What must we do to perform the works of God?

It's an interesting question…what must we do to perform the works of God? Jesus answer is simultaneously simple and complex. Believe in the one God has sent. This is often put another way, "Profess Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior." The equation looks so simple on the surface: believe in Christ and have eternal life. It is good news.

And yet, this simplistic understanding misses the complexity and challenge of what Jesus is taking about. The temptation is to view belief in the abstract--to divorce it from the everyday mundane world we live in. The whole thing seems to operate on a spiritual level detached from the physical world we inhabit. However, belief is not simply a feeling or a spiritual abstraction. Rather, belief is a total commitment of life. It must manifest itself in all of our actions.

The apostle Paul understood this and indeed was quite frustrated that the church in Ephesus had apparently missed the point. Ephesus was a major city of commerce that was perfectly situated on trade routes. It was a meeting point for various philosophies and cultures. I imagine the Ephesians had listened to Paul and said great here's a way to ensure eternal life. They said the right things, changed their beliefs about the other Gods, but didn't change anything else. They still pursued their own greed and treated the needy with contempt.

Paul writes to correct this. Belief must be accompanied by action. To believe is to change the way we live, especially in relation to each other. For Paul, church was not a place you went, but rather the new reality of unity. I am you and you are me, for we are all one in Christ. Therefore, to be a Christian is to believe in such a way as to act as if we indeed are one.

Examine your life. To you believe in Christ? Do you believe in God? If so, how does that affect your actions?

It is easy to read this passage from John's Gospel and interpret it to be about life after death. Although Jesus invitation is an invitation to eternal life, the good news is that you don't have to die to participate in eternal life. We are invited to participate in the Kingdom of God here and now. We are invited to be fed and to drink now.

To participate in the Kingdom of God is to believe and through belief to become Christ-like. In other words, we are to take God seriously and to change our behavior to become servants. To be Christ-like is to be willing to tell the truth, even if that means losing your job or losing a friend. To be Christ-like is to care for the widowed and the orphaned, to reverse legacies of abuse and oppression, to rebuild cities and cure diseases.

The paradox of Christianity is that in serving we are served. In feeding others, we are fed. In giving up our lives, we gain life.

What must we do to perform the works of God? We must believe in Jesus, but that means changing our lives. It means giving up the pursuit of short-term material gain for ourselves, and instead participate in eternal life. Indeed, it means being willing to give up our current way of life to embrace a life of service.

This can take many forms; indeed it is each of our responsibilities to work this out through prayer with God. We as a community, as a church, must also examine how our belief translates into participation in the Kingdom of God. Likewise, our national church has also examined this question. This summer at our General Convention in Columbus, OH, our church identified our mission priorities for the next three years. At the top of the list is a set of goals that you may never have heard of called the Millennium Development Goals.

These goals were adopted by the world community and have specific benchmarks to be achieved by 2015 and 2025. The goals are as follows:

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2. Achieve universal primary education
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
4. Reduce child mortality
5. Improve maternal health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
8. Develop a global partnership for development

More than 1 billion people in the world live on less than $1.00 a day. In total, 2.7 billion people struggle to survive on less than $2.00 a day. Poverty in the developing world, however goes far beyond income poverty. It means having to walk more than a mile everyday simply to collect water and firewood, and suffering from diseases that were eradicated from rich countries decades ago. More than six million children die from completely preventable or treatable causes like malaria, diarrhea, and pneumonia.

In some places, less than half of children are in primary school, and less than 20% go to secondary school. Around the world, a total of 114 million children do not get even a basic education, and 584 million women are illiterate.

Despite their almost idealistic character, these goals are actually achievable. This is not about miracles or signs and there are no magic bullets, but almost everything needed to achieve these goals we already have. We have the knowledge and the resources.

The economist Jeffrey Sachs has written, "The world is filled with pilot projects showing that one intervention or another has proven successful time and again. It has been shown repeatedly that antimalarial bed nets save lives in rural Africa, that anti-AIDS drugs can be administered in low-income settings, and that immunizations can be delivered in low-income settings, even in the middle of war zones. The main challenge now is not to show what works in a single village or district but rather to scale up what works to encompass a whole country and even the world."

So what would it take for us to scale-up what already has been shown to work? Well in addition to getting involved in our local community, it takes a simple commitment to support these goals. How much of a commitment? Zero-point-seven percent.

Contribute 0.7% of your income to support organizations working on these goals, and we can eliminate extreme poverty. We must also have a willingness to hold our government accountable to its pledge to contribute 0.7%. Our country has committed on several occasions to make significant strides toward this goal, and yet the United States currently only contributes 0.12%. If all charitable contributions from foundations and individuals were calculated, our country contributes 0.2%—a far cry from the 0.7% mark. And yet, 0.7% is manageable, especially if we take seriously our belief in God.

Over the next few years, you will hear a lot about the Millennium Development Goals. I hope that you will examine your current giving. Perhaps you are already contributing 0.7% toward reducing extreme poverty. If you are not, I ask you to consider taking the 0.7% pledge.