Revelation 1:4b-8
John 18:33-37
It’s almost the season. Recently, I asked my daughter Sophie (who is nine) what she wanted for Christmas.
“I don’t really want anything for myself mommy. I have so many things. I just want-- world peace.”
“Well, world peace isn’t something I can give you.”
“I just want to help others,” she persisted.
So, I reminded her that last year we had given donations as presents to her teachers. Through Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD), we had given mosquito netting for children in Malaria plagued countries. We gave cards to her teachers telling them that we honored them with this gift. They were thrilled. I told Sophie we could again choose gifts that helped other people. It seems to me that the very next day the ERD catalogue arrived in the mail (some say luck, I say the Holy Spirit). She poured through it deciding that this year she wants to give clean water.
Neither of us came to this point on our own. Her answer was influenced by her Sunday school class. They had discussed Christmas wish lists and Mrs. Berkenstock had asked them three questions. What do I have? What do I want? What do I need? All of us might benefit from such an exercise. Thus came Sophie’s desire for world peace. I had learned about the importance of Mosquito Netting through the Clergy Leadership Project, a program I attended for the past four years. Last year one of our faculty was Dr. Josh Ruxin, from the Earth Institute at
Every minute, three children die from malaria contracted from mosquitoes. This is a disease which is entirely preventable. Malaria could become a non-issue if every child had mosquito netting to sleep under. At a cost of about $5 per kid. Thus my excitement about mosquito netting.
There are other factors at work here as well. Alternative giving, giving a donation in someone’s name as a way to honor them, is important to our family in a large part due to the Living Gifts Fair which this congregation hosted for several years. An event that came to be through the vision of Dolores Schiesser, and the many others she recruited.
Today is Christ the King Sunday, the end of the season after Pentecost (which the children here know as the growing season). It is the last Sunday before Advent begins. Advent is the beginning of the Church year and is the season of waiting and expectation. One of the things we wait for in Advent is the second coming of Christ-- a glorious day in our understanding. A day when all the world will be made whole and creation will be complete. So, on this last Sunday of the Christian year we remember that Jesus is the King of kings and Lord of lords. Jesus the King may not be the most accessible image for us. After all, these days most kings are found in fantasy stories or Disney movies. Any modern day kings that we do see from countries that have one look like any other top notch executive as far as I can tell. But the kind of King Jesus is-- is glorious! Like Daniel’s vision of the messiah coming on the clouds of heaven and ushering in an everlasting kingdom. Or the fantastic vision in John’s Revelation. Just what kind of king Jesus could claim to be was in fact something that Pilot wanted to know as Jesus stood before him on trial. Jesus answers Pilate, “My kingdom is not from this world.” No kidding. Does the world around us look like the kingdom of heaven? What would the world look like if it were the
Once, when Jesus was the lector for the day at his home synagogue, he read from the prophet Isaiah:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
(from Luke 4:16-30)
Then he had the audacity to claim that this was no longer prophecy but reality-- Jesus’ reality. And it can be our reality too. The
Our new presiding bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, has asked the Church to set aside this Sunday as a day of "prayer, fasting, education and advocacy for the Millennium Development Goals." Perhaps you have heard something about the MDGs recently. Here’s why.
One billion people live on less than $1.00 a day – approximately one sixth of the people on the planet. Every day 30,000 children die from preventable consequences of extreme poverty; that's one every three seconds. Every year 500,000 women die from complications of pregnancy – most of them exacerbated by poverty. "One dollar a day" does not mean the equivalent of what a U.S. dollar would buy in an impoverished country. It refers to what it would buy here at home. That's like a family of four living on less than $1,460 a year of combined private and public resources (schools, roads and fire trucks are public resources). One dollar a day is the threshold below which there are insufficient calories to keep the body alive. This is not about being poor. This is about living a slow death; this is about the poverty that kills.
[quoted from the Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation website www.e4gr.org/]
In 2000, leaders from 189 Nations, including the
1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger .
2. Achieve universal primary education.
3. Promote gender equality and empower women.
4. Reduce child mortality.
5. Improve maternal health.
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.
7. Ensure environmental sustainability.
8. Create a global partnership for development with targets for aid, trade and debt relief.
Our General Convention has promised to support the MDGs. Episcopal parishes and dioceses have been urged to designate 0.7% of their income to eradicate extreme poverty. Our own Diocesan Convention resolved to support the MDGs as well. That’s where I got my white wrist band that say’s ONE. It stands for the ONE campaign. What can One do? What can one person do? One congregation? One diocese? One church? One Body of Christ?
When Sophie asked for world peace, I could have had a better answer, “Well, let’s see what we can do about it.” What can one do? Thanks to Dolores Schiesser this congregation began the Living Gifts Fair which influenced at least our family. Thanks to Becky Berkenstock my daughter and a class full of other youth have something to think about. What can one parish do? Thanks to the vision of the leadership of this congregation, this Cathedral gives away not .7% but close to 10% for people in need in this community, this nation and other countries. What can one diocese do? Duncan Grey, the Bishop of Mississippi, when asked if his diocese would continue to offer their .7% after Hurricane Katrina hit did not hesitate to say, “yes!” After so many people had reached beyond themselves to help them, how could they not continue to help others in need, especially now that they had a taste of the devastation that people in developing countries live with every day.
What would the reign of Christ look like?
Let’s see what we can do about it
Copyright ©Anne E. Kitch 2006
