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!

The Advent season is an excellent time to bring hunger related themes into your sermon. In the time when the days are getting darker and we look forward to the coming of the light, we acknowledge the great darkness in our time, the unrealized human potential and millions of lives lost, all for something that is preventable. In this “Little Lent” let us recommit ourselves to doing God’s work with our hands.

Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19 (7)
Both Isaiah and the today’s Psalm give a vision of a godly ruler. Isaiah looks forward to a shoot from the stump of Jesse. The ruler will judge with equity, with a particular concern for those who are poor and meek (Isa 11:4). At time of peace will ensue (vv. 6-9) – a peace so great that even the animals will be at rest with one another. Psalm 72 is a prayer that the ruler may be guided by justice. Justice for those who are poor is especially underscored (see especially vv. 2b and 4; see also vv. 12-14 which are not assigned in the lectionary). Both passages, then, bring concerns about hunger and poverty to the fore.

First, both speak of the just ruler. We may reasonably ask how rulers are to live into this vision. Have they ruled justly? Are those who are poor given equally opportunity? If not (and I would argue that those who are poor are too often victims of unjust systems and structures), these passages give us a clear starting point for our advocacy efforts. The needs and rights of those who are poor, marginalized, or otherwise vulnerable are primary.

Second, both passages from very early in the Christian tradition were read christologically. In short, Jesus was seen to fulfill these requirements of a just king. Again, as has been said many times in these sermon starters, Jesus worked first to bring justice to those who were poor and oppressed (see also the comments below on next week’s Gospel reading). Since Jesus was about that work, as Christ’s followers, does it not make sense that we would be about it as well?

It is curious how often the calls to repentance found in the New Testament (especially the Gospels) are directed towards those who are religious. We tend to think we have all our ducks in a row and that God is on our side. John’s preaching to those who thought they had it together. His harsh words of challenge may make us a little uncomfortable (in Luke’s Gospel, the Baptist also calls for acts of charity and justice as signs of repentance). What would be John’s encouragement to us today? Where do we need the Spirit to empower us?

Psalm 146:5-10 (8) or Luke 1:46b-55 (47)
Both Psalm 146 and Mary’s song reiterate God’s way of doing and being in the world. According to the Psalm, the Lord (notice how well this text, as well as Isaiah’s, fit into Matthew’s message today), creator of heaven and earth, brings justice to the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. God brings healing to those who are blind and broken, and welcomes strangers (how might this apply to our treatment of immigrants?). If God acts in this way, how might God’s people be expected to act? In what ways do our priorities need to be more aligned with God’s?

The Magnificat, Mary’s song, is often recited at some point during the Advent season. This beautiful song about God’s redemptive activity in history actually carries with it a dangerous message. Mary does not speak of a leveling but of a reversal—those who have power will be toppled and those who are rich will be sent away empty-handed. Do we think that this could still be God’s message? What would the world look like if we lived by these types of priorities?

Matthew 11:2-11
John was a faithful messenger who faithfully responded to God’s call on his life. Yet, in his darkest hour, alone in a jail cell, he found himself doubting. Was Jesus truly the messiah? Had he really “prepared the way” for God’s anointed one? Jesus answers the question by pointing to his many deeds that brought justice and healing to the world—the blind see, the lame walk, leapers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead live again, and those who are poor have good news brought to them (clear echoes of Isaiah’s hope for the future!). Today, the work of the people anointed by God bears many of the same marks. How might we participate in Christ’s life-giving activity in our day and time?