Sermon series on RESPECT

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.

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.

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

confuse politics and faith quite often in these discussions.  We convince ourselves that we can convince others to believe our beliefs by yelling louder or raising more money for our politician.  But if we examine the actions and attitudes of Jesus, we will find that he didn’t press for political reform.  He pressed for heart reformation.  How do we change a human heart?  Love.  It all comes back to love.

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.

Gifts of Epiphany

 Have you ever gotten a gift that you wondered, “what in the world…” on Christmas morning, but found months later it was the best thing you could have not asked for? 

I have to think that was what Mary was thinking as the Magi from the east made their way out of her modest home that evening.  Imagine the scene with me…

Jesus, probably around the age of 15 months toddles from around his mother’s skirts to get a better look at the strange men who have appeared at the door.

 “We have come seeking the king,” they claim.

 “You’re off by a few miles, buddy,” comes the short reply from Mary’s neighbor.  Obviously strangers, the well-dressed, travel-worn wise men ask permission to enter Mary’s home.

 “Please, let me ask my husband to come in,” she may have quickly stalled.  After making sure the men and their animals have something to drink and a place to sit a moment, she scoops “the king” into her arms and rushes to Joseph’s wood shop.  She doesn’t make it all the way there as he has already been told of the strange visitors.

 “What do they want, Mary?  Do they mean harm?  How could they possibly know anything?”

 “I don’t know, Joseph.  They don’t seem to mean any harm…their words were, “we have come to worship the king.”  But I don’t understand how they found us…him.”

  At that moment the “leader” of the group rounds the corner.  “I don’t mean to startle you, nor do I mean to eavesdrop.  But I can understand your concern.  I hope you believe me when I say we certainly did not expect to disrupt your little community as we had no idea we would find him in such…humble surroundings.  We traveled first to Jerusalem, assuming he would be among the royal families.  Imagine our surprise when the star kept moving, bringing us to this…quaint village.”  Though kind, the man’s words are unmistakable, even if they do align with Mary and Joseph’s thoughts:  what is the Messiah doing here??

The star.  Just another one of the mysteries surrounding Jesus.  There had been so many…so many steps of faith.  Joseph had stopped trying to figure it out.  A man could go crazy trying to figure out the mind of God…especially when that man is tasked with feeding the mouth of God.  Mary seemed content with all the mystery.  Perhaps having the mystery grow inside of her changed her somehow.  They had wondered at the star that seemed to follow them since the night of Jesus’ birth.  But asking anyone would have started a conversation they were unprepared to finish.  So they were left to wonder…one of the questions they would ask this son of theirs…once he learned to talk.

Now the other travelers joined the tiny family in Joseph’s shop.  Even more rudimentary than the house, but certainly quieter. (Not that there would be any way to stop the gossip train in this small town.)  The travelers explained their discovery, their journey, their desire to worship Messiah.  Their knowledge…almost greater than Mary and Joseph’s…certainly gave credence to their story, and the couple found themselves wanting the men to stay.  They were the first since ancient Simeon and Anna to join Mary and Joseph in their astonishment over the coming of Israel’s Redeemer.  But probably more startling than the visit, were the gifts the men left when their visit came to an end: gold—the gift for a king; frankincense—the gift for a priest; myrrh—the gift for the dead and dying.  These were not traditional “baby gifts” at all…but then nothing about this baby had been traditional.

It was no wonder none of them could sleep that night—their minds were spinning!  Gold for a king! Almost laughable in Nazareth!   Even Jesus seemed restless as Mary tried to bed him down.  Finally, heavy eyelids drooped and dreams began to swirl through busy minds.  
“Joseph!” 
 Joseph was becoming old-hat at these angelic dreams!  “Gabriel!  Good to see you!  Pull up a chair!”
  “Joseph!  The baby is in danger.  Take him and his mother to Egypt tonight!  Joseph!” 
 Joseph sat straight up in bed.  A dream?  A nightmare?  As he glanced to make sure that Mary and Jesus were safe in the bed his eyes caught Jesus’ big brown eyes.  The tiny boy seemed to be begging Joseph to believe, act in faith, obey!  It was all the push Joseph needed. 
 “Mary, get up.  The wise men were sent to warn us…Jesus is in danger.  No time to pack Mary, we have to go now.” 
 Mary, who was quickly learning, as the mother of Messiah, to improvise, threw together the baby’s needs first, then a few things for Joseph and herself.  Her eye caught the pouches, material more expensive than her entire wardrobe, filled with the precious minerals and spices.  She unbundled the clothes, dropped the pouches inside, and quickly retied the pack.  Joseph brought the donkey (not that beast again, thought Mary) and they were off.  Quietly, quickly, miraculously, the tiny family who had just created quite a stir in the neighborhood disappeared into the night not to be heard from again for years.

I can’t imagine the fear that must have swallowed the parents with each step.  Will they find us?  Who is chasing us?  Who can we trust?  If we make it to Egypt, how will we live?  How will we care for Jesus?  How will we eat?  How will we worship?  So many questions to join the list.  If I am supposed to take care of God, who is going to take care of me?

We sometimes scratch our modern heads at the gifts of the wise men as well.  We like to joke that wise women would have brought more practical gifts…a casserole at least.  I know what I would do with gold, but I would struggle to recognize, let alone utilize frankincense and myrrh.  But think about this:

.  What would gold mean to a family having to flee their hometown overnight?  What would myrrh, with its medicinal properties, mean to a family struggling with poverty and unable to secure healthcare?  What would frankincense, a holy treasure offered in the temple, mean to a family who had no access to the temple because they could not afford the proper offerings (already gave doves…a poor man’s gift). 

What seem like silly, wasteful gifts to us are actually practical, provisional gifts.  And just in time!  It’s like God was in control or something…

And what if He is?  Even in the overwhelming task of parenting the Son of God, God’s very presence brings gifts of provision.

Can we believe the same thing for our lives today?  Has God given you a vision, a mission, a purpose, a responsibility?  When we are tempted to believe that birthing God’s vision is an impossible task, first can we stop to see what provision he has made, what unexpected gifts grace our lives?

What do you have in your hand?  What has God given you? 

What does it say about our (1) faith (2) gratitude (3) ingenuity to claim “I don’t have what I need.”

As we enter conversations in 2013 about who we are, what we are to be about, and who we are to serve, let’s first pause with gratitude for the abundance of gifts that God has blessed us with.