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 week’s Gospel marks a key point in the ministry of Jesus. Although structurally Mark 9 makes the point with more force, Matthew’s Gospel frames the transfiguration in much the same way. Immediately before the theophany, Peter proclaims that Jesus is God’s anointed one (16:13-20). Jesus then goes on to teach what exactly this means—to be God’s anointed is to lose one’s life for the sake of others (16:21-28). In the present passage, God affirms Jesus’ teaching, saying, “This is my Son, the Beloved… listen to him!” In a world where 925 million people are hungry, and 40 million more have become food insecure as a result of rising food costs, what might it look like to deny oneself and take up a cross? How might we better follow Jesus, especially with regards to addressing hunger and poverty in the world?

This week’s texts invite reflection on sin. Often sin is framed in terms of personal choices and dispositions. It is often a discussion about individual issues. The biblical notion of sin, however, was much more relational. Sin is a wrong relationship. We see it in the story of Adam and Eve, when their relationship with God and each other is severely damaged. We see it in Jesus’ steadfast fidelity to God in spite of temptation.

So what does this have to do with hunger and poverty? This week we begin our Lenten journey, a time of penitence and self-reflection. The season of Lent lends itself to reflection on injustice in the world and the role that we play in perpetuating unjust systems and structures. In other words, it is a time to think about our complicity in hunger and poverty, and to seek ways to restore right relationship. It is a difficult and uncomfortable issue that is worth exploring this season.