Christ the King/Reign of Christ Sunday
November 25, 2007
The Rev. Kristin Krantz
Jeremiah 23:1-6
Canticle: Song of Zechariah
Colossians 1:11-20
Luke 23:33-43

Gracious God, take our minds and think through them;
take our hands and work through them;
take our hearts and set them on fire.
Amen.

Today is the last Sunday after Pentecost, and as such, it is the last Sunday of the church year. Next Sunday, the First Sunday of Advent, will begin a new year of church seasons, holy days and ordinary days too. But today we get to celebrate the last feast of the year – the Reign of Christ Sunday, more traditionally known as Christ the King Sunday.

Today is also the day that the Episcopal Church, at its 2006 General Convention, resolved to set aside as a special day of prayer, fasting and giving toward global reconciliation and the Millennium Development Goals. These goals, which the Episcopal Church has set as a mission priority for the coming triennium, and which can be found on the last page of the blue sheet in your bulletin, are:

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 a Focus on Debt, Aid and Trade

And though these goals don’t at first seem to match up with today’s lectionary readings – the cosmic Christ of Colossians and the crucifixion of Jesus from Luke – let alone the celebration of the Reign of Christ, I believe both of these scripture passages point us in the direction of the missio Dei, God’s mission in the world. And it is through the Millennium Development Goals that we have an opportunity to live God’s mission. Now I’m going to borrow heavily here, without any shame, from the Rev. Dr. Ian Douglas, professor of mission and world Christianity at Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, MA – my alma mater.

In an article titled, “Achieving the MDG’s: Why should we care?”, Ian had this to say: Too often we Christians working to help achieve the Millennium Development Goals neglect to name our motivation: Our faith in Jesus Christ and in God’s saving work in the world, God’s mission. We need to declare that it is because of our Christian faith that we care about the MDGs. So what is God’s mission?

As Christians, we affirm that because of God’s love for the world and desire to be united with all of humanity, God took a unique and decisive step. In the incarnation of Jesus Christ, God entered the world.

Jesus was sent into the world to be the way, the truth and the life. (That’s a little taste of John, chapter 14 for you!) Over and over again, Jesus demonstrates his solidarity with, and preferential option for, the poor, the sick, the outcasts and those at the periphery of society. The gospels are a living testimony to Jesus’ life and ministry as a source of God’s salvation for the world. In Jesus, the reign of God is made real and tangible in our broken world.

Jesus demonstrates in word and deed that the reign of God must continue and expand, to move out to the ends of the earth. “As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” (John 17:18) Jesus thus sends out his disciples, empowered by the Holy Spirit, to be the bearers of his mission, God’s mission, in the world.

As followers of Jesus Christ today, as the church, we continue in this apostolic vocation to serve God’s mission.

Participation in God’s mission is at the heart of the baptismal call. Baptism is our commission, our co-mission, in God’s mission. Just as God sent Jesus into the world, and Jesus sent his disciples to the ends of the earth, we, too, are sent in mission.

In the Catechism (that nifty Outline of the Faith that begins on page 845 of the Book of Common Prayer) we find a profound affirmation of the relationship between the church and God’s mission: “The mission of the church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.” The calling of every Christian is to participate with God in the restoration of unity between ourselves and God and ourselves and each other – to participate in the missio Dei.

And here is where the church and each of us can play an incredibly important role in the movement to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Being faithful to the call to God’s mission is what it means to be a faithful follower of Jesus. The MDGs offer a concrete invitation to get on with what God wants us to be about—to join with sisters and brothers in Christ, with people of other faiths, with the wider global civil society – to be about the repair of the world.

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 a Focus on Debt, Aid and Trade

The cosmic Christ of Colossians, firstborn of all creation and the one in whom the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, points us toward God’s mission. For “through him God was pleased to reconcile to Godself all things, whether on earth or in heaven.” As followers of Jesus we too have a part in the reconciliation of the world, this is our mission.

