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 Sunday in the Church Year offers a great opportunity to reflect on the baptism of all believers. Some initial thoughts on baptism:

X Baptism is an identity marker—when we are baptized we join the people of God and as such take on a new identity. What will that identity be? The earliest Christians were notorious for their care of widows and orphans (Rodney Stark, in his book, The Rise of Christianity, has an excellent chapter detailing this); it was one of the ways in which Christians were identified. As the baptized people of God, what will we be known as? Can we reclaim this historic identity?

X In the Baptismal covenant and the Affirmation of Baptism outlined in ELW we make commitments to “care for others and the world that God made” and to “work for justice and peace” (pp. 228; 236). The profession of faith (p. 235) includes a renunciation of the “forces that defy God” and the “powers of the world that rebel against God.” We can reasonably include greed, strife, and self-interest in those forces and powers that defy God and leave God’s people poor and hungry. In our baptism we commit ourselves to work with God in the bringing of God’s kingdom.

As noted above, this week invites reflection on our baptism. Some other questions worth exploring from a hunger perspective could include the following:

X What does it mean for Jesus to be declared God’s son? How then do we understand the way in which Jesus lived his life? Here a link to the passage from Isaiah may be particularly helpful: Jesus as God’s son came to bring justice (mentioned no less that four times!). Justice is defined in the passage as opening the eyes that are blind, bringing out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.

In the Christian tradition, Isaiah 49 has often been read (with good reason) christologically. Jesus is seen as the one called from the womb and sent to bring salvation. In its historical context, Isaiah 49 is likely referring to Israel (in vv. 1-6) and a prophetic representative or to Cyrus who was commissioned to resettle Israel (in vv. 8-12). In either case, the point is clear—it is through human institutions (in this case Israel as a political entity) that God works to bring about salvation.

In our present context, our anti-hunger efforts have to engage the political sphere. God is still working through everyday human institutions. If we are serious about addressing hunger and poverty we need to be working with all the tools available to us. To learn more about how you can be engaged in anti-hunger advocacy work visit www.elca.org/advocacy.