The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
July 8, 2007
Proper 9C

Have you ever thought about the role that numbers play in our lives? We are a society that lives by numbers. We teach our children to count even before they learn their ABCs. We use numbers to keep track of all sorts of things: the population of various places, attendance at all kinds of events (including church services), how the stock market is doing, how warm it is outside, even things like the greatest number of hot dogs consumed at one sitting. (66 in 12 minutes, a record set this July 4). We count and we measure and we record all sorts of numbers because they give us information about the world around us.

When we read the bible, we find that it, too, is full of numbers. The people of Israel, the people of the Mediterranean world, also counted and measured and recorded, and we find lots of those numbers in scripture. Some times we look at those numbers for factual information—just how big was Noah’s ark anyway? But the numbers in the bible sometimes give us more than factual information. The people of Israel, like other societies in the Mediterranean world, assigned symbolic value to numbers and understanding that symbolic value can allow us a richer understanding of what the text is trying to convey

Today’s gospel is a case in point. In today’s gospel Jesus commissions some of his followers and sends them out to preach the gospel and to cure the sick in his name. When we think of Jesus’ followers we usually think of the Twelve, the ones whose call stories we’ve heard and whose names we know. We might logically expect Jesus to send out that 12—his band of disciples—but as Luke tells, us, that‘s not what he does; he sends 70.

Why 70 instead of 12? For that matter, why specify any number? Why not just say a whole bunch?

There are several possible explanations. In biblical usage, seven represents fullness or completion—creation is completed in seven days, Jacob works seven years to marry Rachel and then when he is given Leah instead, he works another seven. Multiples of seven intensify that notion of fullness or completeness. Moses appoints 70 elders to assist him; the period of the exile is said to last 70 years. The Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures, is called the Septuagint, the word for 70, because it consists of 70 books, supposedly translated by 70 scholars in 70 days. In the gospels, Jesus commands his followers to forgive others not once, not even seven times, but seven times seventy. Some commentators argue that in today’s gospel seventy could represent the number of “the nations”, that is the Gentiles, those other than the people of Israel, to show that Jesus is including Gentiles among those sent out to carry out his mission.

With such rich associations attributed to the number 70, it seems clear that Jesus was commissioning not jut a few others to carry out his work, but a multitude, a multitude that in its vastness, its fullness, its completeness includes all of us as well. Yes, as followers of Jesus, as part of the Body of Christ, we too are part of that multitude sent out into the world to carry out Jesus’ mission.

And what is that mission? Luke begins the story of Jesus’ ministry with Jesus reading a passage from Isaiah in the synagogue:

‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
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 favour.’

One commentator has referred to this passage as Jesus’ “mission statement”, and because we are the body of Christ in the world, this becomes our mission statement as well. We are called to proclaim good news to the poor, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. And how better to do that than to help reduce the crushing poverty in which so much of the world’s population lives?

That brings me back to numbers. Almost a year ago I stood here at this pulpit and gave you some numbers. I said, in part:

852 million people across the world are hungry, and the numbers are increasing.

Every day, more than 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes--one child every five seconds.

Malnutrition affects every fourth child worldwide—yes, one in every four children.

And then I went on to tell you about the 8 UN Millennium Development Goals adopted by more than 180 nations including the United States in September of 2000. The aim of the Millennium Development Goals (or MDGs) is to decrease poverty and suffering world wide by eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women, reducing child mortality, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases, and ensuring environmental sustainability, all by the target date of 2015. I also told you about the pledge of the Episcopal Church, made at General Convention last year, to help reach those goals by making them a mission priority, and by designating .7% of its budget to this effort and by urging individual churches and dioceses to do the same.

This month, July 2007, marks the halfway point for achieving these goals. Seven and a half years have elapsed and we have seven and a half years to go. So how are we doing?

The UN has issued a detailed report, available on line, outlining what has happened in the effort to achieve each goal. Here are some of the highlights:

* There has been significant progress toward the target of halving extreme poverty by 2015: the proportion of people worldwide living on the equivalent of a dollar a day has dropped from 32 per cent to 19 per cent. But In Western Asia, the poverty rate more than doubled during this time, and despite the gains in sub-Saharan Africa, that region’s poverty gap remains the highest in the world

* Enrollment in primary education in developing countries rose from 80 per cent in 1991 to 88 per cent in 2005.

* Women’s struggle for equal rights has gained ground as a result of their growing involvement in politics and government, but progress overall has been slow.

* Child mortality has declined worldwide, in large part because of effective and inexpensive interventions to save children from such threats as measles.

* There has been a major expansion of key interventions to control malaria. The tuberculosis epidemic is on the verge of decline, although progress has not been fast enough to put the world on track to meet the target of halving prevalence and death rates by 2015.

* Greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, causing profound climate changes.

* Over half a million women die annually of preventable and treatable complications in pregnancy and childbirth; there has been little progress in halving the proportion of underweight children; and AIDS deaths worldwide rose to 2.9 million last year from 2.2 million in 2001, while more than 15 million children have lost one or both parents to the disease.

The bottom line is clear: Some real progress had been made, but not nearly enough. How close the world comes to reaching these goals depends on the willingness of governments and charitable organizations and individuals alike to follow through on commitments made and to devote significant resources to the sort of sustained actions needed to make a real difference.

Since last summer we at Saint Mary’s have begun to contribute to this effort. Both the ECW and the Outreach Committee have pledged .7% of their budgets to efforts aimed at meeting the MDGs. Perhaps some of you have given money to this cause through Episcopal Relief and Development, the One Campaign or other groups, or have worked in other ways to help achieve these goals. But at this halfway point, we must ask ourselves, “Are we doing everything we can to act on Jesus’ mission statement? Are we serious about reducing poverty, hunger, devastating disease and oppression in the world?”

Of course, the MDGs don’t encompass all of God’s mission for the world. As ambitious as they might seem, they are but a modest expression of the outpouring of God’s love for the world. There is more that we are called to do to spread the good news, to bring in the Kingdom of God. But the MDGs are one real and tangible way that we can bring good news to the poor, one real and tangible way that we can live into what God intends for God’s people in the here and now. And by working for the achievement of these goals, we have the opportunity, in our lifetime, to make a real dent in the poverty and illness that encumber so much of the world’s population.

It might seem impossible to do this, but it’s not. It’s not because it is God’s work, and like the 70 we hear about in today’s gospel we have been commissioned and empowered by Jesus to undertake it—commissioned and empowered through our baptism and strengthened each time we come to the Table for the nourishment of the Eucharist.

The spirit of the Lord is upon us because he has anointed us to bring good news to the poor. Let us go forth into the world and do it.

AMEN