LISTSERV 16.0 - HUNGERSERMONSTARTERS Archives

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!

Land plays an important role (or character depending on the genre) in power struggles throughout the first testament. Ahab first offers Naboth a fairly reasonable exchange for the vineyard. But when the offer is turned down, Ahab’s inability to cope with the situation becomes a catalyst for deception, which feeds Jezebel’s hunger for power. The narrative isn’t concerned with how aware Ahab was of Jezebel’s scheming, yet his inclusion in Elijah’s declaration against him indicates that his hands aren’t entirely clean.

Similarly, we may benefit from unjust systems or practices that may be harmful to farmers, laborers and small landholders. Even though we may be unaware, we are still called to witness to what God desires and to work against the powers of this world that are in opposition to God’s will.

This story communicates abundance in a few notable ways. First, there is the ointment, tears, kisses and hair in the vivid scene where the woman is bathing Jesus’ feet. Then the woman’s abundant sins that the Pharisees have in mind (and of which Jesus is also aware), the abundant debt in the story Jesus tells, and the abundant forgiveness that is possible in God, which Jesus bestows on the woman. As we work toward the eradication of hunger and poverty we should remember that we are making a bold statement about the alternative reality that we are witnessing to. It is the reality that God offers us abundance and intends for us to receive and share it. In this passage in Luke we are reminded that whatever abundance may appear stacked against us or hindering us, God responds with abundance that opens us to a new way of life, one that is not found in any economy of this world. It is an abundance experienced by the woman that night, and known by the other women who went with Jesus, providing for him out of their resources.