Talk at Province IV Women’s Conference, Kanuga April 26, 2006 by Evelyn Piety... EGR Representative Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast

 

This may be the wrong thing to start out with, but we’re among friends here and it’s optional, so would everyone over the age of 40 please raise her hand. Thank you.

 

If this were a conference of Anglican women, let’s say in Malawi, most of us who had our hands up wouldn’t be here. We’d be dead. Average life expectancy in Malawi and in many of the world’s poorest nations, is about 39 years.

 

Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, an economist at Columbia University, tells about a grandmother in Malawi whose little grandson had malaria. She picked him up and carried him – on foot – 10 kilometers to the clinic – only to find that the clinic had no quinine. So, she carried him – on foot – 10 kilometers back home – and he died.

 

I looked up Malawi on the internet. It’s in Southern Africa, east of Zambia, and boasts of Lake Malawi with pristine white sand beaches and luxury hi-rise hotels, a vacation paradise for the well-heeled traveler. But the clinic has no quinine. And little boys die.

 

Today, Wednesday, June 26, 2006, the number of people who will die of malaria in Sub-Saharan Africa will be ten times the number who died on 9-11 in both towers, the Pentagon and in all three airplanes. Same thing Thursday. And Friday. And so on. Every day, another ground zero.

 

Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation, EGR, wants to change this – to add not only years, but quality to life for one-sixth of the world’s population who now live – barely – in extreme, life-threatening poverty.

 

We support the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, MDG’s, and I hope you’ve all had a chance to look them over on the information sheet in your packet. The goals address hunger and poverty, education, gender equality, child mortality, maternal health, preventable/treatable diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malaria, environmental sustainability and a global partnership for development.

 

Two millennia ago, five thousand people gathered on a hillside in Galilee. They had followed Jesus in search of healing and teaching. They were hungry. One small boy had with him approximately 0.7% of the bread and fishes needed to feed this crowd. Jesus gave thanks, distributed the loaves and fishes and everyone was fed. There were even a dozen baskets of leftovers.

 

Today there are a billion people hungry and in need of healing and teaching. Where is the boy with the bread and the fish?

 

In his book “The End of Poverty,” Dr. Sachs says, “Everybody on Earth can and should enjoy basic standards of nutrition, health, water and sanitation, shelter and other minimum needs for survival, well-being, and participation in society.” This sounds like a very tall order, but the good news is that it is now doable!

 

The magic number is 0.7%. This is the minimum standard of giving to eradicate extreme poverty in this generation. Out of $100, it’s only 70 cents. You are already supporting the MDG’s and you may not realize it. You help to end extreme poverty with your contributions to Episcopal Relief & Development, with your thanksgiving coins in your UTO boxes, when you work to protect the environment, when you support ECW’s Woman to Woman program or the Diocese of Renk in the Southern Sudan, when your congregation supports an orphanage in a poor country and in many other ways. You get to choose. You can be the boy with the bread and the fish. One person or one congregation can make a difference.

 

Fifty-three dioceses have passed resolutions supporting the MDG’s and pledging to contribute at least 0.7% of their budgets to this effort.

 

The white wristband is a symbol of support for global justice and reconciliation. If you’d like a nice silicone band, the One Campaign has them at their website one.org for a buck apiece. You may have to pay shipping, I’m not sure. Or, you can have one of these for free. These wristbands are just a little different and to understand why we need a quick math lesson.

 

If you take a strip of paper and join the ends you get an object which has two sides, the inside and the outside, and two edges, the top edge and the bottom edge. Mathematicians call this object a torus. It’s a lot like life today in the church and in the world. There are so many issues which have more than one side and, frequently, sharp edges.

 

But, if before you join the ends of the strip you turn one end over so there’s a twist – like this – then you have what is called a Moebius strip. This is an object with only one side and one edge. If you don’t believe it, draw a line down the center. When you get back to where you started you will see that there is no part of the surface without your line on it; it has only one side.

 

These wristbands are Moebius strips because “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation ... the old has passed away, the new has come ... this is from God who has ... given us the ministry of reconciliation.” The Moebius strip symbolizes reconciliation which has only one side – God’s side.

 

I realize that not all of you are going to feel called, or be able, to write letters to the editor or to your Congressmen and Senators, or to serve on medical missions, or to get up and make speeches at your diocesan conventions, or even to make financial contributions, but I believe there are some things that each and every one of us is called to do.

 

Jesus has called us to love God and to love our neighbor, even if our neighbor is a Samaritan or a Moabite. Our Baptismal Covenant requires us to “seek and serve Christ in all persons.” And Paul exhorts us to “pray without ceasing.”

 

Prayer. Prayer is at the center of this effort. Each of us can contribute 0.7% of our prayers. There are some very good prayers on the EGR website. All of them, however, are at least a nice chunky paragraph. They surely have a place in our prayer repertoire, but they may be a bit inconvenient while zipping down the Interstate at 70 mph, standing in the checkout line at the grocery store or even when we are afflicted by wanderings of mind during the Sunday sermon.

 

I realized that I needed a portable prayer. Something that wouldn’t take a month to memorize and that I could take with me everywhere. I’ve often said that if you want a quotation for any occasion, you’ll find something either in the Bible, in Shakespeare or in Dr. Seuss. But, if you want a prayer for any occasion, you need only look in the Book of Common Prayer.

 

Sure enough, there is a prayer for the Millennium Development Goals in the Book of Common Prayer. You’ve probably heard it before, and you can find it on page 55.

 

So – the Lord be with you! And also with you. Let us pray. Let not the needy, O Lord, be forgotten, nor the hope of the poor be taken away. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

 

Thank you.