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!

Drinkable water is a gift from God, a gift too many of us in the U.S. take for granted. March 22nd is World Water Day, sponsored by the United Nations. According to the website www.unwater.org, 780 million people do not have access to clean water and almost 2.5 billion people do not have adequate sanitation. 85% of the world population lives on the direst half of the planet. 6 to 8 million people die annually from disasters and water-related disease. Lack of access to clean water is not only a humanitarian crisis, but a biblical injustice. Who uses most of the clean water on the planet? The richest 5%. World Water Day is focusing on water cooperation, the global sharing of water resources. This effort requires governments, churches, and people of diverse ethnic communities to come together in order to ensure that all people have access to life-giving water. At home and in our congregations we can begin by being mindful of the gift of water in our lives. Through the water of Baptism we are made God’s children. We have access to clean, fresh water and sanitation. What steps are we taking daily to protect and share the gift of water? How can we assure that others have the same access that we do?

“You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” If you are not familiar with Live58 and the global movement to eliminate extreme global poverty, begin at www.live58.org. Jesus is eating dinner with Lazarus, Mary, and Martha. This is remarkable in itself, because Lazarus was dead! They give Jesus a dinner to celebrate the amazing resurrection. Mary anoints Jesus’ feet with pure nard, a costly ointment. Judas Iscariat reprimands her and Jesus for being so wasteful. This extravagance ought to have been stewarded for the needs of the poor. Jesus’ reply concludes with the statement “You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” I have heard folks interpret Jesus to mean that worship is more important than social ministry. Since we cannot eliminate poverty by giving, worship is our central act and charity is secondary. But what if John, the gospel writer, intends for his readers to understand it differently? What if the church are those who are called to pour ourselves out for the poor precisely because Jesus is no longer with us. Because Jesus has completed his mission on the cross, has been raised, and has returned to the Father, believers are invited to become extravagant givers, lavish lovers of the poor in our midst. Our works of love are never finished, until he comes again. So, there is no worship of Jesus that does not include loving service for the poorest among us. May our gifts not only pay for Sunday worship, but for the bread that gives life to the poor.