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!

On this, the Sunday before Reformation Day, the Old Testament lesson from Micah and the Gospel reading from Matthew remind us of the ways in which the church is in constant need of reform. Micah calls out the inconsistencies of prophets who declare peace when people are hungry and declare war on those who have nothing. How often do we forget about the basic needs of others while we declare a gospel of peace? Who is the poor person in our time that we have declared war upon (the issue of immigration comes to my mind)? Would Micah have the same message for us in our churches today? How might his message be altered to fit our context? Where do we need reform?

In the Gospel, Jesus challenges the religious people of the day to think hard about the inconsistencies between their words and actions. It is important to recall the situation of deep conflict in which Matthew’s community found itself. In a time of self definition, Matthew’s Jesus harsh words of condemnation to the religious leaders of the day. Note, however, that he does not refute the teachings, but the way in which the religious leaders did not practice what they preached (see esp. v. 3). In what ways do we live similarly? What areas of hypocrisy are present in the church today? Where do we need to repent and live more fully into God’s empowering grace?

Craig Nessan’s little book (about 70 pages), Give Us This Day, challenges the church to rethink the horror of hunger in our time. He suggests that we raise the anti-hunger work of the church to the place of a status confessionis. In preparation of your sermon the book may provide helpful ideas for communicating new areas of reform in the church.

Amos 5 lends itself easily to a reflection on hunger and poverty. Like last week’s texts that naturally led to thoughts on reforming the church, this text challenges traditional thoughts about piety. Our songs or worship practices matter much less than our attitude towards those who are poor and vulnerable (let the worship wars cease!). According to Amos 5 (see especially vv. 21-24), if our worship is not accompanied by a true quest for justice, our songs are simply noise and our special days despicable (All Saints Day, anyone?). Amos 5 helps us understand what it means in the Gospel when Jesus tells his people to be prepared for his return. Our wicks will be trimmed and our lamps full of oil if we seek justice and let righteousness flow like a stream.