Large, multinational corporations controlling prices and driving down wages, masses of people too poor to afford basic goods, an economy that favors the wealthy, politicians and church leaders at the mercy of banks….1517 was quite a year!  So much has changed, so much remains the same.

Many people remember Martin Luther’s sharp critique of the abusive practices of the church, but few of us are as familiar with Luther’s equally sharp critique of the abusive economy of his day, an economy that made a few people wealthy and a lot of people poor.

At the 2015 “Forgotten Luther” conference in Washington, DC, theologians and historians shared this little-known side of Luther’s teachings.  The presenters described Luther’s critique of monopolies, price gouging, and greed. They showed the clear economic teachings in Luther’s Catechisms and the political side of his theology. They also shared Luther’s insistence that the church be part of the solution to injustice, a heritage that can still be seen today in the many ways Lutherans respond to poverty and hunger 500 years later.

ELCA World Hunger is proud to offer for free videos of each presentation from this important conference, as well as video interviews with each of the presenters. You can find all of the videos on the ELCA’s Vimeo channel at https://vimeo.com/album/4043021. The presentations were also collected into a short book, complete with discussion questions and other contributions from the conference organizers. You can purchase the book for only $15 from Lutheran University Press at http://www.lutheranupress.org/Books/Forgotten_Luther.

Here on the ELCA World Hunger blog this month, we will feature some highlights from this collection of resources.

In this interview, Dr. Cynthia Moe-Lobeda from Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary talks about her personal journey as an advocate for justice and the importance of seeing the well-being of the neighbor, including economic well-being, as a matter of faith. Find this video and more at https://vimeo.com/album/4043021.

Large, multinational corporations controlling prices and driving down wages, masses of people too poor to afford basic goods, an economy that favors the wealthy, politicians and church leaders at the mercy of banks….1517 was quite a year!  So much has changed, so much remains the same.

Many people remember Martin Luther’s sharp critique of the abusive practices of the church, but few of us are as familiar with Luther’s equally sharp critique of the abusive economy of his day, an economy that made a few people wealthy and a lot of people poor.

At the 2015 “Forgotten Luther” conference in Washington, DC, theologians and historians shared this little-known side of Luther’s teachings.  The presenters described Luther’s critique of monopolies, price gouging, and greed. They showed the clear economic teachings in Luther’s Catechisms and the political side of his theology. They also shared Luther’s insistence that the church be part of the solution to injustice, a heritage that can still be seen today in the many ways Lutherans respond to poverty and hunger 500 years later.

ELCA World Hunger is proud to offer for free videos of each presentation from this important conference, as well as video interviews with each of the presenters. You can find all of the videos on the ELCA’s Vimeo channel at https://vimeo.com/album/4043021. The presentations were also collected into a short book, complete with discussion questions and other contributions from the conference organizers. You can purchase the book for only $15 from Lutheran University Press at http://www.lutheranupress.org/Books/Forgotten_Luther.

Here on the ELCA World Hunger blog this month, we will feature some highlights from this collection of resources.

In this interview, Dr. Tim Huffman, now retired from Trinity Lutheran Seminary, describes the importance of advocacy, action, and building relationships toward a more just world, including within our own church. Find this video and more at https://vimeo.com/album/4043021.

Large, multinational corporations controlling prices and driving down wages, masses of people too poor to afford basic goods, an economy that favors the wealthy, politicians and church leaders at the mercy of banks….1517 was quite a year!  So much has changed, so much remains the same.

Many people remember Martin Luther’s sharp critique of the abusive practices of the church, but few of us are as familiar with Luther’s equally sharp critique of the abusive economy of his day, an economy that made a few people wealthy and a lot of people poor.

At the 2015 “Forgotten Luther” conference in Washington, DC, theologians and historians shared this little-known side of Luther’s teachings.  The presenters described Luther’s critique of monopolies, price gouging, and greed. They showed the clear economic teachings in Luther’s Catechisms and the political side of his theology. They also shared Luther’s insistence that the church be part of the solution to injustice, a heritage that can still be seen today in the many ways Lutherans respond to poverty and hunger 500 years later.

