Life is precious
I have a
confession to make. A few weeks ago I
had to go to Walmart. HAD to go. It was
one of those lists that only made sense at Walmart And I said as much to the kids. They were incredulous at my attitude…”Mom!
It’s Walmart Don’t you love Walmart
You can get anything there!” Never mind
Disney World, just take my kids to Walmart.
“No,” I confessed to them, “I don’t love Walmart Those aren't my people.” And there it was,
the confession of my heart. When it comes to Walmart I’m a snob. Not that it keeps me away that much, a lot of
my life happens at Walmart.
I was
actually heading to Walmart six years ago when the nurse called from the
Obstetricians office. I was heading down
highway 90 in Ocean Springs as she explained that my blood levels had come back
abnormal and I would need to undergo further testing to determine if the baby I
was carrying had a genetic abnormality.
“These things are usually false positives, but we will get the test done
soon enough so you can terminate the pregnancy if needed.” It’s amazing the details you can remember
about the moment your life changes completely.
I sat in the Walmart parking lot for quite a while. When I finally went inside, there was a
family having a family moment right at the door. Ahh, Walmart the place you go to feel better
about your problems. The mother was
facing me, and she was furious, that much was evident. The daughter had her back to me, but she was
obviously not doing what her mother wanted.
She had some school supplies clutched in her crossed arms and she was
shaking her head vehemently. My hand
instinctively went to my growing waist, evidence of a half-completed pregnancy,
as the unbidden thought entered my mind: “whatever problems this baby has, we
won’t have that problem.” It was that
moment that the girl turned and her face revealed the delicate features of
Trisomy 21, Down Syndrome. All at once
the weight of the nurse’s words and the fear inside my heart came crashing
down. I won’t take the time to tell the
rest of our story, but if you’re interested, you can read more about it here.
Today, I
want to talk about life. Fragile, crazy,
beautiful, scary, hard, precious life.
In our series on respect, I want to begin with the preeminent value of
life. Without life, all of our other
arguments are null and void. Now, before
you gather all of your arguments about life and choice and equality and all the
other political buzz words we’ve attached to the word, I’ll just go ahead and
give you my bottom line. I’m not
interested in changing your opinions today.
I don’t believe myself to be that persuasive. However, I would like to encourage you to
consider your opinions, whatever they may be, from this perspective: God is the
author of life, and God believes that all life is precious. That’s the bottom line.
Psalm 139 (CEV)
13 You are the one
who put me together
inside my mother’s body,
14 and I praise you
because of
the wonderful way
you created me.
who put me together
inside my mother’s body,
14 and I praise you
because of
the wonderful way
you created me.
Everything you do is marvelous!
Of this I have no doubt.
15 Nothing about me
is hidden from you!
I was secretly woven together
deep in the earth below,
16 but with your own eyes
you saw
my body being formed.
Even before I was born,
you had written in your book
everything I would do.
is hidden from you!
I was secretly woven together
deep in the earth below,
16 but with your own eyes
you saw
my body being formed.
Even before I was born,
you had written in your book
everything I would do.
And while
applying that lens to your perspective on life, would you prayerfully consider
doing this as well: would you be willing widen the margins on your definition
of life to make room for the mystery of God?
So many debates get bogged down in the quagmire of when life begins and
ends, and how we are to treat others at various stages of life. The reality is, we don’t know what we don’t
know. We think we know what we know
about life, but even what we know about life changes all the time, but for
sure, we don’t know what we don’t know.
So it would seem to foolish to assert that we know something about what
we know we don’t know. Did you follow
that? Here’s what I’m trying to say:
widen the margins. Make room for the mystery
of God. However you define life, would
you be willing to say, in regards to those margins, “and maybe a little more,
because I don’t know everything.”
What is
the value of a life? Our judicial system
has a formula for applying value, based on the ability to earn income and other
mitigating factors. At premium, life is
worth $7 million. That is preceded by
the statement, life is invaluable. We
may be confused.
According
to science, life is worth $90. Let me
explain.
One day,
a science professor had set out several vats of different-colored liquids, gases and
pyrex boxes containing elemental solids. Nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, mercury...
a few other elements that the human body is composed of, all in proportion to
how much of each element could be found in the average adult human body. Each container had a
sticker on it, the price tag,
as dictated by the supplier from whence these elements were bought. At the far
end of the table upon which all of this stuff sat was a folded card, like a
tiny tent of paper, and on that piece of folded paper, standing up like a
marquee, was the sum total of each price. It read:
"The cost of
human life, in raw materials: $83.72"
The professor picked up the card,
showed it to the class and said:
"This
is what the human body is worth, if you were to go
out to the store and purchase the materials necessary to build one.
