“The
Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring
good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim
liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
… those who mourn in Zion… shall build up the ancient ruins; they shall raise
up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the
devastations of many generations.”
(Isaiah 61:1-4)
Dear Saints,
In February when I was in Ecuador with the Hancock County Medical Mission, I traveled most days with the mobile clinic to villages outside of Ibarra. Almost every day we drove past a lake with the name Yahuar Cocha, which means “Lake of Blood” in the Quechua language. According to a legend we heard, in the mid-15th century the invading Incas conquered the indigenous tribes by pretending to call a peace conference on the shores of the lake, then getting the warriors drunk, massacring them, and throwing their bodies into the water.
“What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground.” (Genesis 4:10)
Whether the story is literally true or not, it seemed to illustrate a theme of the country’s history. Spanish conquistadores came a century later and mercilessly defeated the Incas. After Ecuador finally became independent from Spain in 1820 (the year Maine became independent from Massachusetts), people of pure Spanish descent continued as the ruling caste, masters over the people of mixed and South American Indian ancestry, and the descendants of African slaves. Sad to say, the Church has often aided and abetted this caste system, or at least has done little to challenge it.
“The devastations of many generations.” Today Ecuador is one of the world’s poorest countries. Its main exports are oil, cocaine, and fruit. In Quito, the capital city, we saw some signs of prosperity, modern infrastructure, and government public health services. In Ibarra and out in the countryside, we saw mostly squalor and neglect. Some small villages had buildings to house government clinics, but there were almost no supplies in them. It did not seem accidental to me that the most neglected communities are those of the mestizos, zambos, and Indians, while the living standard of the urban criollos, the people of Spanish ancestry, looked to be rather more affluent. (But I didn’t have to go to a foreign country to see the harm racial inequalities can do.)
Much of the medical care the clinic team administered amounted to handing out mebednazole tablets to treat intestinal parasites, vitamins, and over-the-counter medicines like ibuprofen for headaches and arthritis. The doctors treated more serious conditions, too, and even referred some patients to the Medical Mission’s surgical team in Cotacachi. But with little or no follow-up available, there were limits to how much our mobile clinic could accomplish.
After one of these medical missions comes to a village and hands out the worm medicine and vitamins– according to public health officials there– the children visibly grow and thrive for about six months, and the adults’ general health improves, too, until they become infected again by the water they drink. It seems like a perpetual cycle.
As I shared the Gospel and prayed with people, I had the sense that after all these centuries of oppression, neglect, and betrayal, I was being called to pray not just for people’s physical and emotional health, but for the healing of generations of bitterness, hopelessness, and fatalism. (“The former devastations… the devastations of many generations.”) As often as I could, I told the people that, whatever the causes of their illnesses and troubles might be, God hadn’t sent diseases to punish them for their sins. As proof, I pointed to the cross, where Jesus suffered once for all, the punishment for every sin of every human being. God’s will for the Ecuadorian people, and for everyone, is health and abundant life.
The last two General
Conventions of the Episcopal Church have adopted the UN’s Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs). The last two
meetings of the Primates of the Anglican Communion (2005 and 2007) have
expressed their support for them.
Delegates from the Church of Our Father have joined the Diocese in
endorsing them at several recent Diocesan Conventions. On the grounds that they are things we would
want for ourselves and our families, and on the assumption that the Lord
desires more for his children than that they just subsist, love of neighbor
motivates us to help people in the developing world achieve the MDGs. One way or another, many of them have been
elements of the Church’s mission for centuries. (I am mainly familiar with them by title. I haven’t all the fine print.)
The problems to be addressed seem insurmountable. You might be pleasantly surprised to know that, according to a recent UN report, there has been measurable progress since 1990 on some fronts in some parts of the developing world. The UN report is available online at http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/mdg2007.pdf.
The MDGs have sometimes been referred to as “deed-based evangelism.” But they can never relieve Christians of the necessity to share the Gospel, even in words, or to lead people who are not Christians now to faith in Jesus Christ. And the MDGs can’t replace a commitment to core Christian beliefs as a foundation for the Church’s unity. When we Episcopalians and the Lutherans were ironing out our relationship of Full Communion, I used to hear: “Doctrine divides, but service unites.” I don’t think real Lutherans buy that. After an article appeared in the March issue of First Things magazine describing the decline of the mainline churches in Canada, a reader’s letter to the editor summarized well the effects of flaky, watered-down theologies and “deeds only evangelism”:
Mainstream churches in Canada tend to reflect a strong social commitment with a less firm focus on theological concerns. As a result, mainstream churches offer good works (which is good and proper), but not much theological depth. Faced with social work as theology, many Canadians have simply left their churches; good works are done well by others, so why keep a religious trapping? …Canadians seeking spiritual leadership do not always find it in the churches of their fathers (and mothers).
This is a portrait of a Church that gives her children stones when they ask for bread. (Matthew 7:9) Mind you, I’m not questioning whether we should support the MDGs. Fr. Bill Wood of St. Mary’s, Northeast Harbor, is chairing a group that will recommend practical ways for congregations in Maine to do that. We might discover that we already participate in forms of outreach that qualify as contributing to the MDGs. But the Millennium Development Goals, by themselves, will not address the underlying injustices that perpetuate extreme poverty. The medicine of the Gospel, I’m convinced, is the most effective, most lasting remedy for the bitter “devastations of many generations.”
Faithfully,
Chuck Bradshaw +