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!

X Baptism as 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, can we reclaim this historic identity?

X Luther saw baptism as a daily practice of dying to the old ways of being and rising up “to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.” The term “righteousness” carries for many of us a moral or pietistic connotation—to be “righteous” is a personal state or condition of purity. In both Hebrew (tsadekah) and Greek (dikaiosunê), however, the term also carries a relational sense—to be in right relationship. In fact, the words and their cognates in both languages can be just as comfortably translated as “justice” (and they often are in our Bibles, depending on the context). If we reclaim this biblical sense “righteousness,” in the context of baptism, we die to unjust, wrong relationships and are raised “to live before God in justice and right relationships.” What might this look like in our day to day interactions with neighbors near and far?

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 impoverished, hungry, and ill. In our baptism we commit ourselves to work with God in the bringing of God’s kingdom.

Celebrant          Will you strive for justice and peace among all
                        people, and respect the dignity of every human
                        being?
People              I will, with God’s help.

I am especially inspired by the idea of proclaiming the good news of God in Christ by both word and deed. Not only do I speak out for justice, but I also strive to make lifestyle choices that make justice on earth more feasible. I also appreciate the call to seek and serve the Christ who is in all persons (see e.g., Matt 25:31-46). Finally, note how the people’s response (“I will, with God’s help”) draws attention to the synergy involved in God’s work. We commit to living justly trusting in God’s empowering grace.

The Old Testament lesson narrates the beginning of the created world. God’s spirit moves over the chaotic and dangerous primordial waters. With a simple word, God brings order to the chaos. This is not creation ex nihilo, and has nothing to do with current debates about evolution. The point for the author is that God simply speaks order into disorder (Psalm 29 on the power of God’s voice and Mark 1:11 on God’s declaration about Jesus are both excellent tie-ins here). If you were to read all of Genesis 1:1-2:4, the structure of the poem itself reinforces the order described (six times we see the following pattern: God speaks à It is so à God declares it good). Where do we want to hear God’s voice today? In our world, where is the chaos into which we long for God to speak order? The continued global financial crisis is one clear example of the chaos facing us today. Globally, hundreds of millions are mired in the chaos of poverty, war, and disease. Many in the Global South live in very unstable environments. Can God’s voice speak into those situations?

The New Testament lesson offers a curious interaction between Paul and some Ephesian “disciples.” The author of Acts, as he has elsewhere, draws a distinction between water baptism and baptism in the Spirit. I would focus on the empowerment that comes immediately following their baptism. That empowerment is what we need to carry out God’s work on earth.

The Gospel gives us avery brief account of Jesus’ baptism. The voice connection to Gen 1 and Psalm 29 may be worth exploring. God’s speech is efficacious. 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? What does it mean for God to declare us his children in our baptism? How would that look in our daily life?

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is typically celebrated in the Northern Hemisphere January 18-25 (the proper on p. 61 of ELW may be appropriate). A question that may be worth exploring: To what end are we unified? Various groups through history have been unified towards some rather unsavory goals (two that come to my mind are the KKK and Nazi Germany). So, to what aims will the church be united?

1 Samuel 3:1-10 [11-20]
The Old Testament lesson narrates Samuel’s curious call. Several elements of the story are “preachable.” Of course, most obviously, there is the difficulty in recognizing God’s voice. Related, is the value of community (in Samuel’s case, Eli) in discerning God’s call. How does our Christian community (local, denominational, and ecumenical) inform our understanding of God’s call? In other words, who are we called to be and what are we called to do? (I think looking out for the most vulnerable people in our world has to be right near the top of our priorities.)

A second strain in the passage (mostly in vv. 11-20) is the difficulty Samuel encountered in delivering the message to Eli. It was not something he wanted to say and he suspected that Eli would not react favorably to the message. What difficult things might God be calling us to speak out against today?

You have no doubt heard the saying, “Too heavenly minded to be any earthly good.” Frequently Christianity has been understood in otherworldly terms. (Consider the words to this familiar tune: “This world is not my home, I’m just a passing through…”) Such a perspective inevitably impacts how we understand hunger and poverty in our day. If this world does not matter, physical needs are irrelevant. Paul reminds us in his first letter to the Corinthians that in fact this body does matter. The body is God’s temple and must be tended. It is holy work to work with and on behalf of those who are hungry.

This odd encounter between Jesus and Philip provides a delightful connection into the concept of seeking and serving Christ in others. Philip’s initial response (“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”) draws attention to the way in which our own prejudices may blind us to seeing Christ in others. What are those prejudices and predispositions that inhibit our ability to see Christ clearly?