The Jesus of the crucifixion in Luke, the one mocked, scorned and put to death, also teaches us of God’s mission. Jesus’ final act is to show and share mercy for the criminal hanging next to him who asked to be remembered. Even in his death Jesus continues to teach us. Our response as Christians to this story, and to gospel as a whole, is thus: turn to God for mercy and then spread the good news of the reign of God among the poor by doing for them as Jesus did during his ministry. This is our mission, because it is God’s mission.

It is God’s mission that we work to expand the reign of God, the very feast that we celebrate today. Now I know it’s all well and good to talk about missio Dei and the MDGs. But God’s mission, like the Millennium Development Goals, is not just some abstract academic concept. It is, and should be, the root of our Christian identity and the best expression of our faith.

So what can ONE Episcopalian do?

Learn. Pray. Act. Give.

Learn. On every pew today there are Ziploc bags containing 1/3 cup of rice and an information card. I wonder how many of us, upon picking up this little bag, learned that we were holding a day’s meal in our hands. That makes Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger a bit more tangible, yes? And so we can learn. I invite each of you to take a rice bag home and prepare it as part of a meal. Learn what this rice looks like on a plate and don’t let it go to waste sitting on a pew here at church.

As some of you may have noticed as you arrived today, we have a new bulletin board display in the narthex featuring the Millennium Development Goals. It has a lot of information and statistics about the MDGs and resources for things that each of us can do help achieve the goals. This bulletin board will always list the 8 goals, but the other content will change regularly so take a moment each week to see check out the board and learn something. Pray. Never underestimate the simple act of prayer. Today we will take time in our service to pray about each of the 8 Millennium Development Goals. But prayer isn’t only for Sundays. Consider creating a personal prayer practice in which you pray for one of the MDGs each day. Or get together with other people in the congregation and form a prayer circle using the Anglican Cycle of Prayer as your guide. Pray for the achievement of the MDGs, for the will of individuals and nations to work for their achievement and for all the people in the world whose lives will be transformed by the achievement of the goals. Pray.

Act. This is Berkeley – you people know how to take action! So act on behalf of the Millennium Development Goals. Act to Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women by researching micro-credit programs that provide women with small loans to start a business and become self-sufficient. Act to Ensure Environmental Sustainability by joining the challenge of the All Souls Environmental Committee to reduce your carbon footprint – pick up your free compact fluorescent light bulbs at coffee hour and find ways to simplify your life. Act.

Give. I’m going to hit goal #1 again, Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger, because it’s #1 for a reason – it’s just that important. One in six people on this planet live on less than $1.00 a day. There’s a fancy statistic for you. Now I’m going to give you a few more – and hopefully they will put this giving thing in perspective.

The World Bank estimates it would cost an additional $50-$75 billion a year in aid from the rich nations of the world to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by the target year of 2015.

There are close to 300 million people in the U.S. today. Even at $75 billion a year, that comes to only $250 a person.

OK, for a family of four, that’s $1,000.

But let’s look at a few ways we Americans annually spend our money:
• we spend $12.4 billion on cosmetic procedures including liposuction, nose jobs, botox injections and laser hair removals among other things
• we spend $6.1 billion a year on tortilla chips, tostadas and taco shells
• we spend $9 billion on gourmet coffee

And that brings us to Starbucks (and, to be fair, Peets!). A grande latte at Starbucks costs $3.65. Have one every morning and that’s about $1,000 a year. That’s a family of four’s share of what it would take to make the Millennium Development Goals happen.

Giving is important. It’s important because the money is desperately needed. It’s important because when we give, we can speak with authority when we ask our nation to give. It’s important because our wealth is the single greatest spiritual challenge facing us today.

Giving is important not because we should, but because we can.

And most of all, giving is important because it is what Jesus would do.

Learn. Pray. Act. Give.

Today at coffee hour, the Outreach Committee will have a table set up with take home information about the Millennium Development Goals, brochures and gift catalogs from Episcopal Relief and Development and cards you can fill out to join the ONE Campaign to Make Poverty History. It is my deep prayer that God will inspire our minds, embolden our actions and ignite our hearts to love one another as God loves us – and that so emboldened by the Holy Spirit to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by participating in God’s mission.

~ AMEN ~