Proper 29C

Christ the King

Jeremiah 23;1-6

Ps 46

Col 1:11-20

Luke 23;33-43

“Blessed is the one who comes in the Name of the Lord”

These words, in the Sanctus that we sing in our Eucharistic Prayer echo Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, who centuries before them, echoed the Psalmist and the prophet Zechariah. These words are affirmed by the triumphant evocation of praise and glory of Christ found in the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Colossians. “The firstborn of all creation” Paul writes – “the beginning, the firstborn from the dead.” The one who was abandoned by his friends, who died a horrific death on the cross, with a sign over his head, “This is the king of the Jews.” This same one is the beginning of the new creation, the new covenant, the re-creation of God.

We ought to understand troubled times. This year is the third year of our war in Iraq; our country has much division about this war, some of us have lost family members in Iraq, and many of us wonder if this strategy will win the peace and democracy promised.

The Gospel today shows us a type of leadership we might fail to elect in our time. A man of righteousness, whose manner of life was characterized by humility and compassion. One whose entry called triumphant was on a colt followed by his grief over the city of Jerusalem’s faithlessness. The dying one is called king but it is only recognized as such by a thief. This one is the shepherd after the heart of the prophet Jeremiah. His name is righteousness, the image of the invisible God.

The way of peace, righteousness, leadership in the life and triumph of Jesus the Christ is not as the world sees it. To receive true peace we need the eyes of faith and hope and love. We need to rejoice in the victory of the one who died in order for us to live. “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.”

If we believe that Scripture has instructive authority today – if we believe that Jesus came to show us a new creation of God and to reconcile us to God – then we must be able to see Jesus coming among us in our lives – in this parish – in this world – today! When the United Nations adopted the Millennium Development Goals it was a way of highlighting injustice in our world today.

MDG’s goal for 2015:

Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

Achieve universal primary education

Promote gender equality and empower women

Reduce child mortality

Improve maternal health

Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

Ensure environmental sustainability

Develop a global partnership for development.

Of the 6.4 billion human beings, fashioned in the image of our Creator, one in seven of us are hungry. One in seven of us live in urban slums. One in six of us lack clean water to drink. One in three of us lack basic sanitation. Nearly half of us live on less than $2 a day.

Regardless of your political stripe, world governments and people living in them have been shown what is needed. Will we care enough to see that the goals are met? Can we see in these goals an enactment of “blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord?

In Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, barely an hour from our own nation’s shores, more is spent repaying debts than on health education, clean water and childhood vaccinations combined. We must wonder how our contributions of foreign aid can help if the poor countries are forced by World Bank to pay more on debt than on development. In Haiti during the corrupt regime of the Duvalier family the money given for aid rarely reached the people in need. AIDS, TB, and other infectious diseases are treatable diseases but those suffering these diseases too rarely receive the treatment they need. These people may suffer the long injustice of corrupt government but they are also human beings. If we would see the one who comes in the name of the Lord today in Haiti it will be in form of debt relief and humanitarian intervention.

There is another fundamental issue along with debt relief and foreign aid, and that is trade. Unlike debt cancellation and foreign aid which fundamentally involve rich countries supporting poor ones financially, a fair trading system would allow poor countries to empower themselves and build sustainable futures on their own terms. Bootstraps and all! What could be more American?

Unfortunately, the trade system is a mess. Rich countries control the process and the rules make it difficult for poor countries to complete. Every five years our Congress rewrites something called the farm bill, a huge piece of legislation that dates to the Great Depression and controls nearly every aspect of agricultural and food policy in our nation. There is a lot of good in the bill and some items that are some items that have not been appropriately reviewed and revised. For example King Cotton: more than any other big subsidy crop, U.S. cotton subsidy encourages owners to over-produce their crops and flood world markets with cotton sold at artificially low prices. The 20 million cotton farmers in Africa cannot compete in the market. What would happen if the US eliminated its cotton subsidy just to those richest 10% of cotton producers? Trade experts estimate that this small step would allow the 20 million cotton farmers in Africa to bring more than $100 billion a year into their national economics. That is 5X more than the total foreign aid sent to Africa each year. Playing fair would make a big difference and create a situation in which we could proclaim, “Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the LORD.”

Dec 1 is World AIDS day. At Hood there is a panel discussion at 7 pm with two people who have HIV sharing their experience in the US. We at St. Paul’s have a pretty clear idea of what it is like to live with AIDS because of Rainbow Camp. When we began the overwhelming majority of the children were HIV positive and receive copious amounts of medication each day. This year fewer children were HIV positive but all of the campers lives were affected by AIDS. With one or both parents dead to AIDS, children are living with grandparents, or extended family members. Adopting 5 of these families for Christmas was a gracious effort on the part of the outreach commission to continue to support these neighbors who struggle with the tragic face of HIV/AIDs. While the incidence of AIDS is decreasing with better treatment strategies, there are still millions of people fashioned in the image of our Creator who have HIV and need our compassion.

The cover of The Christian Century for Nov 27, 2007 has a picture of young girls lined up with the caption, “Sold into slavery”. The article examines the current situation of human trafficking. The UN estimates 12 million and the Vatican recently declared that human trafficking in our time is a greater scourge than the transatlantic slave trade of the 18^th century. Jonathan Tran writes, “Sarah looks out to the barely visible world beyond her barred window. Whenever she can, she watches feet go by – well dressed feet, athletic feet, feet going places. This is her only contact with the outside world. Most of her waking hours are spent servicing her clients…if she could escape, which is highly unlikely, where would she go? Sarah is an illegal immigrant, who was smuggled into the country.” The UN defines modern slavery or human trafficking thus: “The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of prostitution, forced labor or services, servitude or removal of organs.”

Much of modern slavery is an attempt to repay a debt. Women and children account for 87% of human trafficking. The US state Department estimates ~800,000 new victims fall prey to transnational commercial sexual exploitation each year. There are countries of origin e.g. Cambodia and Nigeria, and there are countries of destination – usually where the wealthy possess the money to buy what they want, disregarding legality. The CIA estimates over 17,000 slaves enter the US each year. The strategy for intervention is prevention, prosecution and protection. In 2000, the US passed the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act which protects victims from deportation after they testify against offenders. None are free until all are free, declared Martin Luther King Jr. Justice is the action of love.

Why do I believe that people of faith ought to be involved in the MDG? The Gospel of Jesus Christ tells us that the poor have faces and that they have something to contribute. They may be poor in terms of economics, but they may be rich in other ways. Jesus had a preferential option for the poor. As Christians we need the vision created in the way Jesus treated the rich and poor, the women and the men, the leaders and peasants, the foreign and royal born, all with equal dignity and respect. God built a new creation through Jesus Christ and it is our responsibility as the body of Christ in this world to make the world reveal the newness of creation.