World Mission
By Rev’d Dr David Evans, Sunday 16th October, 2011
“He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see him, as he said to you.”
I have just returned from ten days working in Malawi with our Anglican health partners. During the course of the visit we had planned to work with the people at St Peter’s hospital on the small island of Likoma in Lake Malawi, which is built in the same compound as the Cathedral church of St Peter’s. Our plans were in part thwarted. The team of people coming from two of the other Anglican hospitals in Malawi with whom I was going to work were unable to cross over the 80kms of Lake Malawi by boat because of the bad weather, and my flight up from the capital of Malawi Lilongwe on a very small plane was not able to fly. Eventually I was able to get to Likoma a day late. So instead of 4 of us visiting to work with the hospital for three days, one of us got there and had a day and a half. All because it was so remote and isolated on an island in the middle of on of the largest lakes in the world.
In our Gospel reading this morning we have a powerful reminder of two essential aspects of the mission of God.
The first is that this is God’s mission. When Christ was raised, the angelic figure who greeted the 3 terrified women who had gone to embalm the dead body of Jesus, told them that he had indeed risen and that he had gone ahead of his disciples to Galilee. This sense of God going ahead of us is a huge comfort. God is already out there, present in the communities we are called to minister to. We are called to be sign posts to a God whose compassion and grace become visible and real to people as their strengths are affirmed as being children of God and capable of making responses to the concerns and hopes for a great sense of well-being and peace with self, neighbour, God and his created world.
The second aspect is very political in the best sense of the word. Notice where Jesus has gone ahead of us to. Galilee, yes, it was home, but consider what had happened. He was crucified by the religious elite and the political rulers at the centre of religious and political power in the country, Jerusalem. Surely, if the Son of God was going anywhere upon his resurrection and amazing vindication he would go to confront those sources of power. But no. He goes to Galilee. He is free, in every sense to go where so ever he choses. He goes to the periphery of society. Galilee. Remote, obscure and looked down upon as the home of those of no account. Those living on the periphery; the poor are a priority in God’s mission.
So when I got irritated at our plans being thwarted in working on Likoma, which is incredibly remote and is home to 15000 souls, this passage brings me back to the priority God places in mission on those on the periphery.
We are not just talking about the geographical periphery. We are speaking of the socially dispossessed; those who are overlooked and therefore especially vulnerable in matters concerning health and broader well-being. These people are often found in the giant slums in the worlds mega cities.
If you are able to stay after the service for the presentation in more detail about the ‘Hands on Health’ approach to strengthening primary health through community engagement and dialogue, you will be most welcome. If you cannot, let me leave you with 3 thoughts.
The first is that you can never make someone else’s health a project in conventional terms. To improve health is complicated. It demands a social interaction as much as a clinical intervention. The medical fraternity has real problems with this. As one of my colleagues in Malawi says, “when people come to the hospital sick, we fix them up and send them home, and think we have done a good job. In fact” he says, “the problems that caused the sickness in the first place are still there untouched by our intervention and we will undoubtedly see them again.” Preventative community based health has always been the poor relation in the world of health delivery. Yet it is essential to rescue cherished mission hospitals built in many cases over a 100 years ago from a certain slow death, crushed under the weight of spiralling costs and a growing burden of preventable sickness.
Second, if we are trying to improve health we are inevitably talking about change in attitudes and behaviours and that cannot be imposed or ‘taught’ in the didactic sense. Change comes through facilitation and a dialogue which is respectful, honest and loving. When people get the sense that they are being listened to and that their strengths, which every person has, count for something, trust develops and a genuine dialogue and change becomes possible.
Finally, we in the health field have to change ourselves. As one of the health workers in Malawi said, “in facilitation, change has to start with me.”
Paul in his letter speaks to the Thessalonians about the manner of the entry he and his co-workers made with the Gospel. When seeking to improve health in a place like Likoma Island, the manner of our entry is critical. I left Likoma having established a strong linkage with the leaders of the hospital, and through our working together, a strengthening of the connection between the health workers and ordinary people in communities and their leaders. Through the way we visited homes on the island to listen, learn from and appreciate their resilience and something of the challenges and the hopes they have for better health, the local staff and health workers were convinced that this approach will indeed bear fruit.
By involving community members, traditional leaders, the clergy and other church leaders as well as health workers and volunteers, right from the beginning of the process, confidence, trust and understanding begin to build straight away. I am sure that this really is the only way to push back common, preventable disease like malaria and diarrhoea which are the 2 most common health problems on the island, and easily preventable.
I invite you to journey with us on this exciting road in supporting our health partners as they work tirelessly on the periphery.
