1.
Good morning. Let’s pray. O Lord, may the words of my mouth and the
meditations of our hearts be pleasing to You O Lord, our Rock and our
Redeemer. Amen.
2.
Opening Remarks:
Gen. 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our
image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the
birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the
creatures that move along the ground.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he
created him; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them and said to
them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule
over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living
creature that moves on the ground.”
And so God created man in His image and
gave him the authority and power to rule over all creation. In verse 28 of the first chapter of Genesis
we read:
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be
fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the
sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the
ground.”
God created human beings in His
image to be His people and establish His Kingdom on earth!
Today is the “Feast of Our Lord the Giver
of Life” Sunday! CEC Churches all over
the world have set this Sunday aside to honor life and to reflect upon it.
We live in a world that seems to honor
money and power above everything else and we live in a country whose culture
has been referred to as a “culture of death” for this country – this nation -
allows mothers to kill their babies in the name of “choice.”
This morning I don’t want to rail against
Abortion; I want us to think instead about how we came to this culture of death
and what it will take to change it.
I went to sleep last Sunday night thinking
about God’s making us in His image and what connection that might have with
life and the first words that came to mind when I awoke early the next morning
were “I Am . . . Here!”
I Am . . . Here! These words haunted me until I got out of bed,
went to my lap top and began to type.
Of all things, I began to write a poem! I think I chose that medium because it
requires more discipline and often helps me dig deeper than otherwise.
Let me read it to you:
“I
Am . . . Here!”
“I am . . . here” is the cry
of every single soul alive.
The baby in her mother’s womb.
The unwanted toddler come too
soon.
The young woman, an object,
unseen
In her provocative revealings.
The young man struggling to be
seen
In his camouflage beige and
green.
The sick man on his death-bed
lying
unheard but not unseen crying
“I am here. I am here.
Don’t let me die!”
Another one said “I am here.”
We silenced Him in our terrible
fear.
But then heard with dulled and
deafened ears
His gently whispered “I am . . .
here!”
No cry goes unheard by Him.
Every soul born of men
Is seen and heard and then remembered.
No soul is lost, no soul
forgotten
To such as He – the Unbegotten.
Who alone can say “I am”
and be heard by every man?
Can we learn to hear
others crying “I am here!”
To be like Him; the hearer of
all men.
The lover, father, brother,
friend.
We are all crying to be seen
but what of the voice of the
unseen?
Can we cry out for his
revealing?
Give her a voice with which to
cry
“I am here! I am here!
Don’t let me die
Let me discover who I am
Created in the image of The
Great I Am!”
You see as Christians we believe that every
one of us is made in the image of God and therefore has a heavenly identity and
with that a divine dignity.
But to what end?
God blessed the first man and then said,
Gen. 1:28 “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the
fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that
moves on the ground.”
God blessed us and then
challenged us to have children and rule over His creation!
This is a nation under God – It is in God we trust but do we – do we
really? I fear we have become confused; double-minded
about who we are and what we are to do.
I hear a young woman reasoning – “Do I love freedom
and all that it can bring me or do I love you – you a baby who seems to have
come too soon. You’re an
inconvenience. If I care for you I won’t
finish college and perhaps become destined to live in the ignominy of relative poverty. If I bear you I will lose time; valuable
time; time for pleasure and self-actualization.”
And so it goes and men and women choose to
kill the unseen in the name of freedom – freedom from inconvenient
responsibilities.
How did we
come to this?
This is the end of a long long downward winding road.
It’s the end of a long line of choices that
have brought us to the place where the life of a baby teeters on the balance of
a mother’s choice.
This is nation that agonizes over the
ethics of end of life choices but is the pornographic headquarters of the
entire world. Lust has become
commodified!
Think about that – the nation that holds to
the almost infinite value of the individual human life is also the nation that
leads the world in objectifying and commodifying a woman’s body.
We’re a nation that has made a work of art
out of “reality shows.” What is that if
it’s not a commodifying of the prurient spirit?
