Orchard Ridge United Church of Christ

Preached by Ree Hale on April 20, 2008

Genesis 1:1-2, 26-28; Acts 2: 42-47
Genesis 1: 26-28
God created human beings; he created them godlike, reflecting God’s nature.
He created them male and female. God blessed them: “Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take Charge!”
(We did a lot of that, we did our best to prosper, we reproduced, we filled the earth and took charge.) Earth now is a crowded place, and it is getting more crowded all the time.

We males & females haven’t been as good “being responsible for the fish in the sea and the birds in the air, for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth”, including people who live in other places or even nearby.
“If the World Were a Village”

Hear and see the story of our global village. As of July 1, 2007 the world’s population was 6 billion, 600 million! A Number this big is hard to imagine so we are going to talk about the whole Earth as an imaginary village of 100 people. That means, generally, each one of us here will represent 66,000,000 people. 66 million is 1/100 of 6 billion, 600 million.

The village in the Past: Let’s begin 3,000 years ago. 1,000 years before the birth of Christ. At that time it is believed the population of our Earth was 66,000,000 There was one person in our global village. By 500 years before Christ there were 2 people. At the time of Christ’s birth, 3 people were living in the village or 192,000,000 on the earth. In 1000 AD, 5 people; 1500, 8 people; 1650, 10 people ( the Pilgrims were already at Plymouth, Mass.; 1800, 17 people, ; 1900, 32 people for many of us here this includes our parents or at least our grandparents. and in 2007, 100 people live in the village, three times the number in 1900.

Nationalities: Who are the people of our global village? 61 are from Asia; 14 are from Africa; 11 are from Europe; 8 are from South America, Central America (including Mexico) and the Caribbean. Only 5 are from Canada and the United States. 1 is from Oceania (all of Australia, New Zealand and the islands of the south, west and central Pacific.

20 are from China, 17 from India, less than 5 are from the United States

Languages: There almost 6000 languages but more than half speak 8 these are:
16 speak Mandarin Chinese, 4 speak other Chinese dialects, 9 speak English, 9 speak Hindi, 7 speak Spanish, the others are Arabic, Bengali, Portuguese and Russian. Notice, French, German or Italian are not in the top 8.

Ages: More than half of the villagers are under 30 years of age. On average, 1 person dies and 3 babies are born every year. A baby born in the village today can only expect to live to age 63.

Religions: A church, a temple, a minaret, the villagers are called to worship.
32 are Christians, 20 are Muslims, 14 are Hindus, 9 practice shamanism, animism and other folk religions, 6 are Buddhists, 2 belong to other global religions, such as the Baha’i faith, Confucianism, Shintoism, Sikhism or Jainism. 1 is Jewish. 16 are non-religious.

Food: The villagers have many animals. They help to produce food or are the source of food. There are: 31 sheep and goats, 23 cows, bulls and oxen, 15 pigs, 3 camels, 2 horses, 250 c chickens – yes, there are 2 ½ times as many chickens as people in the global village.

There is no shortage of food in the global village. If all the food were divided equally, everyone would have enough to eat. But as we know, the food isn’t divided equally and not everyone is well fed.
50 people do not have a reliable source of food and are hungry some or all of the time.
20 other people are severely undernourished.
30 Only 30 people always have enough to eat.

Project: Pgs 18-19 Air & Water: Not all villagers have healthy air and clean water. Some is polluted causing disease. For some water is in short supply and they must walk long distances to find clean water for everyday use.
83 have access to a source of safe water either in their homes or nearby. The other 17 must spend a large part of each day simply getting safe water. This is usually done by women & girls
57 have adequate sanitation, public or household sewage disposal — 43 do not.

68 breathe clean air, while 32 breathe air that is polluted.

Schooling and Literacy: For some children, there is NO school to go to, or they must work to help feed their family. There are 36 school-aged villagers (age 5 -24), but only 30 attend school. There is only ONE teacher for these students.

Of the 73 people over age 15, 64can read at least a little, but 17 cannot read at all. More males are taught to read, write and think than females.

Electricity 76 people have electricity, 24 have only candles, oil lamps or lanterns.. Of the 76, most use it only for light at night. Light is the one basic necessity that electricity provides. But some villagers have other luxuries that depend on electricity. In the village there are:
42 radios, 28 televisions ,7 with cable; 36 (now 61) telephones (over 40 of them cellular phones), 15 computers. (There is no mention of refrigeration use of electricity)

Money & Possessions:
In one part of the village, someone buys a new car. In another, a man repairs the family’s bicycle, their most valued possession.
If all the money in the village were divided equally, each person would have about $9,350per year. But it is certainly not divided equally.
The richest 10 people (man, woman or child) each have more than $25,000 a year.
The poorest 10 people each have less than $1 a day.
The other 80 are somewhere in between.
75 of the 100 people average about $4.00 a day.

The average cost of food, shelter and other necessities in the village is $5000 per year. Many people don’t have enough money to meet these basic needs.

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Acts 2: 42-47 After they were baptized they committed themselves to the teaching of the apostles, the life together, the common meal, and the prayers.

Everyone around was in awe – all those wonders and signs done through the apostles! And all the believers lived in wonderful harmony, holding everything in common. They sold whatever they owned and pooled their resources so that each person’s need was met. They followed a daily discipline of worship in the Temple followed by meals at home, every meal a celebration, exuberant and joyful, as they praised God. People in general liked what they saw. Every day their number grew as God added those who were saved.

What can this community do, continue to do, or do as a new thing to help our neighbors in our global village. Is our global village worthy of our care?

See the beauty God has given. Not just where we live, but where all our global villagers live. God’s handiwork is everywhere. How will our hands and hearts and minds find new ways to care for the earth and it’s peoples.