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!

For 18 years the woman struggled with a crippling infirmity, unable to fully live into who God created her to be. When Jesus healed her he found himself in a conflict with the leader of the synagogue—Jesus had violated his religious sensibilities. But Jesus would not let the man’s indignant response go unaddressed. God brings life and healing, and invites us to join in that work, regardless of the cultural stigma such work might bring about. Are there ways in which we allow injustice to continue because of preconceived ideas of what is religiously acceptable? What work might God be calling us to on this Sabbath?

When Fatima was first brought to the Mashiah Foundation, she was emaciated and weak, and her legs were covered in sores. She had AIDS, and she had been abandoned by her family and was unable to survive on her own. She couldn’t stand up straight – when she walked the few steps she was able to take, she was bent over at the waist.

"I'm Nene. I'm HIV+. You're sleeping in the bed I used to have. When I first came here my legs were so swollen, I couldn't even walk. Look at me now. I'm living a normal life. I've rented my own house and I work upstairs."

"I'm Larai. I lived in Bezer Home for 3 1/2 years. My room was on the other side of the house. I came here as a widow, alone and very sick with HIV, but I got stronger. Later I was able to gather all four of my children to live with me once again. I have a job upstairs in the sewing program."

Nanwor sat next to Fatima on the bed and laid a hand on her. "See me? I've known about my HIV status since 2002. My wedding was cancelled because of HIV. I thought I was going to die, but look at me now. I work upstairs."

It was a turning point for Fatima. In hearing their stories, Fatima began to believe that perhaps she, too, could live. The Mashiah Foundation staff cared for Fatima for months, provided her with food, and nursed her back to health. She gained weight. She gained strength. Fatima found hope.

Fatima goes to literacy classes and sings in the choir. She’s not yet strong enough to operate the treadle sewing machines, but she can now climb the stairs up to the sewing workshop under her own power. She sits with the Women of Hope sewing group each day as they work because the community is meaningful to her.

Now, a year after she came to the Mashiah Foundation, she has been transformed from a dying AIDS patient into a Woman of Hope. She’s been “set free from her ailment” like the bent-over woman healed by Jesus in Luke 13. She’s singing praises to God in the choir.

The Mashiah Foundation is there in Nigeria, healing women and children in the name of Jesus. This ministry not only brings healing from the physical ravages of AIDS, but also from the emotional and spiritual wounds of being abandoned by one’s family and left to die alone.

God is there in Nigeria, there with women and children facing some of life’s toughest struggles. The people of the ELCA are there, too, embodied in our missionary, Mary Beth Oyebade, who serves the Mashiah Foundation, and in gifts to ELCA World Hunger which support Mary Beth and the entire mission of Mashiah Foundation.

The Mashiah Foundation is an HIV and AIDS ministry in Nigeria that is supported by ELCA World Hunger and served by ELCA missionary Mary Beth Oyebade. The Mashiah Foundation provides food, housing, health care, counseling and peer support groups to HIV-positive women and children who have been abandoned by their families. The program also engages HIV-positive women themselves in community HIV/AIDS education and provides jobs to HIV-positive women through a sewing cooperative that produces beautiful quilts and offers the women earn a living.

Today's psalm speaks of the blessings that follow a righteous person—those who keep the law will prosper in concrete ways. The marks of a righteous person are honesty, generosity, and justice (v. 5). They also give freely to those who are poor (v. 9). Is this how we understand God to be at work today (blessing with material things when we are living our lives as just and faithful people)? Are there any challenges to such an outlook?

Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
Throughout the book of Hebrews, the author has exhorted the hearers to stay firm in the faith. In this final chapter the author spells out what staying faithful to God will look like. The characteristics are in many ways tailor-made for an anti-hunger message. (This fact in and of itself is noteworthy—according to Hebrews [and really just about any New Testament author], the ethics that flow from the life of a faithful Christian bring concrete healing to the world.) The author encourages mutual love, hospitality to strangers (what does this mean for Christians as we engage in the debate about immigration?), and remembrance of prisoners (many times a forgotten population). The author reminds us to be content with what we have and to not neglect to do good and share. How would our lives look if we lived fully into these values? In what areas do we, as both individuals and as a church, have room for growth?

Meals in the Roman Empire were filled with meaning. With whom one ate, where one sat, how one behaved were all scrutinized. Your place in society was mirrored at the table. If you ate with questionable people, you would be labeled as a questionable person (“a friend of gluttons and drunkards”). When you arrived at a meal, you were told where to sit; those who sat closest to the host were the most honored. Jesus flouted table norms. He used the potent symbolic value of table fellowship to turn conventional values on their head. He ate with people otherwise spurned (sinners and tax collectors) and encouraged his followers to do the same: “But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.” What conventions might God be calling us to challenge today? How (or where) might we invite into our fellowship those who are otherwise poor and marginalized? Does today’s Gospel in any way challenge our contemporary Eucharistic practices?