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| President UMW and Deacon Sandy |
Today's scripture was Deuternonomy 15: 10-11:
"Do not be hard-hearted or close-fisted with your countryman in his need. . . Give freely to him and do not begrudge him your aid, it is for this very generosity God will bless you in everything that you do or undertake. The poor will always be with you." Some translations say, "Give with a glad heart out of your abundance." Jesus and Peter both echoed Moses in this.
Darcy Palmer, a leader in missions, gave the message, "It's Your Choice."
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| "It's Your Choice" |
Her visuals were powerful, little bread pans that represented the more than six billion people on the planet. One bread pan's worth of a billion people (US, Europe, Scandinavia, Japan, the wealthy elites around the world) possess 85 percent of the world's wealth. Darcy doled out 85 dollar bills out of her stash of 100 into that pan that represents us. The middle, developing countries, four bread pans stacked upon each other (one pan each for China and India's billion population each), share the next $14 dollars. The poorest one billion people share only 80 cents in their loaf pan, but she rounded up to $1. Even though we feel poor, not too surprisingly as a whole the rich are getting richer, the poor poorer. The developing four billion are doing better. Darcy talked about our efforts in education, feeding the poor, helping the sick and so on, as Jesus instructed us.
This is a message I've heard and responded to since I was a child out trick-or-treating for UNICEF, filling little bread banks for World Vision, collecting to give an animal through the Heifer Project, enrolling people in the Hunger Project. Responding to UMCOR, the United Methodist Committee on Relief. Since the beginning of Methodism, we've worked powerfully against hunger, slavery, illiteracy, poverty. It's what Christians and Jews, the only religions I know intimately, do and have done. Yet we can always stand to be encouraged, even if it is not news that the poor are still with us. We kind of expect this on missions Sunday.
The shocking part, the news, was when Darcy split the six bread pans in two, and said, "The countries in the wealthiest three billion have equal populations of men and women. The poorest three billion people (HALF) live in countries where 50 million women have gone missing in the last 10 years. Compare this to the devastating Nazi-initiated Holocaust that wiped out six millions of Jews and another six million Christians, communists, gypsies, gay people and labor leaders.
50 million women murdered! (Also worse than the Great Burning over a period of 300 years of six to13 million women condemned as witches and heretics.) 50 million women murdered in the last 10 years!
Worse News: It is now considered that 50 million is a gross under counting, and that a more accurate estimate of women "gone missing" may be double, possibly 100 million women and girls murdered, aborted, starved, cast out, dead in unattended childbirth, annihilated in slavery, forced prostitution and religious fanaticism. (This does not count women that are tortured and mutilated by their families or as bystanders in warfare prevalent in those countries. It does not count those who are barely surviving, poor, desperate, hungry--they are still alive.) A Wednesday night study of "Women Hold Up Half the Sky" gets into these issues more deeply, week by week, Darcy said.
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| Blessing and Dedication of Prayer Shawls and Newborn Baby Quilts |
50 million women murdered! (Also worse than the Great Burning over a period of 300 years of six to13 million women condemned as witches and heretics.) 50 million women murdered in the last 10 years!
Worse News: It is now considered that 50 million is a gross under counting, and that a more accurate estimate of women "gone missing" may be double, possibly 100 million women and girls murdered, aborted, starved, cast out, dead in unattended childbirth, annihilated in slavery, forced prostitution and religious fanaticism. (This does not count women that are tortured and mutilated by their families or as bystanders in warfare prevalent in those countries. It does not count those who are barely surviving, poor, desperate, hungry--they are still alive.) A Wednesday night study of "Women Hold Up Half the Sky" gets into these issues more deeply, week by week, Darcy said.
I was left with conflicting feelings, glad for the leadership of women and our partnership with Christian men, shocked by the news of this global Great Holocaust of women (HOW did I miss this?), grateful that God gives us talents and resources to address these issues (no, not issues, horrors!), touched by the sweet gestures of prayer shawls and baby quilts, and despairing at the enormity facing us.
Moses and Jesus implied that the poor are with us always because we haven't tended to them. They both said we should hop to it with a glad heart.