The Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost
Mark 12:38-44
The Rev. Kristin E. Orr
The Episcopal Church of St. John the Evangelist
"May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen"
Millennium Development Goals
It is hard to be around the Episcopal Church these days and not hear a lot about the Millennium Development Goals. They provide a focus for the Episcopal Church as a mission oriented church. They give specific form and shape to the church’s mission in the world. They are a priority of our new Presiding Bishop. And, at the just recently completed annual convention of the Diocese of Chicago, we affirmed that they are a priority for this diocese. The deacon community within the Diocese of Chicago is actively working to increase awareness of the MDG’s and to further their implementation.
What are they? Simply put, a global effort to make poverty history. Make poverty history. To eliminate the devastating effects of extreme poverty throughout the world and to make the possibility for development real for everyone.
The seeds of the Millennium Development Goals were sown back in the beginning of the new millennium. They are part of the U.N. Millennium Declaration, adopted by 189 nations—including the United States—during the Millennium Summit in September 2000. They are concrete, achievable goals, aimed at reducing human suffering through development by the year 2015.
The summit declared "We will spare no effort to free our fellow men, women, and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty, to which more than a billion of them are currently subjected. We are committed to making the right to development a reality for everyone and to freeing the entire human race from want."
It can be hard for those of us who live amid so much development and abundance to really appreciate that just the possibility of development truly is not available to many, no matter how motivated they may be. Poverty, lack of access to education, and disease are insurmountable impediments. The goals outlined by the Millennium summit do not just happen naturally. It will take effort. Our effort.
These are the goals:
I suppose it is easy when hearing goals like these to be tempted to dismiss them as just lofty rhetoric or to despair, as individuals, of having any real influence. But we cannot be Christians without doing something. Today’s collect reminds us that Jesus came into the world to destroy the works of the devil. Surely poverty is the work of the devil. And we are called, by our own baptismal covenants, to resist the works of the devil and to work for dignity and justice for all of God’s children.
An essay by Garret Keizer (The Christian Century, December 5, 2001) speaks to the relationship between faith and mission in the world, outlining the particular obligation and the particular resources that people of faith bring to this work. His piece was written to address environmental activism, so I will modify a few of his phrases. His overall point is equally relevant to our discussion.
Another thing that faith can bring to [the movement to alleviate global poverty] is a sense of the redeeming value of small gestures and humble efforts. There is a story about a Jewish peasant who became so absorbed in his field work that he missed the sunset on the eve of Passover. [Imagine that! Someone who got so absorbed in work, he missed his religious obligations.] Forbidden to travel after sundown, he spent the night alone by himself in the field. At dawn the next day his rabbi came walking through the field searching for him. "Your family missed you last night," said the rabbi. With a poignant sigh the peasant explained what had happened. "This is indeed unfortunate," said the rabbi, "but I hope you at least said some of the appointed prayers." "That was the worst part of the whole experience," said the peasant. "I was so upset that, try as I might, I could not recall a single prayer." "Then how did you pass the holy evening?" said the rabbi. "I recited my alphabet," said the peasant, "and I trusted God to form the words." I know of few stories that better illustrate the meaning of faith.
Sometimes I wonder if lack of faith is the great enemy the world’s poor. The devil has two horns: the horn of pride that says there is nothing we ought to do, and the horn of despair that says there is nothing we can do. In this age of globalism… it is especially easy to be gored by that second horn. On that hike where my daughter met nettles for the first time, she was the only member of our tiny Sunday school to show up, which meant that five adults ushered her to the top of the mountain. For me that very ratio bespeaks what it means to be a person of faith. A person of faith does not ask if it’s worth his while to take one child on a hike or worth his while to turn off one unnecessary electric light bulb, [or worth his while to feed just one hungry person in Chicago or worth his while to offer ten dollars to combat malaria in Africa]… that is indeed part of what defines him as a person of faith: the belief that little gestures are worth his while in spite of any evidence to the contrary.
The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed that grows into a great shrub; the kingdom of God is like an alphabet recited in a dark night by a man who cannot seem to remember his prayers. An imperial-style preoccupation with beg gestures and grand schemes not only intimidates our spirits; it recapitulates the very attitudes that [led to economic stratification in our world] in the first place. Faith, on the other hand, does not despise the smallest effort or the smallest gift, be it a widow’s mite [as in this morning’s Gospel] or a salamander’s egg, be it a small boy’s proffered lunch of five loaves and two fishes that eventually feeds a multitude of 5,000, or a children’s parking-lot crusade that eventually changes the disposal practices of a fast-food chain where, we are told, over 99 billion have been served.
Keizer provides both practical and theological motivations for us to act, as people of faith. Practically speaking, of course, as individuals we are part of a much larger organization, the church. And even if our individual contributions may seem small, the cumulative effect can be large. That is a good thing, but it would be true of any large organization.
As people of faith our call to involvement is even more powerful. We are called to be generous people. Like the widow in today’s gospel. That’s really what this Gospel story is about… a women who acts, who lives generously. Regardless of the need of others or the potential effect of our actions, we are to be generous people. To be generous.
And secondly, as a community we are called to be the Body of Christ. To bring the presence, the love, the hope, the work of Christ into the world. And this is Christ’s work. We are the Body of Christ in our world. But only if we all participate, take our part within the Christian community, can we function as the Body of Christ and do Christ’s work in our world.
What specifically can you or we do? I am not going to tell you as an individual what to do; that is for you to discover in your own heart and prayers. For us as a community, I will provide resources as I can over the next few months, maybe even the next year. And I hope and pray that we, as a community will discern and act upon the role God is calling us to play.
In the meantime, there are a few specific suggestions you might consider:
From Ephesians: Glory to God, whose power working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.
Comments are welcome via e-mail.
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