Contributed by Matthew R. Nelson
Walla Walla, WA

Warm-up Question: Have you ever been discouraged enough to give up on an idea, project, or goal?

Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi was convicted of violating her house arrest on Tuesday after an uninvited American stayed at her home. She is to serve an additional 18-month sentence.

Suu Kyi’s detention has already spanned 14 of the last 20 years, most under house arrest. The additional sentence will effectively remove her from contact with the public leading up to next year’s elections in Myanmar (Burma).

U.S. citizen John Yettaw swam a restricted lake to reach the home of Suu Kyi after claiming he had a vision of an assassination attempt on her life. He will receive three years for breaching her house arrest and three years for swimming in a restricted zone. He is scheduled to serve his sentences consecutively at Insein prison. (John Yettaw was freed on Sunday, Aug. 16, after international pressure and the visit of a U.S. senator.)

The maximum sentence for Suu Kyi was to be five years in prison or three years hard labor. By order of Chief Senior General Than Shwe, her sentence, as well as those of her house companions, was commuted to be served at home, a move the junta leader said would help maintain stability and peace.

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu denounced the trial as illegal and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the trial should never have taken place.

International reaction has ranged from requests for a global arms embargo of Myanmar, to public statements from Amnesty International calling the sentence for Suu Kyi shameful legal theater since it comes just weeks before her current sentence was to expire.

Discussion Questions

• Can you name a person whose authority or decision making powers you respect? Has that person and his or her decisions always lived up to your expectations? If not, how did you express your feelings or opinions to them?
• Can you name a situation when peer pressure influenced you in your decision making? Did it help or did you feel uncomfortable with the decision you made? Why?

Scripture Texts (NRSV) for Sunday, August 23, 2009.

(Text links are to oremus Bible Browser. Oremus Bible Browser is not affiliated with or supported by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. You can find the calendar of readings for Year B at Lectionary Readings.)

For lectionary humor and insight, check the weekly comic Agnus Day.

• Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-18
• Psalm 34:15-22 (15)
• Ephesians 6:10-20
• John 6:56-69

Gospel Reflection

The Gospel today presents a true crossroad and genuine question for those who follow Christ, both then and now. At the heart of the matter is not Christ’s identity, but our identity in and through Christ.

Crowds gathered around Jesus for all kinds of reasons: curiosity, healing, political and religious power. Today’s Gospel takes all of those and lays down the pre-crucifixion groundwork, looking for listening ears and willing hearts. “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.” (vs. 56)  And, “…I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me.” (vs. 57) Jesus’ words, body, and spirit bring eternal life. Yet even as he taught in the synagogue in Capernaum, his disciples complained and questioned him. Many left, and only the twelve remained. (vs. 65-69)

Suu Kyi is the daughter of Aung San, a hero who is credited with winning Myanmar’s independence from Britain. By keeping her under house arrest, the military can conduct future elections without her influence on the public. There is more control when she is controlled in this situation, even as international pressure mounts for her release.

The expectations surrounding Jesus provided political and religious division and turmoil soon after today’s lesson. Jesus did not bow to pressure from any side or faction. He continued to teach of God’s revelation of love through himself, and through those chosen to hear and understand his words. Ultimate control was not, and is not, in the hands of  humans. God’s love is revealed and exercised in and through Jesus’ words and actions no matter what we do, decide, or think we have control over.

God has chosen us to be participants in the fullness of eternal life through Christ. It is both invitation and gift — at the same time. What will our response be as we face political, religious, and social challenges in today’s world?

Discussion Questions

• What difficult choices do you think we face as modern day Christians and Lutherans? Are you more likely to participate in discussion and action or quietly sit in the background when it comes to these issues and choices? Why?
• Is there an issue in your community that you feel strongly about? Have you taken action about that issue? Why? Why not?
• Discuss how the ELCA and its ministries are active in the world. What does the ELCA’s new tagline “God’s work. Our hands.” say to you about our church and its mission. What does it suggest or describe? What does it say about you?

