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!

Among the difficult words from the prophets there exists also a message of hope and restoration. The calamity of exile will not be the last note. The image of an empty land is not one that remains. The Lord will lead them back.

When conceived on such a grand scale, hunger and poverty can seem as imposing as exile (and may very well be an exile for those who suffer from it). The eradication of both seems complex and beyond our reach. But these verses offer some comfort when thinking about God’s reach. We find in verse 2 of this chapter that there is grace in the wilderness. This grace is, apparently, enough for God to begin the redeeming work. We too can learn from this prophetic hope. In spite of the wilderness of hunger and poverty, there is grace. It is a powerful grace, one which is not satisfied to let these debilitating forces cripple and confuse, but one that proclaims God is at work.

The recurring hope in this short psalm is for restoration of fortunes. Most applicably, especially for those who do not recall any fortunes they have lost, it is a call to God that things are not right and need to be set on course. The image of sowing a field with tears may seem a bit strange at first. Biblical scholar John Goldingay observes that a reason for doing so is the uncertainty of what will come of the seeds, whether there will be enough rain and at the right time for the crops to grow. Subsistence farmers may know this reality well.

Yet this psalm also gives witness to the joy of the harvest. There is hope, and a recurring one, for those who go out weeping, for they will see witness the harvest comes in. How can more people know the blessings of harvest and experience this type of restoration in our communities?

Aside from being blind (or maybe because of it), one of the first obstacles we can point out that Bartimaeus faces is one of access. It is not that someone notices the blind beggar perched on the roadside, but he is one who has to call out to get attention. And even still, he is shushed and the crowd finds him dismissible.

I would like to think that Bartimaeus made no small matter of the opportunity when he heard that Jesus was calling for him (Mark bothers to note that he “sprang up”). It is only when he is allowed to come to Jesus that he receives his sight and only then is he able to follow Jesus on the way.

Access to food and opportunity is one of the biggest issues facing people who are trapped in hunger and poverty. Helping to remove those barriers and encourage greater access is part of the work of the gospel. Our communities of faith can take a lesson from this story by trying to hear the Bartimaeuses among us, those who are calling out for mercy. Instead of silencing these voices, the church can call out with them, and do so with boldness. We know that Jesus is ready to welcome.