Sermons

"World Mission"

A Sermon by Mary Garner
World Mission Sunday
The Last Sunday after the Epiphany
Emmanuel Church, Newport, RI
February 26, 2006

When I was in third and fourth grade in Catholic school, one of my favorite things to do was to bring my pennies and nickels to class to buy pagan babies. I say buy pagan babies because that is how I understood it. All the children were encouraged by Sister to bring in as much money as possible so we could buy pagan babies. Sister told us that there were many children living in the world who did not know about God and were not even Catholic. If we brought in enough money, we could send it to the missions and the babies would be baptized and taken care of by Catholic missionaries. As a reward for our contributions, we would get to pick the babies names. In those days, you had to be baptized with a saint’s name.

Sister explained that babies who did not know God were destined to live terrible lives and what would happen to them when they died was even worse. Furthermore, these children were desperately poor. They didn’t have any of the things we took for granted and the missionaries would make sure they had food, medicine, and toys. We children responded eagerly and contributed generously. It made us happy to think of all the little Margaret Marys or Aloysuis happily running around Africa or China clutching a Mister Potato Head or a GI Joe to their hearts. We wanted other children to have what we had. We wanted them to know God and to be well fed, healthy and happy.

Today is World Mission Sunday and a good opportunity to sort through our feelings about the mission of the church. Mission is a lot more complicated today. We are more aware that though well intentioned, missionaries often did as much harm as good. Few of us believe that only Christians will go to heaven. Many of us believe that God’s love is for everyone, regardless of whether or not they are Christian. We are uncomfortable with trying to force our religion on anyone or trying to convert faithful people in distant lands to our one true church. Churches today are more likely to be concerned with filling the pews, paying the bills, and maybe trying to help the poor in their own communities. Like Peter in this morning’s Gospel, we tend to want to stay on the mountaintop sure of the shining power of God. We want to build safe and snug shelters for ourselves and avoid the pain and hardships that come with leaving the mountain to go back to the difficult work of ministry in the world. Few of us feel called to be a missionary.

Yet every one of us here this morning who considers themselves an Episcopalian is also a missionary. The full name of our church is the Domestic and Foreign Mission Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. Since 1835, being a member of the Episcopal Church means being a member of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society. The Book of Common Prayer tells us that the mission of the church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ. We are missionaries because we are baptized. That means that all of us here at Emmanuel from the oldest to baby Emily who will soon be baptized are missionaries.

Baptism initiates us into the family of God and makes us witnesses to God’s love. Mission work is not just for those called to leave their homes and travel to distant or exotic places to spread the Gospel. Mission work is everyone’s work. After the sermon, we will renew our baptismal vows. We will promise to proclaim the Good News. We will vow that we will seek and serve Christ in all persons. We will say that we will strive for justice and peace and that we will respect the dignity of every human being. We will welcome Emily into the household of God and promise to support her life in Christ.

We are not a mountain top church. We are not called to make ourselves safe dwellings. Like Jesus, Peter, James, and John, we must go down the mountain, and back to our work of healing the sick, feeding the hungry and sharing God’s transfiguring love. There comes a moment in the life of every Christian when they must ask the question that is at the heart of transfiguration. Am I content to worship Jesus-or do I want to follow him as well?

The theme of this year’s world Mission Sunday is Anglican/ Episcopal Women: Relevant, Radical and Responsive. Next week thousands of Anglican women from around the world will meet at the United Nations to plan how to continue implementing the Beijing Platform for Action. These women are trying to improve girl’s access to education and increase women’s representation in government. They are working to remove children from sweatshops and sexual trafficking. They are demanding equality in wages and access to medical care. These women know that they cannot stay on the mountain in a world where 1 in 4 women is a victim of domestic violence. Our sisters in Christ cannot build themselves secure dwellings when half a million women die every year from avoidable complications of pregnancy. In our own country, only 14% of our elected representatives are women and growing poverty and homelessness deny the dignity of every human being. These women are working for ratification of the Convention to End Discrimination against Women. Some of the countries who have not yet ratified that convention are Somalia, Sudan, Iran, and The United States of America. Are we content with worshiping Jesus or do we want to follow him as well?

As Christian missionaries, we are called to spread the Good News. We need to pray for those working for justice and peace. We are called to examine honestly our hearts and our checkbooks to see if we are truly honoring our baptismal vows. We can feed the hungry in our soup kitchen. We can help shelter the homeless who come to us from Family Promise. We can support our youth as they go to Mississippi to help those suffering because of Hurricane Katrina. We can support the mission of the church through the United Thank Offering. We can go online to the Episcopal Church’s website to learn more about how we can support pending legislation to improve the lives of our brothers and sisters in Christ all over the world.

Yesterday, Dawn Grinnell and I taught a class about Eucharist to Charlotte and Annika Roos and Evan Ramroth. We started at the baptismal font because that is where everything starts for a Christian. I invite you to think about this when you pass the font and to remember that you are a missionary because you are baptized.

Today there are no more pagan babies, yet God’s children still suffer all over the world. I still believe that none of God’s children should be hungry. I still believe that every child should know God’s love. And I believe that will only happen if we leave the mountaintop and be missionaries in sweatshops and shelters, in how we spend our time and our money, in our prayers and in our politics. With transfigured hearts, we can spread the Good News. We can follow Jesus as well as worship him. Amen.