Continuing a Critical Presence

Scriptures: Isaiah 61:4-6, 8-9, Luke 4:16-21

Today is World Communion Sunday.  But you already knew that.  Why am I stating the obvious?  Well, to seek to get us in a frame of mind where we’re going to “think globally”.  You know the old adage:  “think globally; act locally”.  The problem with it is we don’t often do enough of the former.  Even though for many years now we’ve been saying we live in a “global village”, as modern media – especially the Internet – have brought us closer and closer to other people in other countries, still much of our focus is on the Las Vegas, Clark County, maybe Nevada, possibly national interests that take up so much of our lives.  Botswana, Bangladesh, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Belize, even Belgium rarely prick through to our consciousness.

Yet, the United Church of Christ as a denomination has an abiding interest in these and so many other countries around the globe.  There’s a word for that interest.  It’s called “missions”. As a congregation and as individual Christians you and I have been involved in mission constantly.  Today is an opportunity to celebrate that involvement, especially has it is carried out on our behalf by that covenanted ministry called Wider Church Ministries, which works hand-in-glove with our ecumenical partner, Global Ministries of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).  Across the globe today, starting at the International Date Line, Christians are joining together in the sacrament of Holy Communion in order to celebrate our involvement with one another in this activity we call “mission”.

Bob Shebeck, who is on the staff of the Disciples Global Ministries, calls our involvement in mission a “critical presence”.  He defines it this way:

“What is Critical Presence?  This way of living life and doing ministry is defined as:  meeting God’s people and creation at the point of deepest need:  spiritually, physically, emotionally or economically.  Critical Presence isn’t something new.  It’s been around for over 2000 years.  Critical Presence is rooted in the way Jesus himself viewed his mission in the world and how he talked about our mission in his footsteps. One of the foundational texts in the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ conception of his mission is found right here in this Luke 4 passage.

“In this text, we can see that Jesus understood that his mission was to be directed toward those who lived in precarious situations and who were in need of a liberating, life-giving, hope-instilling Critical Presence from God.  As Jesus walked the roads of Palestine from village to village, he connected with the people he encountered at their point of deepest need and was, to each one, that Critical Presence they needed in their particular life circumstance at that time.  Are you interested in meeting deep needs in your community and around the world?  Do you want to continue the Critical Presence ministry of Jesus today?”

This scripture from Luke 4 that Bob Shebeck references and which we read today is one of those “aha” moments that shapes Jesus’ early ministry.  Here in Luke Jesus has just begun his Galilean ministry, having survived the temptations in the wilderness.  People haven’t quite gotten a handle on him as yet – who is this new prophet in their midst?  If we had continued with this passage from Luke 4 a bit further we would have discovered that people were surprised that he could speak so well – after all, isn’t this Joseph, the lowly carpenter’s, son?  This leads Jesus to rebuke them with the familiar words, “’Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown’” (or in the even more familiar version in Matthew 13:  “’Prophets are not without honor except in their own country and in their own house.’”).  (Actually, I kinda like the Luke version better; it’s not so much of a double negative and is easier to understand.)

So, to their considerable surprise, Jesus begins reciting this seminal passage from Isaiah 61 (this is the prophet we usually refer to as Third Isaiah, who wrote after the people had returned from the Babylonian Captivity and before the completion of the new temple – in other words, it was a turbulent time in the Israelites’ history).  The passage we read today continues from the more familiar text that Jesus quoted, and speaks of how rebuilding after the long Captivity will take place – concluding with that powerful line, “For I the Lord love justice…..”  This idea, reflected in the prophet Amos (“But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.”) has also become seminal for the kind of mission work undertaken by our two Boards – justicewhere there is persecution must go hand-in-hand with health care and education and feeding the hungry and all of the other things we typically associate with mission work.

“’The Spirit of the Lord is upon me…..’”  Jesus accepts Isaiah’s claim for himself, but, as we said last week, not to exalt himself, but to humble himself in order to become a servant, to do those justice activities that Isaiah saw as crucial for God’s Kingdom to become a reality on earth:  “’…because he has anointed me to bring 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.’”  Whew.  That’s quite an agenda for one man, or even for one congregation.  But of course we are not alone.  We have partners to assist us in this calling.

Rather than just talk about how we are striving to fulfill Jesus’ claim upon us, let’s tell some stories that illustrate how these activities are being carried out.

“…to bring good news to the poor…..”  In Haiti the UCC and Disciples worked with the National Spiritual Council of Churches of Haiti, which is a movement of grassroots congregations, in order to help them reach out to the poorest of the poor in their communities.  Moving from “misery” to “dignified poverty” was the way this Council put it then.  In their communities the symbol of hope was rebar reaching up to heaven on an unfinished building — the hope of always adding another floor.  And then the earthquake hit.  And all the rebar came crashing down, but certainly not the hope.  We have been there with our brothers and sisters through our giving.  Over $500,000 from Week of Compassion and Global Ministries has gone to the Council’s plan for recovery and reconstruction.  On November 20^th the first reconstructed building will be inaugurated.  This Critical Presence ministry of sharing the Good News with the poor continues on and we are an important part of it.