ELCA World Hunger is proud to offer for free videos of each presentation from this important conference, as well as video interviews with each of the presenters. You can find all of the videos on the ELCA’s Vimeo channel at https://vimeo.com/album/4043021. The presentations were also collected into a short book, complete with discussion questions and other contributions from the conference organizers. You can purchase the book for only $15 from Lutheran University Press at http://www.lutheranupress.org/Books/Forgotten_Luther.

Here on the ELCA World Hunger blog this month, we will feature some highlights from this collection of resources.

In this interview, Dr. Samuel Torvend of Pacific Lutheran University talks about justification and justice, the experiences that shaped his own perspective, and how to reconcile Luther’s conservative positions with the Reformer’s progressive call for economic justice. Find this video and more at https://vimeo.com/album/4043021.

Large, multinational corporations controlling prices and driving down wages, masses of people too poor to afford basic goods, an economy that favors the wealthy, politicians and church leaders at the mercy of banks….1517 was quite a year!  So much has changed, so much remains the same.

Many people remember Martin Luther’s sharp critique of the abusive practices of the church, but few of us are as familiar with Luther’s equally sharp critique of the abusive economy of his day, an economy that made a few people wealthy and a lot of people poor.

At the 2015 “Forgotten Luther” conference in Washington, DC, theologians and historians shared this little-known side of Luther’s teachings.  The presenters described Luther’s critique of monopolies, price gouging, and greed. They showed the clear economic teachings in Luther’s Catechisms and the political side of his theology. They also shared Luther’s insistence that the church be part of the solution to injustice, a heritage that can still be seen today in the many ways Lutherans respond to poverty and hunger 500 years later.

ELCA World Hunger is proud to offer for free videos of each presentation from this important conference, as well as video interviews with each of the presenters. You can find all of the videos on the ELCA’s Vimeo channel at https://vimeo.com/album/4043021. The presentations were also collected into a short book, complete with discussion questions and other contributions from the conference organizers. You can purchase the book from Lutheran University Press at http://www.lutheranupress.org/Books/Forgotten_Luther.

Here on the ELCA World Hunger blog, we will feature some highlights from this collection of resources.

This week, Dr. Carter Lindberg talks about the relationship between charity and justice and how congregations can start to engage questions about the economy. Dr. Lindberg challenges congregations to enrich their charity with justice. See the full interview at https://vimeo.com/album/4043021.

This blog originally appeared on the Huffington Post Impact site: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ryan-p-cumming/end-hunger-the-single-mos_b_11136672.html.

A few years ago, I was at the World Food Prize in Des Moines, Iowa, for the Borlaug Dialogues, an annual international conference on food security, agriculture, and food science. Representatives from NGOs, businesses, local communities, and national governments offered their solutions to hunger around the world, from encouraging young agri-entrepreneurs to shipping fish heads to Africa. There was no end to creative (and, at times, dubious) solutions to world hunger.

What is the right answer? Maybe, like many at the Borlaug Dialogues argued, the solution is to increase agricultural output, since we have too many people and not enough food. On the other hand, some argue that we already produce more than enough for everyone, so food waste is the real issue. Maybe the answer lies in the science of GMOs that can “save the world from hunger, if we let them.” Perhaps the solution is more straightforward—give hungry people peanut butter. Or, it could involve transforming economic opportunity through social enterprise, the “only” solution to global poverty according to the author of that article. And so on and so on.

About the only thing most folks seem to agree on is that the answer isn’t more relief but more development. Figuring out which path toward development to take, though, is another matter. Even the best routes aren’t perfect. Increasing agricultural output doesn’t address rampant food waste. Developing more GMO seeds doesn’t address lack of clean water or lack of jobs. Microlending can provide huge benefits, but it doesn’t work everywhere and doesn’t work everywhere in the same way.

But there is a single step we can take to end hunger for good around the world and in our own communities: listening to one another. Too often, the “solutions” to hunger and poverty come down from the “top,” rather than rising up from the ground. Those of us in developed countries are moved by the problems we see in developing nations and bring our own solutions to bear in communities that are not our own. At its worst, this feeds the sort of “savior complex” on prominent display recently in the controversy over Louise Linton’s new memoir. At its best, this top-down model proffers solutions that simply don’t work.

The kind of meaningful listening that builds relationships between and within communities helps solutions arise that are effective and sustainable. This model “challenges one-sided, top-down, and donor-recipient approaches…and emphasizes the need for developing mutual relationships in which all are considered teachers and learners,” says Rev. Dr. Philip Knutson, the regional representative of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) in Southern Africa. Knutson warns that without cultivating relationships through listening, development projects can lose sight of context and “may be short-sighted, benefiting some but excluding others.”

