A Mission Meditation
My Dear
People,
Below is a meditation that I wrote (and read for audio) for a collection of mission meditations
recorded for mission teams going out this spring and summer, around the world,
from the Diocese of Virginia. With our Tanzania missioners returning over the
last couple of weeks, it seems like a most appropriate time to share this
reflection with you.
Your brother in Christ,
Wallace+
Matthew 25: 34-36:
Then the king will say to those at his right hand, "Come, you that are blessed
by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the
world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me
something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you
gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you
visited me."
I have been asked,
why go to Tanzania to work in a school, or repair a water supply system, or
build a church, when there are children right here in Richmond who need to be
tutored; and hungry people who need a meal; and so many other needs. Why travel
across the globe? Why even leave town?
It is a good question, and one we
must be prepared to answer.
Whether or not you have been asked the
question by someone else; likely, in your own way, you have considered it; and
perhaps you have given it quite a lot of consideration.
There is, of
course, the very practical issue of resources. If we're building a home in
central Africa, or Central America, isn't that one less home that we will build
in central Virginia?
Well, it depends on whom you ask.
The world
sees it that clearly: yes, it's one or the other.
However, from the
perspective of the Kingdom of God, the choice is false.
We don't have to
choose between building a house in Guatemala or in the Northern Neck. The King
in charge of our kingdom, the Kingdom of God, calls us to build
both.
I am reminded of
something Mother Teresa said. She was asked why God lets his children starve.
After a moment's pause, she said, "He doesn't."
A cartoon I once
saw makes the same point: In the first frame, humanity looks up into the heavens
and asks, "Why, God, do you let your people live in poverty and
hunger?"
In the second frame, a voice from the clouds answers back, "I
was about to ask you the same thing."
We don't have to
choose between the children of the American inner-city and the children of
Guatemala City. The Kingdom of God encompasses all the children; all the
hungry; all the thirsty; all the strangers; all those in need of clothing, and
of shelter; all the sick; all those in prison. And so we pray, "Thy kingdom
come, thy will be done."
"Thy kingdom come, thy will be done." We pray
that prayer every time we gather in Episcopal worship. There is no Prayer Book
service where that prayer is not offered. Of course it is a line from the
Lord's Prayer. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.
So, why travel
across the globe, why leave town, on mission trips, when there so many needs
right where we live?
We go on mission trips, above all, because God's
children are God's children wherever they are, God's children in need: in need
of real-life, incarnational, flesh-and-blood love. We go, in response to the
Jesus' command, and after his example, to share with them the love that has
transformed our lives.
So, yes, of course, above all that's why we go:
because God's children wait for us.
But here's the
thing. The trick. The holy trick, if you will: when we go and spend a week in
the slums of Calcutta, or in the towns of Appalachia, when we come back to our
Virginia home (our city, our town, our county), it's not the same place it was
before. We walk down the streets of the community where we live, and we see it
differently than we did before. And, more to the point, we see the people with
whom live differently. We can't look on the poor of our city, the children of
our town, the way we used to. Something has happened, something has changed.
Of course, when we come back from a mission trip, it is we who have
changed: our hearts are changed, our lives are changed. And we are all the more
committed to the prayer, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done."
So, my
sisters and brothers, may it be so. May it be so, in whatever land you find
yourselves as you hear these words; may it be so in the cities and towns where
we live; and, yes, may it be so, in our hearts and in our lives. Because that's
where it begins.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be
done.
Amen.
