January 22nd, 2012
Sanctity of Human Life Sunday
Deuteronomy 30:19

Dear Friends in Christ,


I want you to think about a journey you once took. You may not remember it. It was a long time ago and you have never been back to that place. But I think you made this journey; nearly everyone has. It was a journey by water, a marine expedition. Actually, submarine.

When you were smaller than a poppy seed, you sallied forth. You embarked on a week-long, roiling, cascading journey down a fallopian tube.

I know this is strange to think about and strange to talk about. And I know it is strange and difficult to imagine. But this was really you.

You did not know where you were going. No one asked if you were ready. You received no instructions. But you put out to sea. For the first week of your life, you simply floated.

Imagine if you had been conscious. They say consciousness flickers at about six weeks, but imagine you had been fully aware from the beginning. An embryo – you spin, you swirl, you tumble. You are at the mercy of forces behind you. Had you been conscious, you would have come to either of two conclusions: either a merciless current is sweeping me away, or a guiding current is carrying me where I need to be. In other words, you would have had two choices: panic or trust. But was the first week of your life all that different from every subsequent week?

“THE JOURNEY”

These days, you are conscious. You experience love and betrayal, promise and disappointment. And you come to either of two conclusions: either a merciless current is sweeping me away, or a guiding current is carrying me where I need to be. You have two choices: panic or trust.

In the fallopian tube, at the beginning of the journey, we are not aware; we cannot make those choices. We can only float – let the current carry us. It’s almost as if the dial is being preset for trust, as if trust is the inescapable structure of human life, as if we were created for faith. We would have to reset the dial in order to turn away from life in doubt, panic, and rebellion.

We did not have the ability to say “no” to our own life. God said “yes,” and that was that. God wanted you. So God made sure not to put that choice in your hands, not just yet. In fact, God commanded you to be. You came into being and God saw that you were very good. And the Lord guided you into life.

But there comes a time when we do, when we must, choose. “Today…I have set before you life and death…” says God. “Therefore choose life.” God tells us how to make that choice. Do not let your heart be turned away and do not be drawn to other gods.

In other words, the way to choose life is to never choose death. The dial is preset for life, for trust; keep it there. Yes, it is a perilous journey – like tubing on a raging river – but keep trusting. Don’t panic. Just like at the beginning, the Lord is still guiding you. As surely as when you were in the fallopian tube, the Lord still carries you. Listen to the Lord’s guidance. Listen to the voice that knows you, that knows your journey.

But this is how we choose death: when we listen to the make-believe “gods,” when we listen to the demons, they throw us into panic. “It’s impossible,” they whisper. “You have stepped beyond the help of God. Take matters into your own hands. You have to. You have no choice.” And we stop trusting; we refuse to let the guiding current of God’s Word carry us.

Mary and Jake were in love, planning to get married. Jake was two weeks from graduation. He’d already secured a position with a company in London, so Mary, with her nursing degree in hand, flew across the pond and hired on at a London hospital. She rented an apartment and was twenty-four hours from starting work when Jake called. He wasn’t moving to London. He’d been offered a better job in New York City.

The phone call was ugly. Jake broke up with the woman he loved, and Mary – who can blame her? – said she needed an ocean between herself and jerks like him and decided to stay in London.

Later that day, Mary wondered: “Am I just queasy because I’m suddenly all alone, starting work and scared. Or am I queasy because…” She decided to get a pregnancy test. It was positive.

And she panicked. “My life is going down the tube!” she cried. “What else can go wrong?” For a millisecond she actually entertained the notion of having the baby. But, Jake’s baby? Are you kidding? She’d get an abortion as soon as possible.

The next morning on the subway – excuse me in Britain, it’s called “the tube” – Mary worried whether she had boarded the correct train. She inquired of a Metronet worker. “The exact one,” replied the worker. “You are just where you need to be.” The worker moved on but not before Mary caught her name: “Cecelia.” For some reason, Mary’s thoughts jumped to the word “cilia.” Cilia are the hair-like structures that line a fallopian tube. They wave back and forth creating a current, a current that guides the embryo to the uterus, to where it needs to be. Mary’s favorite teacher in nursing school used to say the cilia were cheering the embryo on: “Go, little person, keep going.”

“There ought to be some cilia around to guide grown-ups,” Mary thought. Just then a young woman entered the tube and sat beside her. “Hi, I’m Liz.” Liz, it turned out, was also a nurse. She worked at the same hospital Mary was starting at.

As they walked from the tube to the hospital, Mary and Liz passed a church. Mary thought about going in sometime to pray. She must have gazed at the church a moment too long. “Do you go to church?” Liz asked. “Um, yes,” said Mary. Then she added quickly: “sometimes.” “I’m a Christian,” said Liz. Before parting they agreed to meet for lunch.

Mary wondered if she was named for Queen Elizabeth and then it struck her: Elizabeth. In the Bible, that’s whom Mary told about her pregnancy. But Mary didn’t want to tell anyone.

How could she even think of having a baby? No friends, a new job, and her family an ocean away. “It’s impossible,” she concluded. “I have no choice. I have to take matters into my own hands.”

But we do have a choice. God said, “Today…I have set before you life and death…Therefore choose life that you and your offspring may live.” The way to choose life is trust. Did you think human life was going to be humanly possible? It’s not. It was never meant to be. Guiding a human being through life is possible only for God. God gives no one a possible life. The call of God is to an impossible life. Otherwise, why trust? And life was created for trust.

At lunch did Mary pour out her soul to Liz? And did Mary have her baby? And did Jake come to his senses, quit his job, fly to London, beg forgiveness and get married to Mary? And does Mary feel more ready to trust God than ever?

If so, this could only have happened through the “cilia” by which God guides us through life: the people who love us and cheer us on, the Word of God in our church and Holy Scripture, and the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion. Through these, God guides and carries us and unfolds the journey he created for our life.

Or did she abort the baby? Did she take matters into her own hands? And after the abortion did she slip into the church and pray? “Christ, as you have carried my life, carry also my sin; carry it the cross and suffer it away.” Does she look at the nail-pierced hands of Christ and plead that somehow Christ still holds her baby in His hand? Does she walk out of that church feeling ready to trust God more than ever?

If so, this could only have happened because even though every human being has turned away from Him in doubt, panic, and rebellion, God found a way – the cross – to carry us still in the current of His Word and His forgiving love.

These two choices are vastly different. But one thing is the same: The Holy Spirit leading you to choose Jesus is to choose life. For Jesus holds every life – even the tiniest – in the nail-scarred palm of His hand.

               Amen.

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