Fyness Phiri of Chithope Village

When listening is authentic, though, programs can respond to a host of needs, including practical needs for economic empowerment and personal needs like recognition of self-dignity. In Malawi, the Evangelical Lutheran Development Service (ELDS), supported in part by the ELCA through ELCA World Hunger, is working with women and men to build community and overcome the challenges of hunger and poverty. (ELDS is the diaconate arm of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Malawi, led by Bishop Joseph Bvumbwe.) Fyness Phiri, one of the participants in the “Livelihoods Improvement and Empowerment Project,” recalls, “I was one of the poorest people in the village…before ELDS introduced this project.” Fyness used to ask her neighbors for money to buy food for herself, her husband, and their four children.

At a community meeting in 2013, Fyness joined other women to start a village savings and loan group. After some training and community-building meetings with ELDS, the group gave out its first loans. Fyness and the other women were able to start small businesses and purchase seeds and fertilizers for their farms. Eventually, the start-up money helped Fyness produce enough food to feed her family, pay back her loan, and sell some of her surplus at market. “Since I joined the project,” she says, “my life has completely changed. I have food in my house, and I’m able to send my children to school. Because of the knowledge [I’ve gained], I will be able to continue and help others even if the project phases out.” Because ELDS invested in the community and the relationships formed among the women, the impact is not only sustainable but replicable.

Extension worker Chesterman Kumwenda demonstrates how to use a treadle pump.

Microlending worked wonders for the women in Fyness’ village, but for Charles Chikwatu’s community, the problem was not access to funds but lack of water for their fields. Charles and other participants worked together to learn how to use efficient treadle pumps to increase the land they could tend for maize and tomatoes. The benefits of the new method are huge, Charles says: “I easily find money through sale of my crops [and] I have managed using the money from irrigation to send my children to secondary school. I have also started a grocery with the money from this farming.”

New irrigation systems wouldn’t help Fyness, who didn’t even have money for seeds. A village savings and loan wouldn’t have helped Charles’ community address lack of access to water. But by listening closely, ELDS helped Fyness, Charles, and their communities transform their own situations.

And because of this, the benefits extend far beyond the immediate needs for food, according to Knutson. “[C]ollaboration between individual members in a community has enabled the individuals and the community to gain in knowledge and confidence to leverage other benefits enabling them to start new business and advocate for government support for local clinics and other rural development projects,” he says.

New, creative solutions to hunger and poverty abound, and many offer much promise. When these are employed in the context of relationships where participants become leaders and vision is built from the ground up, effective action can take root and grow. Sometimes, the answer is reducing waste. In some places, the answer is increased production. With some groups, the answer is enterprise. But in every time, place, and case, the best response is to listen.

Photos: Gazeli Phiri and Dickens Mtonga, courtesy of ELDS

Ryan P. Cumming, Ph.D., is program director of hunger education with ELCA World Hunger.  He can be reached at Ryan.Cumming@ELCA.org.

This summer, interns with the ELCA churchwide organization had an opportunity to visit Cross Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The interns were welcome by Pastor Michelle Townsend de Lopez who highlighted Cross’s history and the congregation’s diverse ministries. One of the ministries that Pastor Michelle highlighted was Cross’s “Bread of Healing Empowerment Ministry.” Through this ministry, a weekly food pantry is held at Cross, where 200 bags of perishable goods are distributed to those living in poverty. In addition, every Wednesday at Cross, 300 people receive hot meals. We happened to be there for the meal and got an opportunity to be present with community members. It was humbling to see the church and the community come together. Cross Lutheran Church does not just feed people physically, but they offer the opportunity for guests to be fed spiritually through a weekly Bible study. Through Bible study, people share testimonies, sing and encourage one another.

Another ministry that Pastor Michelle highlighted was Cross Lutheran’s jobs program (featured in the video mentioned above.) This ministry is supported in part through ELCA World Hunger’s Domestic Hunger Grants program. Through their job ministries, Cross Lutheran Church addresses the problem of unemployment in the community by helping individuals discover their own strengths in the midst of personal and economic challenges.. For some, this means transcending challenging circumstances and learning various skills through job training. They are then accompanied as they find employment. The story of one participant, Kenneth, was featured in a recent video from ELCA World Hunger and is a perfect example of how your gifts are supporting our neighbors in Milwaukee as they become food secure.