We have learnt well that if we cut a hole
in the wall and put a sign over it that says “Don’t look” every passerby will
take a look and so “reality television” flourishes and dulls and pollutes the
sensibilities of a nation that began as a grand experiment in the freedom of
the human spirit.
In these so called “reality” shows we look
through the peep hole of the television camera into the lives of our fellow
human beings and the vices of anger, greed, pride, lust and envy are thrown on our
ever expanding flat screen TV’s
Talk about expanding . . . We’ve become a
nation that assuages its sense of meaninglessness and homelessness with the calorie
saturated supersized Big Mac. The fast
food franchises stuff an over stuffed nation with maga-calories! It seems that a bulging waistline is more
acceptable than a pregnant woman’s profile!
Gluttony is a national obsession.
And what about
greed? We’ve come a long way down that
road haven’t we?
Our financial leaders brought us to the
brink of financial collapse and then we bailed them out because they were too
big to fail. But lest we get too cocky
we’re not much better than them. The
only difference is that they not
only got away with it but were financially rewarded for it!
I find myself on the one hand thankful that
there’s an “Occupy Wall Street” movement but on the other hand I’m reminded
that the Mortgage catastrophe propped up by the insane “derivitives” market was
responding to us who wanted funding for homes we couldn’t afford. We’ve become addicted to debt; massive debt
that future generations will be burdened with for decades!
And drugs – Now there’s a roadway to
hell! The very standard of living of
some third world countries has become dependent upon the addictions of the
wealthiest nation of the earth! Drug
usage both illegal and proscription is at epidemic proportions and there seems
to be no turning back.
We use drugs, alcohol, food, entertainment
– you name your drug of choice - to run from the struggles and pain of life and
in consequence we live dream lives – not quite here and not quite there. Absent from anything and everything and each
other.
And so we come to the place where the value
of the unseen life of a baby is measured against the character of a young woman
awash in the cesspool of this culture of death and wonder why abortion is so
rampant.
Are we kidding ourselves! This sick world body ain’t going to be set
aright by proof texting or raging sermons against abortion!
The problem is we’ve forgotten who we are
and whose we are!
What will it take to awaken us all – and I
include the Christian community here – us – what’s it going to take to wake us
up!
For me and, I believe, for God the answer
is to remember who we are!
We’re His children, made in the image of
God. Brothers and sisters of Jesus
Christ!
Were I not a Christian I would be without
hope but I am convinced with St. Paul:
Rom.
8:38 . . . that neither death nor life,
neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39
neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to
separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
It is the love of God for us, His children
that I am convinced will restore us to sanity for, unlike us, He hasn’t
forgotten who we are and His love won’t choose for our death but rather will
always choose for our life. No one goes
unseen by God.
We may kill the baby but we can’t kill his
soul. Life eternal is and will always be
in the hands of God and he always and ever chooses life! May we choose with Him and may we carry his
cause in His love to the ends of His earth!
Amen and Amen!
And now let me close by reading that poem
once again:
“I
Am . . . Here!”
“I am . . . here” is the cry
of every single soul alive.
The baby in her mother’s womb.
The unwanted toddler come too
soon.
The young woman, an object,
unseen
In her provocative revealings.
The young man struggling to be
seen
In his camouflage beige and
green.
The sick old man on his death-bed
lying
unheard but not unseen crying
“I am here. I am here.
Don’t let me die!”
Another one said “I am here.”
We silenced Him in our terrible
fear.
But then heard with dulled and
deafened ears
His gently whispered “I am . . .
here!”
No cry goes unheard by Him.
Every soul born of men
Is seen and heard and then
remembered.
No soul is lost, no soul
forgotten
To such as He – the Unbegotten.
Who alone can say “I am”
and be heard by every man?
Can we learn to hear
others crying “I am here!”
To be like Him; the hearer of
all men.
The lover, father, brother,
friend.
We are all crying to be seen
but what of the voice of the
unseen?
Can we cry out for his
revealing?
Give her a voice with which to
cry
“I am here! I am here!
Don’t let me die
Let me discover who I am
Created in the image of The
Great I Am!”
Let us pray . . .