Activity Suggestions

The ELCA holds its 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly at the Minneapolis Convention Center in Minnesota, August 17-23, 2009. The theme is “God’s work. Our hands.” The issues being considered for action are: 

• Full communion with the United Methodist Church
• “Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust,” a proposed ELCA social statement
• Report and Recommendation on Ministry Policies
• Possible social statement on justice for women
• Funding of the HIV and AIDS strategy
• Lutheran Malaria Initiative
• Amendments to the ELCA Constitution, Bylaws, and Continuing Resolutions
• 2010, 2011 budget proposals for ELCA churchwide organization
• Memorials
• Resolutions
• Elections

(Learn more about the ELCA Churchwide Assembly, its purpose and structure, who can attend and vote, and the issues and actions being considered.)

Study the agenda and pray for your congregation’s voting members at the Churchwide Assembly, and the representatives of our synodical and churchwide leadership. Once you’ve learned some of the background, discuss what opinions and convictions exist in your own group. 

• How would you vote on different issues?
• How do the outcomes and decisions effect your life?
• Knowing that there are many differing opinons and thoughts across the church, how can we work to continue living as a community of believers exercising grace, understanding, respect, honesty, and open conversation with each other?

Plan a class session to follow up on the voting results of the assembly.
 

Request permission to have a representative of your class attend a church council meeting and report back to the class the following Sunday (or whenever you meet). Note any opportunities to participate in the ministries of your congregation, both large and small. Choose a project or a way of being involved that the class or individuals can follow up on with the church council or congregational leadership.

Closing Prayer

Lord Jesus, you have the words of eternal life. Bless our churchwide representatives as they faithfully discuss, consider, and make decisions on issues important in our lives, church, and society. Continue to motivate each of us to take action when called upon to do so, that your life and love may ever be glorified. Amen.

Contributed by Pastor Scott A. Moore
Eisleben, Germany

Warm-up Question:  What do you eat or drink when you need energy real fast? And, when you need long-lasting energy?

Once again, it is very cool to be a vampire.

The recent best-seller series, Twilight, with a second movie installment on the way, and the HBO series True Blood (adapted from the Southern Vampire Mysteries, novels written by Charlaine Harris) prove the public’s thirst for this most sanguine of themes.

These stories have not just filled the imaginations of many young people (not to mention quite a few older folk), they have also worked very hard to help us see the mysterious and supernatural in our hum-drum, everyday (read: boring) lives. Beautiful, interesting, and extremely talented vampires in our towns and in our schools… a much better sell than in the days of dreary Transylvania with a pasty-complexioned man wearing an old, dusty tuxedo who sleeps in a coffin and says, “I vant to zuck your bloooood” and then turns into a bat and flies away.

Where the Twilight story is satisfied with living within its created fantasy world, the creators of True Blood have decided to work at blurring the line between that Southern fantasy world and the world in which we live. HBO, with the help of the marketing firm, Digital Kitchen, created 30 fake ads for products by real companies we all know, all geared for those blood drinkers living among us. This campaign is striving to create an air of authenticity in order to help viewers believe the story.

Discussion Questions

• Where you afraid of vampires as a little kid?
• What do you find intriguing or repulsive about the vampire legends in general?
• What do you appreciate about the particular vampire stories that are told in Twilight or True Blood?
• Why do you think there is such a huge interest in the vampire legends these days?
• What do you imagine living forever would look like? What would you be willing to do in order to achieve that? Where would you draw the line?

Scripture Texts (NRSV) for Sunday, August 16, 2009.

(Text links are to oremus Bible Browser. Oremus Bible Browser is not affiliated with or supported by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. You can find the calendar of readings at Lectionary Readings.)

For lectionary humor and insight, check the weekly comic Agnus Day.

• Proverbs 9:1-6
• Psalm 34:9-14 (10)
• Ephesians 5:15-20
• John 6:51-58

Gospel Reflection

In the first years of the Church, after Jesus ascended into heaven, the disciples did what he commanded them to do. They made disciples by teaching and baptizing, they preached, and they gathered around the table and shared in that special meal Christ instituted for them known by a variety of names: the Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion, Eucharist, just to name a few. Jesus says in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, “take and eat, this is my body… take and drink, this is my blood”. And here in the Gospel of John, Jesus says, “‘Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.”