Visiting Cross Lutheran Church was a great experience for us to see the important work ELCA World Hunger supports here in the United States. What is more, it also helped put into perspective the ways people of faith can respond to large challenges like unemployment by supporting our neighbors as they steer their own development and regain a strong sense of self-worth.

Shubira Bocko is an intern with ELCA World Hunger, working with the Hunger Education team.

Hello! My name is Scott Van Daalen. I am originally from Waverly, Iowa, and a member of Redeemer Lutheran Church. This summer, I have a great opportunity to intern with the ELCA World Hunger Education and Engagement team. ELCA World Hunger has been one of my interests for the past couple of years so I am looking forward to learning more this summer. In high school, I had the opportunity to work on a project that focused on raising awareness and funds for both the ELCA Malaria Campaign and the United Methodist “Imagine No Malaria” Campaign. (Read more about Scott’s project here – https://www.livinglutheran.org/2013/10/running-malaria/)

Another interest of mine is the connection between media and the church. This fall, I will be entering my senior year at the University of Northwestern in St. Paul, Minnesota, where I am studying Media Ministry, a program that combines film production, graphic design, and ministry.

I am very excited to be here, and I am very thankful for the opportunity!

Hello everyone, my name is Micah Kassahun, and I am the ELCA World Hunger Fundraising intern.  I am a rising senior at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, studying Public Health and Biology.  Due to the nature of my studies, I am very interested in hospital administration, social justice, poverty (both national and international) and issues regarding medical access.

At Purdue, I enjoy serving with Chi Alpha Christian Fellowship on campus as a worship leader and bible study leader.  Through my experiences with this ministry, I have learned to make my faith my own and to be unashamed of the Gospel wherever I go.

In the future I hope to obtain a Masters in Public Health (MPH) and possibly move into the corporate world while serving in a capacity related to providing medical access for those in need and aiding my surrounding community.

For fun, I really enjoy competitive sports, playing music and spending time with friends.

I am really excited and blessed to be a part of the ELCA World Hunger team and to see how the Lord uses this Church to spread God’s Word in different ways!

I am Shubira Bocko, and I am the ELCA World Hunger Education Intern this summer! My passion for serving others dates back to my time on the south side of Chicago because there were so many opportunities to make a difference. Through Reformation Lutheran Church, I served meals to homeless people during Thanksgiving, visited nursing homes during Christmas and mentored my peers. I attained my B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Community Sociology at Wartburg College. In college, courses like Community Sociology and Intercultural Studies made me start thinking about a career in international development. These courses opened my eyes to poverty-related issues going on in other parts of the world, and I wanted to make a difference.

One year after college, I was accepted into Peace Corps program in the Philippines. My work there involved providing health education to families and teaching children and youth life skills. Five months into my service, Typhoon Haiyan hit the island where I was living. Shortly after the typhoon, I was evacuated, and I returned to the U.S. However, I was transferred to Peace Corps Tanzania, where I was born, and being given a chance to go serve home was a blessing.

In Tanzania, I had the pleasure of serving as a health teacher at the health clinic in Dodoma. The highlight of my service was working with women and teaching them about nutrition, contraceptive options and HIV prevention. Having served in Peace Corps for two years and learning about the problems that women and children go through – hunger being on top of the list – I wanted an opportunity to learn more about hunger and see ways I can help. I am glad that I will be serving as a World Hunger Education Intern through the ELCA, and I am looking forward to this enriching experience!

Synod assembly season is in full-swing in the ELCA, and many readers of this blog will be helping raise awareness about hunger and poverty among their fellow Lutherans in the coming weeks.  Outside of assemblies and events, we often are asked for statistics and facts about hunger and poverty for congregations and groups.  So, ELCA World Hunger’s education team has put together a presentation with stats on global and domestic hunger and poverty that you can share.

The stats in the slides are from the most up-to-date sources we have.  This will differ for each of the four areas: US hunger, US poverty, global hunger, and global poverty.  Each of the sources we used are listed in the second slide, so you can read more about the measurements.  Follow the link at the end to download the whole presentation.

Thank you for all you do to help your community learn more about hunger and poverty and how together we can work for a just world in which all are fed!