But there's more to it than that, isn't there? You can't just take these
things, mix them up in a bowl, slap them in the oven and, nine months later, wind up with a human being. It
takes much more than that. These items must be arranged in a certain way, at
the molecular and cellular level, and manipulated to a degree that it would boggle the mind.Genetics,
cellular mitosis, osmosis,
molecular replication...
these are some of the processes by which a human body develops." He waved
to the elements behind him. "All these things are inert, by themselves, but something is added to make them dynamic and
singular. Kids, I'm going to tell you this once and once only: the human body is cheap, dirt cheap in the grand
scheme of things, but the quality that gives a human body life is something neither science nor money
can ever measure. You're here to learn how science works and how it can be
applied to learning how things work, but it can only work up to a
certain point. At that point, we must stop and wait for science to
catch up. The saying that life is precious is true only in that the
human experience which validates that life is invaluable. We cannot put a price on experience.
You can pay for some experiences, but that is only
a fiction of economics. Life is more than just your body and mind. And science
cannot even begin to comprehend where life begins and
where it ends. That task is best left for the philosophers and dreamers. If you came
here looking for answers to life, then you're paying a significantly steep
price for answers that will get you nowhere. Or, at least, your parents
are."
(borrowed from the internet, unable to verify the source...however I am currently working to verify the facts and I should be able to update the cost this week...fascinating!)
So how
will we define life? Value life?
Before we
can begin to wrap our hearts and minds around the value of another person’s
life, we have to deal with the reality of our personal value. I’m not talking about the superficial,
selfish choices we all make to bring pleasure to our physical life. I’m talking about who we are, who we really
are, our purpose for existence Because
people who understand their value, their purpose, they live differently. Remember our lens from which we peer today:
God is the author of life, and to God, life is precious. Your
life is precious. The promise is for
Abundant life and then eternal life, not miserable life and then you die. We mistakenly believe that with Jesus we will
always have either happy life where nothing bad happens, physical blessings
abound like Christmas, and the sun always shines; or conversely we believe that
with Jesus we will live a sad, depressed, gray, never fun uber-fundamental
doldrum existence and then die and sleep in the clouds. But we’d be wrong on both accounts. Jesus came to show us that while in this life
we will know trouble, but we can be bold, courageous, joyful, and peaceful because Jesus
has overcome the world. Jesus didn’t
just come to earth to provide train tickets to heaven. We don’t get our card punched and then wait
for that glory bound train, all the while wasting away here in the shadow-lands without joy or peace in the midst of suffering.
On the contrary, Jesus lived a human life, a tough one to be sure, full
of friends, joy, parties, tears, relationships, memories, experiences,
humanity. And Jesus’ life proves that
your life is precious, and worth saving.
Why would
God step out of heaven, and wrap himself in flesh if not to demonstrate the
value of human life? Why would Jesus
suffer the indignities of acne, gas, and in-grown toenails? Why would God put himself through the misery
of human inter-relationships? Why would
God choose to become human? Could he not
have saved us any other way? Could he
not have spoken through the mountains, the storms, the birds, the beasts? But he became a baby, a teenager, a man. His very painful death happened to a real
human body. Why? Because, to God, who created life, life is
precious. It’s worth rescuing from the
pits of hell, but it’s also worth rescuing from the doldrums of human
existence. What are you doing with the
life God has given you? Do you live on
purpose? Do you live understanding the
price God paid to redeem your life? Do
you care?
Once we
get our heads and hearts on straight about the value of our lives, we also have
the capacity to appreciate the value of all life. This is hard work. It is one thing to value the lives of those
we love, who are kind or good to us, or who society has deemed “valuable.” It is quite another thing to extend the
merits of value to every individual. We
measure, we weigh, we find others wanting.
And we forget that when we devalue the life of one human, we devalue the
life of all humanity. Your life is precious.
Their life is too. We must widen
the margins and believe God has purpose for every being he creates.
Their life
is precious. God loves her, and him, and
all them at Walmart He probably wishes they would pick up some new undergarments while at Walmart, but He loves them.
My
invitation to you this week is to serve life where you find it to be most
precious and vulnerable. We
Are you
bothered by issues regarding the beginning of life? Then the love the most vulnerable people on
that front. Serve them, pray for them,
hug them, provide shelter. Are your
issues with end of life debates? Then do
the same. Serve, pray, touch,
provide. Are you most concerned with
fragile humanity caught in the undertow of bureaucracy and politics? Don’t scream and shout…you will be never be
heard. Serve and love…and you will break
down walls.
And if in
the midst of serving and loving and touching and being touched, you find the
margins on your definition of life expanding, all the better. You know, before life was a game, a magazine,
a cereal…before life was messy and hard or grand and a bowl of cherries…life
was in God. God loves life, God is
life. When you love, serve, touch life,
you touch, serve, love God.
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