The Jewish leaders in our Gospel story ask the question that has troubled believers and non-believers alike for centuries: “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” How indeed? The idea of really eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood has bothered many for 20 centuries. It seems somehow really gross.

We don’t seem to be too bothered, however, by the idea of this kind of eating and drinking when we think about Edward Cullen or Jessica Hamby eating flesh or drinking blood (and yes, all of the die-hard vampire fans will say, “They only drink blood!”). It doesn’t seem to gross us out that much. We shy away from really trying to sit with the idea of what that means when we think about the miracle-working and eternal Son of God, who doesn’t need to eat and drink but instead gives himself for our consumption. Jesus is like the anti-vampire, who lives and gives his life for those who feast on him. It is easier to quickly think about Jesus words as a mere signs. He couldn’t have really meant what he said, could he?

A good question for those of us who celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus by sharing in this special meal might be: why do we believe and teach these strong and vivid words of eating and drinking Jesus if there isn’t something more going on than eating some bread and drinking some wine? Why would Jesus say, “this is my flesh, this is my blood… those who eat of my flesh and drink of my blood have eternal life… my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink”?

There are certainly many ways to twist and turn Jesus’ words in order to make them more palatable or easy to digest. We do know, however, that Jesus gave himself to us. Not only in the cross, not only in the words we share, but also in a meal. Bread and wine, broken and shared. Christ’s true body. Christ’s true blood. It doesn’t get more authentic than that.

Discussion Questions

(Information on communion in ELCA Worship’s FAQs. Some of these FAQs may be helpful background for your discussion.)

• What do you think about when you receive (or watch others receive) communion?
• Why do you think Jesus shared his body and blood with the world this way?
• What form of “bread and wine” do you prefer or think is best? (wafers, bread, wine, grape juice) Why?
• What different forms of receiving the bread and wine of Eucharist have you experienced? (at a rail, passing and giving to each other, separate small cups of wine, common cup, intinction, kneeling, standing, walking by a “station”, etc.) Which do you prefer or think is best? And why?
• How would you explain Communion/Eucharist/Lord’s Supper to a friend who doesn’t know what Christians do?

Activity Suggestion

Same-day activity
Learn how to set the table/altar for Eucharist. With help from someone in your congregation, see what your congregation uses for wine and bread. Find out what all the various things on the altar/table are and what they mean.

Few-day activity
Make a communion set for your congregation out of pottery or wood. There are lots of opportunities to talk about the meaning of the Eucharist during this kind of activity.

Long-term activity
Train and send participants either for a one-time experience or as permanent members on home communion visits. If you do not have this kind of ministry, talk about establishing one.

Closing Prayer

O God, who sustains and upholds us, we hunger and thirst for you in our lives. Feed us with your love, feed us with your truth, and feed us with the life-giving power of your Son, Jesus Christ, the Bread of Heaven. In the name of Christ, we pray. Amen.

(updated 08/26/09)

Contributed by Erik Ullestad
West Des Moines, IA

Warm-up Question:  What is the best meal you’ve ever eaten? Did you leave anything on the plate? What happened to the leftovers?

It all began with some brown bananas… sort of.

Rick Boosey and his family, after much prayer, reflection, doubts, and wrestling with discerning God’s desire for their lives, opened a soup and salad shop in Bentonville, Arkansas. Part of the plan was to donate a portion of their income from the venture to feeding others. It started small, and grew into something amazing and life-giving.

A conversation with his restaurant food supplier, James Urich, revealed that the food supplier was throwing out enough fruits and vegetables to fill a 15-passenger van every week. Most of it was still perfectly healthy to eat, but restaurants and grocery stores require at least five days of guaranteed freshness on all purchased produce. Even if a pear is healthy to eat for 3-4 days, it will never be sold or eaten. Urich gave Boosey a list of his “throw aways” — food to be disposed of. It was the brown bananas on the list that first caught his eye.