How many people in the US were living in poverty in 2014?

Food insecurity means lacking access to sufficient amounts of affordable, healthy foods to live an active life.  In the US, food insecurity tends to be “episodic,” which means that there may be times when people can’t access the food they need.  This may be because of seasonal work or insufficient benefits that run out before the end of the month.

What percentage of people in different age groups experience poverty in the United States?

Global hunger tends to be chronic, rather than episodic, which means that hunger is often a daily reality, leading to problems like malnutrition and stunting. The good news is, the number has fallen in the last 30 years.  The bad news is, it is still too high.

How prevalent is undernourishment in different regions of the world?

The World Bank has begun using a new standard for global extreme poverty – $1.90 per day. This line better reflects real costs of food, clothing, and shelter around the world.  Again, the number is falling, with the World Bank projecting that about 700 million people will be living in extreme poverty in 2015.  Hopeful, but there is more work to be done.

To download the presentation, click here.

At this time of year we see seasons changing with the last bit of winter frost fading to the warm air of spring. The seasons of the church change as well from the somber time of Lent into the celebration of Easter. During the season of Lent Messiah Lutheran Church in Vancouver, Washington, decided to spend their weeks not only in worship, but educating their congregation about water.

“Stay Thirsty” was the name of the Wednesday evening sermon series for the season of Lent and each Sunday there was a children’s message about water. In the midst of abundance, Messiah Lutheran Church decided to talk about scarcity of a resource that we all depend on: clean water.

The first “Stay Thirsty” evening, the congregation put on their own Walk for Water. They set up three tracks going throughout the church with stops along the way to learn about waterborne diseases and the reality of water all around the world.

Each track lets you walk in the shoes of a real story, and simulate the difficulties of not having accessible water.

At Messiah there were a large number of people who wanted to participate, so the congregation provided various sizes of water containers to accommodate the inter-generational walk with participants as young as three.     

This first event provided a way for the whole congregation to get acquainted with the theme of “Water for the World”, and learn more about what the ELCA is doing around the world.

As a retired teacher, Hope Quinn took on the responsibility for writing and delivering the children’s messages each Sunday. Each week provided a different lesson on water, and a box for collecting coins to contribute to ELCA World Hunger’s water programs. “Water for the World” was the theme that was adopted and a wishing well was placed in the narthex to collect prayers of the congregation on a clothesline with a thermometer to gauge how much money they raised.

The first Sunday the theme was introduced with a simple question to the children, “When you want a drink of water at home, what do you do?”. The answer would be the same for many of us, that we simply go to our sinks and turn on the faucet. There might be a water filter involved, but nothing strenuous. Answers from the children prompted a conversation on how many people in the world do not have this same luxury, with an illustration from the Walk for Water video. The children were given coin boxes to collect money during the week and told about how their coins can help give people safe water to drink.

Wells were the next topic, and understanding what kind of well water is actually safe to drink. Quinn pointed out that well water can contain debris and other materials to make the water unsafe to drink. Porterville, California, is an area that relies on wells to provide water but due to drought their wells are running dry. Quinn lifted up that ELCA World Hunger is helping provide materials to aid the people of Porterville, which is only a two-day drive from Vancouver. After this children’s message many adults came up to Quinn saying that they had no idea that ELCA World Hunger worked domestically!

Women are usually the ones faced with the burden of gathering water for their families, and that was illustrated in the third week of Lent. Quinn asked for two girls to volunteer from the group to carry an empty bucket and an empty jug. The volunteers illustrated how difficult it is to carry the bucket instead of the jug and learned that with only two dollars from their Water for the World boxes they could buy one of the jugs! Also with only one dollar from their boxes they could provide 140 water purification tablets! The last Sunday showed what happens when an area gets clean water. Quinn showed a PowerPoint that illustrated the different components to getting clean water and what it meant for a community in India to gain access to clean water with the support of ELCA World Hunger.

Messiah wanted to show through education and giving that we really can make a difference by coming together as sisters and brothers in Christ. This congregation took a season to learn about the ELCA in the world, and at the end of their time they raised nearly $2,500!

Let us take a season, a Sunday, or just a moment to bear witness to what we as a church can do in the world, and how something as simple as clean water can make all the difference.

