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!

My Celebrate insert reminds me that today’s text from John 6 is the first of four texts that focus on Jesus as the bread of life. Our text for today is the feeding of the 5,000. The Celebrate insert then reads: “What we have, what we bring to Jesus’ table seems like it is not nearly enough to meet all the needs we see around us. But it is not the adequacy of our supplies or our skills that finally make the difference; it is the power of Jesus working in the littlest and least to transform this world into the world that God desires, a world where all the hungry are satisfied.”

The idea for the Tour De Revs began in the year 2001. Pastor David Twedt dreamed of riding his bicycle from synod office to synod office until he arrived at the Churchwide Assembly. His original title for this event was going to be “Bish to Bish, Cheeseburgers and Fries.” Meaning that he’d ride to and through all 65 synods ask the members of the church to donate the amount of a cheeseburger and fry (or a Happy Meal) monthly to the ELCA World Hunger Appeal. Pastor Twedt figured that if every baptized ELCA member donated $5.00 per month, times 12 months, times 5 million members we could easily raise 30 million per year for the feeding of those who are poor.

Today, eight years later, Pastors Twedt, Schlak, and Soltow ride a triplet bike making stops in every synod creating teaching moments and preaching opportunities where they emphasis our making the gift of 2 Happy Meals a month or donating $10 - $12 per month to the Hunger appeal. At $10 per month (and $10 is not very much) we would have $60 million to work with and at $12 our church would have $70 million to feed the hungry and to teach the hungry to feed themselves. Small gifts, small amounts given to Jesus to multiply into a transformed world.

As you read these sermon starters that I have written I hope that you can hear my passion and my belief. I believe that our gifts do make a difference. That our small gifts of $5, $10, or $12 per month multiplied by all of the members of this church and given to Jesus to multiply some more, just could be what this world needs so that those who are hungry are fed. And once they have been physically fed, they may be open to hearing the Good News of God in Christ who came to save us.

Jesus is the bread of life. Is Jesus saying that hungry people don’t really need food? Surely not! This is the same Jesus who taught us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” It’s the same Jesus who taught that the two greatest commandments are to love God and to love one another. From a world where hunger exists alongside plenty, Jesus promises to lead us into a different reality. On our way to that reality, we can end hunger. We can stop the spread of deadly diseases and senseless deaths from lack of health care or clean water. We can give every child the opportunity to go to school. We can care for creation and stop climate change. Jesus teaches us that God cares about the very real needs of people… people who are hungry, thirsty, sick, in prison. Jesus teaches us how to live. Jesus is the bread of life!

· Some people think it is possible that the real miracle at the lakeshore was that the people were so inspired by Jesus and the little boy who offered his own bread and fish that they all shared what they could—and it was more than enough to feed everyone!

· The world’s fields already produce more than enough grain—just grain!—to feed everyone. But one billion people are now hungry. God has provided enough for all—but it is not being shared by all. What might we, like the little boy, offer to help feed the multitudes? What might we be holding back?

· Jesus’ “bread of life” teachings follow the feeding of the 5,000. In Jesus’ time, it was common for local authorities to try to buy the support of the population by supplying them with bread.

· God isn’t like the earthly kings and rulers. How often do you hear people refer to their wealth as a “blessing from God?” What does that imply about God’s relationship with people who are impoverished? All of creation is a gift from God, but is it right to claim that God has chosen some to be rich and some to be poor? In the scriptures, who does Jesus name as “blessed?”

· Jesus says that the bread of God gives life to the world. Jesus is the bread of God, the bread of life. Following Jesus is very different from following an earthly ruler. Following Jesus is countercultural, sometimes counterintuitive—depending on your perspective. But the bread that we receive as a follower of Jesus never runs out—it will strengthen us forever.