After discussions with his employees and family, they decided that they could use the still-edible produce to make banana bread. The supplier donated the produce and Boosey’s soup and salad shop made loaves of banana bread for a local shelter to give to people who were hungry.

Little did he know that a few loaves of banana bread for a local homeless shelter would lead to serving 5,000 free meals a week and sprouting new efforts and ministries to care for people in need.

Little by little, Boosey and Urich were able to find volunteers to provide ingredients and spend a few hours in the kitchen preparing meals. The team distributed food through local shelters and food pantries. The whole thing continued to grow in unexpected ways.

The World Garden Restaurant and World Garden Artisan Coffee Roasting now serves meals that are made almost entirely out of food that would have otherwise been thrown away. The staff is comprised largely of volunteers. In addition to the meals they serve, the World Garden sells their breads in local supermarkets and the farmers market. They are also working on the start-up of a community garden/farm. Boosey and Urich have teamed up with the Cobblestone Project, a service ministry for homeless and low-income people, to distribute food to even more people. They have hopes that their project will continue to grow, and that they will be able to inspire other communities and organizations to start similar projects across the country.

Boosey describes it as one small decision snowballing into something huge. Everyday seems to bring new calls from people and organizations stepping forward with new ideas, resources, and services to contribute. Boosey is clear that it is all God’s work and nudging.

Discussion Questions

• What surprised you about this article?
• How much edible food do you think gets thrown out at you house? School? Favorite restaurant?
• What do you think about restaurants requiring at least five days of freshness for their produce?
• What might be some of the challenges of starting this kind of program in our community? How would someone get started with something like this?

Scripture Texts (NRSV) for Sunday, August 9, 2009.

(Text links are to oremus Bible Browser. Oremus Bible Browser is not affiliated with or supported by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. You can find the calendar of readings at Lectionary Readings.)

For lectionary humor and insight, check the weekly comic Agnus Day.

• 1 Kings 19:4-8
• Psalm 34:1-8
• Ephesians 4:25-5:2
• John 6:35, 41-51

Gospel Reflection

There goes Jesus, talking about bread — again!

For the third consecutive week, we are focusing on a bread-related story from the 6th chapter of John’s Gospel. Two weeks ago we read the familiar story of Jesus using five loaves of bread and two fish to feed thousands. Last week Jesus started talking about “bread coming from heaven”. This week, he takes it a step further and makes the outrageous claim that HE is the bread of life that is given by God.

Jesus has chosen bread as the focus of his conversations. For some of his friends, talk of bread conjured up images of when God provided bread in the wilderness for Moses and the Israelites. For others, bread was a symbol of what was needed for their daily survival. Bread was an essential food that everyone ate multiple times a day.

(Perhaps if Jesus was speaking to 21st century American youth to get his message across, he would have talked about being the “pizza of eternal life from heaven”.)

Jesus was making two points in his extended bread chat. First, he was showing people that God is a God that provides for the needs of God’s people on earth. God was not only able, but WILLING to feed a multitude of hungry people with table scraps of bread and fish. Surely this same God cares about caring for people in other aspects of their life. Second, God has sent Jesus to be the bread of life not just on earth, but for eternity.

It is this second claim that gets Jesus into some trouble. It’s one thing to say that God cares for people. It’s much messier for him to claim that HE is the Son of God and, therefore, holds the key to salvation and eternal life. It was understandably confusing for people back then to look at Jesus, the son of Joseph and Mary, as “one who was sent from heaven”. It can also be difficult for us to comprehend that one person (Jesus) can bring about eternal life for generations of believers.

The good news in this story is that, despite our doubts and questions, Jesus continues to offer himself as “bread from heaven”. This bread not only satisfies our hunger here on earth, but gives us life even after our physical bodies have died. Jesus declared himself as bread from life back then, and he promises to continue offering himself as the true bread of life for the whole world. 

