Jesus, the newly resurrected Lord of the Universe who is not bound by time and space anymore, pretends to have somewhere else to walk to. It is a test. Thanks be to God these two disciples pass with flying colors.
They invite him to come into their house and stay with them. They offer him the chance to share their evening meal. As they open their doors to a wandering stranger, they practice the radical hospitality that was at the heart of Jesus’ teaching. They see that his well-being is tied to their own. They treat him like family.
He takes bread, blesses and breaks it, and suddenly they recognize him for who he really is….then he vanishes. Whoa! They decide to hightail it back to
We live in a time in which our church is being asked to rethink how it interacts with an increasing secular society. Our culture demands relevance from us. That is a good thing. This text points us in the exact right direction. We are called to the following actions:
This story can motivate us to seek out the places of great pain in our world as a search for the Risen Lord himself. In a country that hides its poor, this is counter-cultural. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, we saw a segment of American society that shocked our collective conscience. We woke up a bit. Our eyes were opened. The scriptures sounded differently.
This text invites us to rethink our understanding of scriptures, how we do “church,” and how we transform our communities. It invites us into radical hospitality as a means for finding God.
Pastor David Nagler
Nativity Lutheran Church; Bend, OR