I recently visited a congregation that has been a very generous supporter of ELCA World Hunger for many years. They also have their own thriving anti-hunger ministries for their community. During an adult forum, I asked them, “Why do you do it? How does your faith motivate you to serve?” They gave a lot of different answers, but in general, there were two themes that came up: “This is work God invites or calls us to,” and “This is work God tells us we have to do.”

Which is it for you? Do you serve because God invites you to be part of this work? Or, do you serve your neighbor in obedience to God’s command? Are you called or commanded?

Lutherans have a great way of talking about this difference. We call it “law and gospel.” There are a lot of books and articles on this, but honestly, I think the best example of how Law and Gospel work is found on bus stops in my city during the winter. Chicago, for a Catholic city, is profoundly Lutheran when it comes to shoveling snow:

We Northerners know how frustrating it can be to trudge through knee-high snow. Chicago helpfully reminds us to keep sidewalks clear for pedestrians. But why should we do it? Take a closer look at the poster:

As the poster says, “It’s neighborly.” It’s just what you do to help each other. But if that doesn’t move you to grab a shovel, maybe a ticket will: “and it’s the law.”

Hopefully, most people will clear the sidewalk out of concern for others. But just in case some ruffian leaves the white stuff out front, the city will send a citation with a hefty fine to make sure it gets done.

This is a great example of what Lutherans mean by “Law and Gospel.” With the Gospel, the hope is that we will do what is right because we feel called to do it, out of gratitude for God’s love and out of our love for one another. But, if that doesn’t work, God commands it, too.

When it comes to serving the neighbor, Martin Luther left room for both:

“This demonstrates that we are children of God, caring and working for the well-being of others…”

That’s the gospel side. And appropriately, it comes from Luther’s treatise “Freedom of a Christian,” which is, ironically, all about the freedom we have in Christ. Luther’s main argument is that we serve because we feel called to it in gratitude for God’s grace. We were saved by a free gift, so we serve others freely.

But just in case:

“If your enemy needs you and you do not help him when you can it is the same as if you had stolen what belonged to him, for you owe him your help. St. Ambrose says, ‘Feed the hungry: if you do not feed him, then as far as you are concerned, you have killed him.’ ” – Treatise on Good Works (1520)

And thus the Law side. Just in case gratitude doesn’t move us, perhaps condemnation will.

Does our motivation matter? Think to the snow-shoveling sign. If I clear my sidewalk out of love for my neighbors, how good of a job will I do? When I was a kid, I used to clear the walks for our elderly neighbors, a really nice couple. I made sure their path was as wide as could be. Heck, there was grass showing at the edges. It was a labor of love to help them, a way of showing thanks for their kindness to me over the years.

What will that path look like if the sidewalk is cleared just to avoid a ticket? If you’ve ever walked down a sidewalk shoveled so poorly that your legs knock snow off the mounds at your sides, you might have an idea. Some of the paths in my neighborhood are about ten inches wide and as slick as a skating rink. But, at least they’re shoveled. No tickets today.

Love pushes us to go as far as we can, to encounter our limits and then to find ways to go beyond them. The gospel draws us into a life of faith that is consuming, energizing, and challenging. The Law, on the other hand, sets a minimum standard we have to meet. We look for clear, minimal expectations and do what we must to meet them (or, sometimes, find a loophole.)

Another interesting thing about snow-shoveling in Chicago: elderly and differently-abled people are still required by the law to clear their walks. How they are supposed to this isn’t exactly clear. But if they don’t, they get cited like the rest of us. That’s the way the Law works. The Law doesn’t help us follow it. It merely condemns us when we get it wrong.

The Gospel, on the other hand, invites us into relationships where we support each other. So, the “Lutheran” government of Chicago encourages people to help their neighbors if they know they can’t take care of their sidewalks. It encourages the sort of “gospel” activity where we go out of way to serve one another, not out of fear but out of love and concern. The Gospel lets everyone participate.

What motivates your ministry? Each of us has days when we need the Law to get us out of bed and back to the work of fighting hunger. But each of us also needs the Gospel to help us see God’s reconciling grace at work, creating something new in our midst, something all of us can be part of. How can we be continually reminded of both the Law and the Gospel in our service?

Ryan P. Cumming, Ph.D., is program director for hunger education with ELCA World Hunger.  He can be reached at Ryan.Cumming@ELCA.org.