SCROLL DOWN FOR MAY 27 AND JUNE 3
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!
May 27, 2012 (Pentecost)
Today’s readings illustrate how the scriptures offer different depictions of the gift of the Spirit. While Acts shows the inclusivity of the spirit, Ezekiel directs us to its restorative power, and John instructs us about the spirit’s guidance in our lives. As these readings are heard along side one another, we begin to understand the necessity of the spirit for Christian life and witness.
Acts 2:1-21
In our congregations we often seek competent readers for vv.9-11. The naming of these ethnicities reveals the author’s concern that this new power from on high be known for its inclusive nature (vv.17-18, 21). The rest of the book of Acts (and the New Testament) is devoted to revealing what the power of the Spirit does (or doesn’t do as evidenced by the discontent expressed in certain epistles). While attention is often (rightly) devoted to the gift of the Spirit, it is worth mentioning that our lives are lived within the work of the Spirit. This effects and guides our ministries, so that we can ask “how are we witnessing to the reality of this blessing, especially in a hungry world?”
Ezekiel 37:1-14 (alternate reading)
Ezekiel is taken to a valley of dry bones, a place whose very description could rationalize an absence of hope. If the question doesn’t come from God it sounds ridiculous: “can these bones live?” The question brings to mind the pain of the exile, but the following word promising this breath (spirit) of God portends the restoration of God’s people.
It would not be difficult to think of the valleys of dry bones in this world. This particular reading draws to our attention the restorative power of the gift of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. As a people of faith, when we seek to bring to light the root causes of hunger and poverty in the world, we do so proclaiming that God’s spirit is at work in the world, creating new life and hope.
Psalm 104: 24-34,35b
This psalm honors what God has done/is doing in creation, with the reflection: “These all look to you to give them their food in due season; when you give to them, they gather it up.” The reminder of the provision of God echoes the Ezekiel reading by showing that God cares for ongoing life: God creates and renews. This also parallels the Lord’s Prayer for God to give us (and keep giving us) our daily bread. God provides food in due season, yet we live in a world where famine, drought and unequal distribution are realities that afflict large populations. While these occasions may raise questions about divine action, we must also raise the issue of resource allocation, consumption and waste, factors which are influenced by human sinfulness.
Romans 8:22-27
The image of creation in labor pains is a poignant one for addressing the struggles we face in this world and the hope of what is to come. As Paul connects the work of the Spirit to the hope to come, he does so in a way that involves the spirit intimately with our earthly experience.
This is a Spirit that does not just comfort us or befriend us, but one who intercedes for us.
Knowing that the Spirit intercedes for us, how do we respond to those who are hungry and in need in this world? Let’s not overlook the danger in the line of thinking which may lead us to the conclusion that since the Spirit intercedes for us or that since creation is in labor pains, there is not much more we can do. But the love of God shown to us in Christ reaches into our lives. At the core of the gospel is a risky love- which calls us to reach out to and advocate for our brothers and sisters in need.
John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15
The “spirit of truth” suggests the close association between the spirit of God and the testimony of the prophets. Indeed Jesus prays that the spirit “will guide you into all truth” (16:12), which presumably means not just a truth to live into but one to proclaim as well. This leads Jesus’ followers not only to witness about him, but in the activity of having a prophetic voice in the world.
How as a church can we claim this prophetic voice and become tuned into the guidance and leading of the spirit? Can we also trust that this is a spirit that leads us forward, into the work of justice?
Henry Martinez
ELCA World Hunger
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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 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 assuming you have already done your exegetical work on the texts). God bless your proclamation (and teaching) of what is most certainly true!
June 3, 2012 (Trinity Sunday, First Sunday after Pentecost)
Isaiah 6:1-8
The last line of the final verse of this lection (verse 8) is quite familiar to us: “Here am I; send me!” The preceding and following verses are considerably more obscure. Indeed, when it becomes known that the rest of sixth chapter of Isaiah asks the prophet to speak in ways that people will not understand, the God’s call becomes quite sobering and confusing. No wonder Isaiah asks, “How long, O Lord?” How long indeed? How long will it be before people realize that following the way of God will not necessarily be easy. In fact, true discipleship takes God’s people directly into the broken, dark places of the world.
Some ideas to consider:
- What does it mean to answer “Here am I; send me!” This is easy to say and very hard to do. How do we discern what it is that God calls us to do? How do we persevere?
- If we have heard the call to attend to the poor and the hungry, how do we know how best to give aid? What is the difference between emergency relief and long term development aid? How are these two kinds of aid related?
- How can the answer “Here am I; send me!” extend to the way we understand and engage the world? How do economic, political, and social realities come together to perpetuate hunger? How can economic, political and social realities bring and end to hunger?
- Scripture tells us all kinds of ideas that we do not understand. What does it mean that the last are first and the first are last? What does it mean that the greatest of all must be a servant? What difference does it make to hear that the poorest among us are to be held up and blessed?
Psalm 29 (2)
Romans 8:12-17
John 3:1- 17
The story of Nicodemus is sophisticated, just as John’s theology is sophisticated. Imbedded in this story are central themes in Johannine theology: the son of man is sent as evidence of God’s love; the son of man will be “lifted up”; and the implications of those actions for the human family.
Some ideas to ponder:
- John 3:16, part of this lection, is quite well-known and quite well-used. It is doubtful whether the majority of those who know and use it are able to articulate why it is an important text. That task could be an important job for a preacher. What does it mean to say that “God loves the world…”? What does that suggest about how we are to interact with and function within the world?
- Verse 16 is an all-encompassing statement. It does not say that “God loves part of the world…” or that “God loves the prosperous in the world…” or that “God loves the vibrant, life-giving part of the world.” God loves the world. If God loves the places where childhood disease claim the lives of too many; and the places where the environment is parched, stripped of its vitality; and the places where the people close their eyes to the plight of the poor, what does that mean for us and how we live?
- What does “eternal life” mean? John’s gospel makes it clear that eternal life is not a statement of quantity but of character. What is the character of eternal life? How does the promise of eternal life exist in the present and become a statement about the future? How can we proclaim eternal life without perpetuating the notion that the present is only temporary and outside the realm of God’s concern? Preachers need to be cautious not to suggest that we just need to wait for some time off in the future when God will make all things right. A notion such as this will define poverty and hunger as inevitable and acceptable since it is only temporary. It is difficult to imagine that God who loves the world would find any measure of hunger and poverty acceptable.
- This Gospel text makes a deliberate connection between salvation and judgment. Even though the human family lives within the promise of salvation, that does not exclude the reality of judgment. The promise of eternal life and the reality of judgment coexist. The reality is that there are choices to make regarding how we will live within God’s beloved world.
Stacy Johnson
Author of ELCA World Hunger’s curriculum, Taking Root: Hunger Causes, Hunger Hopes
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