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Dear Friend:

For many, September means getting back to business, back to the business of learning and working and leaving behind the leisure days of summer. Some prefer to ease their way back into the "daily grind."  Matthew, however, does not offer us that kind of luxury.  From the first Sunday of the month through to the end we are confronted with passages and parables that speak of including the outcast and ridiculed, forgiving even the most egregious offenses and being a justice-making force. This installment of Bread for the Preacher invites you into the world of Matthew's Gospel and challenges you to be inclusive, to be a forgiver, and to help bring justice to all.

Gary Cook
Director of Church Relations

Gary Cook
Director of Church Relations

Lectionary Reflections

In these weeks leading into the fall season, the Gospel passages in the lectionary speak of love, forgiveness, inclusion and justice-making.  Karen Fitzpatrick and Felipe Selinas take us through these weeks and the parables in Matthew, reminding us of who we are as Christians and our responsibility to those in the world around us.

From Hunger for the Word, Year A

• September 7, Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time (Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost)
  Treat the sinner in the church as you would a Gentile or a tax collector, Matthew's Gospel tells us.  How are Gentiles and tax collectors treated in the Gospels and in the early Church?  …Tax collectors eat at Jesus' table.  Do we need to work so sinners return to our tables of fellowship? (Download in Word or pdf)
  
  
• September 14, Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost)
  Forgiveness. Even people of faith struggle to forgive when another's sin is terribly violent and obviously wrong… [and moving] from such justified anger to the hope of forgiving is a long journey. (Download in Word or pdf)
  
  
• September 21, Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
  …Scratching the surface of the Sunday congregation, negative attitudes can emerge toward one or more of the groups of people: immigrants; unemployed and underemployed people; those who are homeless, hungry, and destitute; gay and lesbian people; unwed mothers; those with disabilities.  How might the preacher lay bare the prejudices that linger in the human heart despite all the human resource and church education programs that try to overcome them? How do we approach these attitudes . . . and still preach good news? Probably by telling a story.  At least that's what Jesus did.  (Download in Word or pdf)
  
  
• September 28, Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost)
  How well do our professions of faith measure up with our actions, especially in God’s vineyard, where the harvest of justice awaits? Do we find ourselves in a quarrelsome mood, raising objections born of political expediency, impracticalities, or comfort with the status quo?  Or, perhaps worse, do we shrink from even daring to engage God’s Word out of fear that our political convictions may be challenged and even changed?  (Download in Word or pdf)

Youth Corner

With school beginning again, this may be a good time to educate children on the gift of being able to receive an education. Many children, and particularly girls, in Africa, India and other developing countries do not have the opportunity to go to school. Their families may not be able to afford to pay tuition or may need the children at home to help support the family. 

If you have had a chance to view the 2008 Offering of Letters video in your congregation, talk about Catherine, the young woman in the video who wanted to be an accountant because she was good at math.  If talking to older youth, this may be a good opportunity to talk about vocation.  In the United States, do we choose vocation by what we want to do?  Or by what we're good at?  With younger youth: talk about studying by candlelight and what that might be like.

Don’t forget to check out the “Children’s Time” section at the conclusion of each Lectionary Reflection to help you prepare time with your community’s children.

Praying Together

Holy and Mighty God, we ask for forgiveness, and you forgive.  We ask to be loved, and you love.  Help us to share your love with others and teach us to forgive, even when our hurt is so great.  Help us to reach out to those who are rejected by society, empower us to show them your forgiveness and to welcome them into your community, our community.  In your holy name we pray, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

Bulletin Inserts

In the United States we often take our education system for granted. Sometimes we forget that our education is a gift from God and that, as Christians, we should be using our education to help others. Our newest bulletin insert for children encourages giving thanks for schools and teachers and learning more about children in other countries. The bulletin insert can be viewed and printed online.

The 2008 Offering of Letters bulletin insert continues to be available to order at no charge and can be viewed and printed at our online store.

Other Resources and Opportunities

It's not too late to plan your Bread for the World Sunday event!  Visit www.bread.org/sunday today to explore the resources available for your congregation to lift up poverty and hunger in our world and renew its commitment to ending hunger and poverty.  In response to the global hunger crisis, Bread for the World is inviting members to join in a time of prayer and fasting during the period between World Food Day (October 16) and October 19 (Bread for the World Sunday for many congregations). 

Also next month, look for ways to participate in the worldwide campaign: Stand Up and Take Action Against Poverty.  STAND UP and SPEAK OUT is a global advocacy effort to set an official Guinness World Record for the greatest number of people ever to STAND UP and SPEAK OUT against poverty and inequality and for the Millennium Development Goals. On October 17-19 2008, the world will physically and symbolically "STAND UP and SPEAK OUT" to communicate their desire to fight poverty and to hold their governments and leaders accountable for promises to end poverty by 2015. To learn more about this campaign and how you can participate, visit the Stand Up website at www.standagainstpoverty.org.

This Fall, the ONE Campaign's ONE Sabbath invites churches, synagogues, mosques and temples into movement to make poverty history.  To get more information, including a tool kit with resources for worship, education, and youth activities, go to www.one.org/faith.

Be on the lookout! Bread for the World is redeveloping its resource page to help make finding worship aids, reflections, activities other ideas easier to find.