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Hi all, The ListServ is still down after the system update over the weekend. Here are the sermon starters for April 3 and April 10. Blessings in your preparations! SCROLL DOWN FOR APRIL 3 AND APRIL 10 Welcome to Hunger Sermon Starters! 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! April 3, 2011 (Fourth Sunday in Lent) 1 Samuel 16:1-13 This familiar passage reminds us that God works through unexpected people. We may not feel like we have what it takes to address the very real problems facing the world, but God still calls us to do God’s work with our hands. This passage also highlights another biblical theme of God’s “preferential option” for those who would otherwise be overlooked. David is not even brought forth in the original presentation. Perhaps Jesse thought him too young or otherwise not worthy of attention. God, however, had chosen David to be the vessel through which God would accomplish God’s purposes. What can we learn from those who are marginalized in our society? What do we need to do to hear their story? Psalm 23 (5) Ephesians 5:8-14 John 9:1-41 This week’s Gospel lesson has two important hunger connections. Again we see that Jesus’ earthly ministry was marked by physically healing people. Too often Christianity has bifurcated spiritual and physical wholeness. Jesus came to bring healing to both. Following Jesus means giving attention to both. The second hunger connection is the way that Jesus disconnects moral failings from physical ailments. Today when some think of hunger they think of the moral failings that might lead someone to be hungry. They assume that if one is poor or hungry, it must be their fault. There are many things that lead to hunger and poverty, several of may have nothing to do with a person’s morality. Our call is to follow Jesus and bring healing where we can. Another way to bring hunger issues to the fore is to discuss how health and hunger are closely related: those who are hungry are more susceptible to disease and those who are sick need more nutrients to get well. For this reason ELCA World Hunger has an intentional focus on health care. We take our cue from Jesus, who also was about healing. In this text from John’s Gospel, at the sight of the man born blind, the disciples wanted to talk theology (“Who sinned, this man or his parents?”) and the religious leaders were more concerned with rules and power (“This man is not from God, for he does not observe the Sabbath.”). Jesus, however, sees a man in whom God’s power is to be revealed. Indeed, throughout his ministry, we see that Jesus understood his mission to be rooted in bringing healing and wholeness to those who were poor and marginalized. We are Christ’s hands and feet in the world when we carry on in that healing ministry. David Creech Director of Hunger Education, ELCA World Hunger __________________________________________________ Welcome to Hunger Sermon Starters! 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! April 10, 2011 (Fifth Sunday in Lent) Ezekiel 37:1-14 The promise offered in Ezekiel 37 is that even in the most dire circumstances God can still work on behalf of God’s people. It has been a rough few years— we have experienced a difficult economic downturn, a spike in global food prices, several natural disasters (the most recent earthquakes in Haiti and Japan have been particularly devastating), two (and perhaps on our way to a third) large armed conflicts, and the list goes on. Sometimes it can feel like a valley of dry bones. But Ezekiel tells us that God can bring life to this valley. How will we participate with God in doing God’s work? Psalm 130 (5) Romans 8:6-11 John 11:1-45 On Lazarus Sunday, watch the HBO Films documentary about the effectiveness of anti-retroviral drugs in bringing life to people impacted by HIV and AIDS. The impact is truly astonishing. People near death are brought back to life (for just $.60 a day!). The ELCA is implementing its HIV and AIDS strategy to address stigma, encourage testing, and help fund our international health work related to HIV and AIDS. Learn more at www.elca.org/aids. The Lazarus Effect documentary is available at http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/the- lazarus-effect/index.html. David Creech Director of Hunger Education, ELCA World Hunger __________________________________________________