Discussion Questions

• Why do you think Jesus spent so much time talking about bread?
• How would you respond to Jesus’ claims if you were among those in the story?
• What are some ways that Jesus provides for your physical needs here on earth? What is our role and opportunity?
• How can you take Jesus’ promise of bread and share it with others? Think beyond just words…

Activity Suggestion

Baking communion bread

Ask your pastor or the worship committee if your group can make communion bread for an upcoming service. Discuss the various kinds of breads (leaven, unleavened, etc.) and decide which would be best for communion.

• Luther Seminary’s communion bread recipe
• Gluten-free unleaven communion wafers

Consider making a few extra loaves of bread and take it to a local food pantry or shelter. You may even want to write out John 6:51 on a small piece of paper, wrap the bread in a plastic bag, and affix the paper to the bag with a twisty tie. What a great way to share the bread of life with those who are hungry! Learn more about the work and ministries of the World Garden Restaurant and World Garden Artisan Coffee Roasting.

Closing Prayer 

God, thanks for providing for our physical needs here on earth. We also thank you for sending Jesus to be our eternal bread. Help us to tell others about your sacrificial love for the whole world. May we find new ways to feed your people in the days ahead. Amen.

Contributed by Pastor Seth Moland-Kovash
All Saints Lutheran Church
Palatine, IL

Warm-up Question:  What is your favorite billboard that you’ve ever seen? Why did it catch your eye and why do you remember it?

Signs can be literal things that have words and pictures on them to give us a message. They may be billboards advertising a certain store or product. They may be political signs telling us who we should vote for. They may be signs at your church telling you about the next big event.

But signs can also be metaphorical. They can be things that happen that give us a message. We sometimes talk about things as signs of the times. For instance, it is a sign of the times that you probably do not have a record player in your bedroom. It’s a sign of the times that major world events sometimes get reported on Twitter before television.

Whenever there is bad news (economy, war, New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina) we obsessively look for “signs of recovery.” For example, this story about Hurricane Katrina recovery talks about the rebuilding of houses in New Orleans on raised platforms. Some homes are being rebuilt with the first story being all garage or something else before you get to any actual living space.

These rebuilt homes are a sign of recovery for New Orleans.

Discussion Questions

1. If you traveled to New Orleans for the Youth Gathering, what were signs of recovery and new life that you saw there?
2. What would be signs that would make you really say that New Orleans had recovered from Hurricane Katrina?

Scripture Texts (NRSV) for Sunday,  August 2, 2009.

(Text links are to oremus Bible Browser. Oremus Bible Browser is not affiliated with or supported by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. You can find the calendar of readings for Year B at Lectionary Readings.)

For lectionary humor and insight, check the weekly comic Agnus Day.

• Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15
• Psalm 78:23-29 (24, 25)
• Ephesians 4:1-16
• John 6:24-35 

Gospel Reflection

The crowds that gathered around Jesus wanted to see a sign. They wanted something they could look at and they’d know what it meant, just as clearly as we see the golden arches and know what that means.

They followed Jesus to watch all that he did, all his healings and all his teachings, and tried to interpret the signs. But just as it is hard for us to sometimes interpret the signs (Has New Orleans recovered completely, still recovering, or not recovering at all?), it was hard for them to understand the signs they were seeing. They missed the point. They asked for more.

In the Gospel of John, the things that Jesus says are sometimes hard to understand. He isn’t perfectly clear all the time. In this case, he wasn’t either. He didn’t explain all the signs to the crowds. He didn’t tell them what the signs meant. In fact, he kind of acted like a sign. Like a sign on the road points the way to an exit or to a gas station or a restaurant, Jesus pointed. Jesus pointed to God. He said that it was God who gives us the bread and everything we need. It’s God who makes it so we are never hungry or thirsty again.

Jesus used his teachings and his miracles, and the way he lived his life, to point the way to God, like a sign. Who and what do you point to?

Discussion Questions

1. What do you think Jesus was trying to point people toward?
2. If your life were a sign, where would it point people? Toward God? Would people know about God if they looked at your life? What does you life say about your Creator?

