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!

This psalm, particularly verses 7-9, reminds us of God’s values, or as the liberation theologians put it, “God’s preferential option for the poor.” How can we participate in this work that God is already doing? How can we seek justice for the oppressed or give food to those who are hungry? How can we welcome the stranger and uphold orphans and widows? What is God calling us to be and do?

This week’s Gospel offers a striking contrast between the pious religious elites and those who are poor and vulnerable. Some caution is necessary, lest we assume that Mark’s caricature of the scribes is entirely accurate—he is engaged in polemic and that polemic colors the picture he paints.

That said, the image of a religious leader in fine robes (the stolç was a long flowing robe that communicated wealth) who robs from those who are poorest and most vulnerable is powerful. Does this happen in our own religious tradition today? Are there ways in which we garb ourselves ostentatiously while robbing from those who are poorest and most vulnerable? What would Jesus say to us and our religious practices today?

The widow who offers all that she has stands in stark contrast. Jesus praises her for her generosity. In so doing he shows that he operates out of a different economics—the one who gives of their whole life (the literal translation) is the example we are to follow. In our current economic climate, when we may feel that we do not have any more to give, the faithful widow shows us the way. Are we courageous enough to give as she gave? To give our whole life?

This week’s passages from Daniel and Mark are particularly apocalyptic in their orientation. Apocalyptic thinking arose in Judaism during the Second Temple Period. (In fact, this passage from Daniel is the first, and perhaps the only, unequivocal reference to resurrection in the OT.) It is an attempt to explain why those who are righteous must suffer while those who are wicked survive and thrive. The answer to this problem in apocalyptic literature is that in the end God will right all wrongs.

The apocalyptic perspective can be both helpful and dangerous in our thinking about hunger and poverty issues. It is helpful in that it reminds us of God’s desire for justice. God wants justice for those who are poor and oppressed. Those who are unjustly treated in this life can hope for redemption. In this way, the apocalyptic perspective reminds us that things are not the way they should be and that God stands against many of the systems and structures of the world (case in point: the prediction of the destruction of the Temple in this week’s Gospel). What systems and structures might God stand against today? How can we participate in bringing justice to those institutions (even if they work to our benefit)?

The danger in apocalyptic thinking (at least in my mind) is that it encourages a certain passivity. In the apocalyptic mindset, God is the one who in the end makes all things right, irrespective of human activity. And this is true—it is God’s work. At the same time, we can sometimes forget that God calls us to participate in God’s redemptive activity. This is God’s work, and we use our hands too (as the tagline says).

Psalm 16 underscores God’s gracious abundance. This is particularly so in the refrain in verse 6 (which speaks of a “goodly heritage”) and the final verse (which speaks of “fullness of joy” and “pleasures forevermore”). It is out of this abundance that we are empowered to live out the call to be God’s hands and feet.

Hebrews 10:19-25, like this week’s Psalm, begins with the activity of God. It is God who has acted decisively in history. For this reason we are encouraged to “consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds” (v.24). Our activity in the world is grounded in God’s gracious activity in Christ. We respond to that by being God’s hands and feet in a hurting world.

One of the ways you can “provoke” your congregation to “good deeds” this week is by drawing their attention to ELCA World Hunger’s new “Good Gifts” catalog (www.elca.org/goodgifts). With Christmas approaching, and more people hungry than ever, this would be an excellent year to consider alternative gifts. What other provocations can we propose?

This apocalyptic passage raises an important challenge to our faith. The Jews of Jesus’ time found God in their rites and rituals, and their Temple was the place where they encountered the divine. The Temple, however, had become a place that participated in oppression (at least in the eyes of some) and thus fell under God’s judgment. What systems and structures are at work in our church are complicit in injustice? What stones should be thrown down?