"DO THE GOSPEL!" ENJOINS A FRIEND from Florida. For us that means advancing the global Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) designed to combat the root causes of basic human suffering in the world today. The MDGs are supported by a growing coalition of world organizations including the United Nations (the commissioning agency), the G8 nations, the Episcopal Church’s Episcopal Relief and Development Fund, the One Campaign (led by U2 rocker Bono) and the Earth Institute at Columbia University. These diverse humanitarian groups (if one can conceive of any G8 nations in such terms) are among the leading forces now rallying millions of people to help achieve the eight Millennium Development Goals -

Goal 1: Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger
Goal 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education for Children
Goal 3: Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women
Goal 4: Reduce Child Mortality
Goal 5: Improve Maternal Health
Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Other Diseases
Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability
Goal 8: Create a Global Partnership for Development

How you participate in helping to meet the MDGs depends upon your situation in life and what you hear the Spirit calling you to do as an individual or member of a small group. Perhaps you will read a lot about what’s going on in this war to make poverty history and by your informed conversation with others, maybe in a study group, grow the Spirit of Matthew 25:37-40 into an ever-widening circle of belief, recognition and commitment. Or you will be moved to contribute money by carefully selecting a reputable charitable organization that is known to be working on behalf of global relief and development. Or you might go all out and become a volunteer on mission. Or even organize a group of volunteers such as our diocese does for medical mission pilgrimages to El Salvador (our companion diocese in Central America).

The bottom line is rather than being distracted by the angers and frustrations of politics in the Anglican Communion or Middle East, which is spiritually debilitating and enervating over time, what better thing to do with your own life and energy than to commit in a personal way toward fufilling the MDGs. They are all about doing the Gospel of Matthew 25, 21^st century style: that is, with coordinated cross-border planning, shared personnel and material resources, using the best of modern technology and scientific methods, things done from bottom-up with human ingenuity and care and compassion, and measured accounting of outcomes. Isn’t it time we got past the politics of nation states and culture wars consuming our energies and dividing our fellowship and unity as the church, the body of Christ and people of God?

Think about this - when your last day comes upon you, which do you think the Lord our God and Judge will want to know of you, how many people you argued with about God’s disposition or who you helped among the least of these his children in their time of suffering desperately? Being a Christian today means doing the Gospel, not arguing about who is going to heaven or should go to hell, but doing the Gospel and in today’s world that means helping others. Our bishop in CNY wants us “to be the passionate presence of Christ for one other and the world we are called to serve.” Or said in different words, in the context of this posting - think more about MDGs and less about General Conventions and you will be happier and more likely a blessing in the heart of God.

This message, the central message of our Presiding Bishop-elect Katharine Jefferts Schori’s mission outreach agenda for the next nine years in the service life of the church, was brought home to me recently last spring at a week-long Clergy Leadership Conference in Connecticut. On our reading list was Tracy Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountains (Random House, 2003), about the extraordinary life of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Harvard-based infectious diseases specialist and medical missionary to Haiti who though not yet 50 years of age has already through profoundly personal charismatic outreach and by employing the latest public health sciences, improved the lives of thousands of people and changed world health protocols for the better around the globe. It is a remarkable story about a man who will be acclaimed a hero of the first half of this century and an inspiration to generations of practical idealists in the future (reading my daughter's alumae magazine recently, I see Mount Holyoke College for example has made Mountains Beyond Mountains required reading for the entire academic community this year).

Doing the Gospel today, and not just talking about it at least not that portion of the gospel represented by Matthew 25:37-40, is in large measure, borrowing from the mission statement of the Earth Institute, about “mobilizing the sciences and public policy to build a prosperous and sustainable future.” By “sciences” is meant not only earth science, biology, engineering, health, but social sciences as well including theology and religion. All have a part to play in realizing the future envisioned by the MDGs and it is an important and vital part that the church plays, namely bringing to the table of humanity our unique knowledge and understanding of ultimate meaning and purpose in life, along with a sustained history and sustainable manner of behaving that has long served the world with hope for a better future.

So let’s get about it – the goals are out there to be achieved, the time is short - four millions lives a day are at stake, whole peoples and nations are at risk in regions around the globe - and God is calling us to be faithful. Speak in your local faith community today about coming up to speed on the Millennium Development Goals. "Do the Gospel!"

For more on MDGs and the policies and practice behind them, go to: for a general overview www.unmillenniumproject.org/ or for a close-up look try the Millennium Villages Project www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/or to get involved www.er-d.org/programs_36756_ENG_HTM.htm.