Activity Suggestion

Use your youth group to become a human sign. What do you want to show the rest of your congregation? Think of a message. Perhaps it’s something about being grateful to God. Perhaps it’s something about service to others. Then SHOW them. No words allowed. Be creative. 

Closing Prayer

Good and gracious God, use our lives as signs to point the world toward you and your love. Amen.

Contributed by Angie Larson
Clive, IA

Warm up Question: What would you trade for one red paperclip? Do you think someone would actually trade for one red paperclip?

Kyle McDonald of Belcarra, British Columbia, Canada successfully traded one red paperclip up to a house within one year. Kyle, tired of delivering pizzas, planting trees, and paying rent, got the idea from a childhood game called ‘bigger and better’.

He announced his quest to trade up on Craigslist. Quickly after, he traded his paperclip for a pen shaped like a fish. He traveled to Vancouver, BC, to make the trade in person. From there he went to Seattle, Washington, to trade the fish pen for a handmade door knob.

The trades continued with everything from a generator to an afternoon with Alice Cooper to a snow globe. Finally, one year from when his quest began, the chamber of commerce of Kipling, Saskatchewan, traded him for a two-story farm house.

On the day he received his house, he proposed to his girlfriend. Now married, they live in the house in Kipling in front of which the city has placed the Guinness Book of World Record’s largest red paperclip. Kyle has now written a book called One Red Paperclip and is working in sales.

Discussion Questions

• What would your initial reaction be if you were one of the first to read Kyle’s proposal on Craigslist?
• Do you think that any small thing could be compounded to create a big thing? Would it work with ideas? How?
• Do you think that this experiment could work for helping other people? If so, how would you do it? 

Scripture Texts (NRSV) for Sunday, July 26, 2009.

(Text links are to oremus Bible Browser. Oremus Bible Browser is not affiliated with or supported by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. You can find the calendar of readings for Year B at Lectionary Readings.)

For lectionary humor and insight, check the weekly comic Agnus Day.

• 2 Kings 4:42-44
• Psalm 145:10-18 (16)
• Ephesians 3:14-21
• John 6:1-21

Scripture Reflection

In the Gospel text Jesus takes five loaves of bread and two fish and performs a miracle to make it into enough to feed five thousand people. The text states that he knew it would be enough. In the 2 Kings text, Elisha also knows that there will be enough food. There is not only enough for many people, but much left over.

We live in a world that becomes consumed and obsessed with scarcity. We fear we won’t have enough, that we won’t make our goal, and that we won’t be enough. The economic situation of this year creates fear, despair, and worry. Our surroundings tell us that we live in scarcity. God tells us the opposite; we live in a world that is abundant. We can give knowing that God will take care of us and our families, just as Christ knew that there would be enough to care for the coming masses. It takes an amazing amount of trust.

There is enough. You are enough. Where you are weak, God is strong. It is in weakness and scarcity when God can come in and fill in the blanks. God makes things bigger and better and whole.

Nelson Mandela summarizes the human battle between scarcity and abundance beautifully:

“Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, handsome, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some; it is in everyone. And, as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Discussion Questions

• Do you live in a world of scarcity or abundance? Explain.
• How do you tend to react during times of stress and need?
• When in your life do you forget that you are blessed by God? How do you respond when that happens?

Activity Suggestions

Play the game Bigger and Better to benefit a social ministry. Challenge the group to trade a small item for a larger one. It could be anything, from a paperclip to an egg. Ask them to go door-to- door to get a larger item, anything larger in size. Instruct the group to then trade that item for a larger item. See how big the items can get. You’ll be surprised with what you can get! Contact Lutheran Social Services for refugee programs or a homeless shelter needing the items you have to donate.

Want to see how much more you can maximize the items you’ve received? Use the final items as part of a congregational silent auction. Use the proceeds for a social ministry.

Closing Prayer

Blessed Savior, we thank you for blessing us in everyway. We know that you are continually working in our lives to remind us that you are in control. Please use us as you desire to let our light, and your light, shine through our actions. In your wonderful name, we pray.  Amen.