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 gist of this passage is clear enough, even if it’s difficult to put these teachings to practice in everyday life. God’s love is about hospitality and sharing with your neighbor even if that neighbor has wronged you or disagrees with you in some way. (This passage can be great for a dialogue on relationships between people of different faiths.) But that’s the great thing about God’s loving grace. It’s unfair! In our culture we are so accustomed to people getting what they deserve. When someone does wrong we feel the need to give payback in the form of anger, or a grudge, or another hateful act, or we expect that person to make up for it in some way. Can you think of examples of this in your life? But this passage turns that concept upside down.

The passage does ends on a rather odd note, though. The statement is made that feeding one’s enemy is like pouring hot coals on his or her head. It would be a great travesty if all service to those in need was done out of spite. Perhaps the verse is meant to express the receiver’s reaction and not the giver’s intention. If someone wrongs you and you do something nice for them they would be surprised, just as one would feel if they came in contact with hot coals. But honestly when do you ever see someone punishing someone else for wronging them? It’s important to remember that this passage starts with “love must be sincere.” This whole passage is a diversion from what we’re used to and it adds so much to our service to the world that God calls us to. Who do you see these teachings adding to the service your church is doing?

Just last week Jesus proclaimed that Peter was the rock. This week, Jesus calls him Satan and a stumbling block to the son of God. Talk about falling from a mountain top moment to rock bottom in an instant. We can all relate to Peter at times in our lives. Thousands of ELCA members were working to improve the lives of Haitians before the great earthquake that wiped out so much of the work that had been done. Likewise there were ELCA missionaries stationed in Liberia before the various civil wars wiped out all progress made in the area. What are some examples of this happening in your life or congregation?

But even after disasters that can immobilize some, we are called by God to work all the more to serve the least, the lost and the forgotten. See how the ELCA is working in Haiti today (http://www.elca.org/Our-Faith-In-Action/Responding-to-the-World/ELCA-World-Hunger/Stories/By-Region/Latin-America/Haiti-s11.aspx). We cannot cling to our human concerns that can halt action. We must focus on God’s concern that will guide us to serve and help creation flourish. Peter did go one to become a rock in the church preaching the word to all. May God grant us the strength to do the same.

O God, we thank you for your Son, who chose the path of suffering for the sake of the world. Humble us by his example to be a living sacrifice to you. Guide us to serve those around the world as you have commissioned us to do, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

For all who offer their lives as instruments of your peace so others may live in freedom: let us pray that oppression, violence, and hatred may cease and that goodwill may triumph.

Loving God, please be with all of those suffering from disasters around the world. Guide us and our congregation to share your love and comfort in these places of destruction.

This week’s epistle reading is one of those texts that is easy to understand but difficult to live out. Paul challenges the church in Rome to owe no one anything except to love. All of the various commands and identity markers are summed up in love of neighbor. What does love of neighbor look like when your neighbor (both near and far) is hungry? If love does no wrong to a neighbor (v. 10), are there ways in which we need to grow in our love of those who are poor? How might love inform our buying practices? Our lifestyle choices? Our voting preferences? Our giving habits? All of these questions are asked in the context of Romans 12:1, wherein Paul reminds us that in light of the work of Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit we are offered as living sacrifices, transformed to be God’s hands and feet in the world.