“…sight to the blind…..”  Here’s a report about medical missionaries Anil and Teresa Henry about healing at Mungeli Christian Hospital in India:  “What we saw when we arrived in the hospital complex was a beehive of activity with staff, patients, and workers swarming harmoniously around the hospital grounds.  Something had happened!  Something had resurrected this church hospital and made it once again a place where the poor rural villager could find affordable medical care.  As we made rounds with Anil, we learned that a woman in labor had just arrived.  One of Anil’s colleagues went off to check on her as we proceeded from bed to bed to learn the story of each person:  a man with liver failure who had been on the verge of dying, yet who was showing signs of pulling through; two young people who fell off a roof and who were sent for X-rays to see if any bones had been broken; a young man with a spinal injury who came in paralyzed, but through therapy was slowly regaining movement in his limbs… and on and on.  The Mungeli Christian hospital is indeed a beacon of Critical Presence providing healing and wholeness to people in this rural area in India and we are a part of it.”

            “…freedom for the oppressed…..”  The Congo has one of the greatest humanitarian crises in the world today where nearly 6 million people have died since 1996, half of them children under 5 years old and hundreds of thousands of women have been raped all as a result of the scramble for Congo’s mineral wealth.  The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is the most mineral resource rich country in the world; yet, 80% of the population survives on $.30 a day.  The United Nations has said it is the deadliest conflict in the world since World War II.  And do you know why? In large part because of this…our cell phones.  80% of the world’s cell phones contain a mineral called coltan that comes from the Eastern Congo where all this killing is taking place to control the mines.  The Disciples of Christ Community of the Congo has asked us to raise awareness about this situation and to seek justice with them.  For the last three years we have been participating inCongo Week the third week in October to raise awareness about the situation in Eastern Congo and to advocate for justice in this conflict.  We realize that we all are complicit in this war by using a cell phone, and so we want to be a Critical Presence in freeing the innocent oppressed Congolese in that part of the world.

These are just three of many stories that could be told about how global ministries around the world are acting, on our behalf, to fulfill the claim that Jesus the Christ has placed upon us through his citing of these words from Isaiah.  You will read about another one from Mozambique when you receive your Clarion later this week.

There are many ways in which you and I participate in the Critical Presence that is the church on mission in the world.  One is through what we have come to call simply by its acronym:  OCWM, which stands for Our Church’s Wider Mission.  As the UCC’s website says, “OCWM changes lives by strengthening our ecumenical relationships and global partnerships, by imagining and embodying a better world through prophetic witness and work, and by providing resources and programs to nurture the vitality of our United Church of Christ congregations.”  We have been proud and steady providers to OCWM for many years.  Another is through the offering we are about to take:  Neighbors In Need, which helps to support educational services, outreach and community events, affordable housing, and many other services.  OCWM and Neighbors In Need are two of the five special offerings taken each year which makes a congregation like ours a “five for five” church.  A third and new way to support that Critical Presence will take place in a month – a special effort called “Mission: 1” that will seek in eleven days to make a powerful push to feed the hungry and confront food-related injustice.  OK, it’s a kinda “cutesy” idea – using all of those 1’s (if you put the dates November 1-11, 2011, down numerically it would be 11-1-11-11).  But beyond that cleverness is the thrust to see that the truly hungry are fed – just as we seek to do here locally with our food pantry and bread run program.

A relatively new program that seeks to capitalize on all of these efforts is to have local churches become a Global Mission Congregation.  It’s new enough that only about 60 churches across the UCC have gone through the process to become one.  What churches who are seeking to become a Global Mission Congregation pledge themselves to do is:  1. PRAY regularly for partners, missionaries and the world; 2.

EDUCATE about global issues from preschool age to adult; 3. SEEK JUSTICE for the “least of these” in the international community; 4. RECEIVE the gifts of the global church; 5. GIVE to the work of global mission; and 6. SEND our members into the world to share the Good News of Jesus.  If you would like us to think seriously about becoming a Global Mission Congregation, please let me or a Church Council member know.

And finally we continue a Critical Presence on the world scene when we share together with Christians from around the world in this act of communion – an act that is so simple and yet so profound, because through it we demonstrate to all the world the power of Christ’s love and how the Spirit of the Lord is truly upon him to bring justice into the world and “to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor”.

Amen.

Dave Pomeroy

First Congregational Church/United Church of Christ
October 2, 2011