Report/Analysis By Lee Penn
The Christian Challenge (Washington, DC)
www.challengeonline.org
January 30,2008
Lent is nearly upon us, and in The Episcopal Church (TEC) this year that means that if TEC's Presiding Bishop has her way those who go to an Episcopal parish February 10 may be invited to take part, not in the Stations of the Cross, but the Stations of the Millennium Development Goals
(MDG), complete with grammar school-type coloring and painting.
No, as the saying goes, we=92re not making this up.
Carrying forward the new TEC tradition of world-centered piety, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has declared the first Sunday of Lent to be Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD) Sunday, from 2008 onward. ERD, TEC's official charity, has designed a new rite for the occasion: the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Liturgy. Luke Fodor, Network Coordinator at the
Office of Church Relations at ERD, said in an e-mail to TEC dioceses that this "Stations of the MDGs" liturgy is "designed to be used during Lent in lieu of the traditional Stations of the Cross service."
The MDGs are eight goals for world development, adopted by the UN in 2000 in a drive to "cut extreme global poverty in half by 2015."
The Goal's include: "eradicate extreme poverty and hunger," "achieve universal primary education for children," "promote gender equality and empower women," "reduce child
mortality," "improve maternal health," "combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases," "ensure environmental sustainability," "create a global partnership for development." TEC endorsed the MDGs at its 2003 General Convention, and made them a "mission priority" in 2006; Mrs. Schori has made them a centerpiece of her tenure. It seems that Jesus' Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20) is no longer sufficient as a "mission priority."
The MDG liturgy, posted by Mike Angell of the "Office of Young Adult and Higher Education Ministries" at "815" (TEC HQ), begins when the service leader tells the congregation, "Today, we will pray and experience the MDGs as Stations as we commit ourselves to living out the Baptismal Covenant by working to achieve the MDGs. We see ourselves and the Church as on a
pilgrimage in the world, journeying with each other toward the justice of the Reign of God as manifest in the goals." Next, all recite the Baptismal Covenant as given in the 1979 prayer book baptism service.
Members of the congregation then go to each of the eight Stations of the MDGs, and perform symbolic activities at each stop:
*Preparing bag lunches to be given to a local food pantry;
*Writing down "the names of women who have inspired them and why";
*Coloring-in outline drawings of children's faces, while a bell rings to remind the participants that a child dies of a preventable water-borne illness every 15 seconds;
*Placing hand prints (in ink or finger paint) on a bed-sheet every 30 seconds, while the leader explains that "the number of hand prints on the sheet symbolize how many children have died from malaria during the time you were at the station";
*Computing carbon footprints; and
*Filling out cards to lobby Congress to spend on the MDGs.
The prayer at the beginning of each Station starts, "God, you created us and
call us to be in this world, part of your creative force."
The prayer at the end of each Station is a with-it, activist form of the Trisagion: "Holy
God, Holy and Mighty, Holy Immortal One, Transform us, That we might transform the world."
After the procession through the Stations of the MDGs is done, the congregation is to recite the MDGs in unison - as Christians have traditionally said the Creed - committing themselves to "God's Mission" as they pledge to realize the eight UN objectives.
At the end of the service, the dismissal said by all is "We go in peace to love and serve" unlike
the usual TEC post-Eucharist dismissal, which tells worshippers, "Go in peace, to love and serve the Lord."
In her announcement of ERD Sunday, Schori said, "2008 will mark the first year of what will be an annual celebration of Episcopal Relief and Development's role in our mission to seek and serve Christ in all persons. The Episcopal Church's ongoing commitment to fight poverty and disease
around the world is lived out in a variety of ways. Advocacy with our government for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals is one vital way. Another is through the ministry of Episcopal Relief and Development, which works with the worldwide Church to alleviate hunger, fight disease, and strengthen communities."
Despite the worldly bent of ERD Sunday, the TEC authorities still invoke Christ. Schori put her call to alms in a classical Lenten context, saying that, "Almsgiving is one of the traditional disciplines of the season and one of the ways in which we participate with Christ in walking to the foot of the Cross and into the light of Resurrection.=94 The prayer offered for meditation at one of the Stations of the MDGs seeks spiritual as well as secular education for children: 'Lord, we pray for open hearts and open doors to allow all children to learn and grow in knowledge of your world and your Word.'" Participants in the MDG liturgy are told to reflect on Matthew
25:37-40, in which Christ tells the elect, "Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me."
The Presiding Bishop also called on her flock to lobby for increased government spending on MDG-related programs: "I urge you also to deepen your advocacy efforts for robust financial commitments from the U.S. government toward achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. Faith-based institutions like Episcopal Relief and Development are proving that poverty
can be eradicated if the proper resources and strategies are brought to bear. However, private action alone will not be enough - collective action as a nation is necessary, and our voices are what will inspire our government to act."
The Archbishop of the Southern Cone, Gregory Venables, recently offered a polar opposite view of the place that the MDGs should have in the Anglican Communion. He said the primary focus should be on "mission, not the Millennium Development Goals. The MDGs are not without value, of course, but the Gospel is far more urgent, and eternal in impact. The world is on a downward spiral, but Jesus came to turn it around. That's why we preach Jesus and not millennium goals."
Sources: Episcopal Relief and Development; Episcopal Life; Millennium Development Goals Liturgy; blog post by Canon George Conger; Stand Firm in Faith.
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