“WHEN IT’S A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH”
JEREMIAH 1:4-10
4 Now the word of the LORD came to
me saying,
5 "Before I formed you in the womb
I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations."
6 Then I said, "Ah, Lord GOD! Truly
I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy."
7 But the LORD said to me, "Do not
say, 'I am only a boy'; for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you,
8 Do not be afraid of them, for I
am with you to deliver you, says the LORD."
9 Then the LORD put out his hand and
touched my mouth; and the LORD said to me, "Now I have put my words in your mouth.
10 See, today I appoint you over nations
and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant."
At some point I give the
same advice to every one of our student ministers. The advice is simple. Never
ask a question during a Children’s Message unless you’re sure you’re going to get the answer that you want. Joel Greenfield one of our former student ministers learned that lesson the hard way.
He was trying to help the children understand that change is often good, but it can also be a little scary. He did his best to get that message across to the children by reminding them what it’s like when
you loose a baby tooth. After you lose that baby tooth you get a new tooth. “But,”
Joel asked, “what does it feel like just before you pull that baby tooth out?”
Immediately one of the children became very animated and shouted, “I know.
I know. It feels like five bucks.”
I had a similar experience
many years ago when I was a student minister. Everything was going along just
fine until I asked the children who made the heavens and the earth. At that point a very precocious ten-year-old boy raised
his hand and told me all about the
scientific theory of the big. As went on and on about cosmic dust, comets and
quasars I thought to myself, “What am I going to do now?” Fortunately,
the Lord was with me that day. When he finished I nodded my head and agreed.
“That sounds pretty good to me,” I said, “but there’s
one thing I want to know, ‘Who lit the match?’”
The answer to that question
of course is simple. God lit the match.
We believe in You O God,
eternal Spirit. God of our Savior Jesus Christ and our God, and to Your deeds we testify.
You call the worlds into being and create persons in Your own image.
God is the alpha and the
omega, the beginning and the end. God is the One who gives you the gift of life
and God is the One you’ll return to when you life here on earth is done. What that means of course is that all life
is sacred. You can see that by looking at the words that God spoke to Jeremiah. Jeremiah
was probably somewhere between 13 and 17 years of age when God called him to be a prophet. Because of his age Jeremiah was
a little reluctant to answer that call to be a prophet.
“Ah, LORD, God,”
Jeremiah says, “I am only a boy.” In other words, “I can’t do this LORD. I’m too young and inexperienced.” That’s
the way Jeremiah saw himself. It’s not the way God saw him though. God tells Jeremiah not to say that he’s only a boy and then says these powerful
words, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you…before you were born I consecrated you…”
Those powerful words suggest
that God knew Jeremiah before he was even born. If that’s true then is it possible that God also knew you and me before
we were even born? Is it possible that God also had a relationship with us and loved us before we took our first breath of
air?
Turn to the psalms and you’ll
see that the answer to that question is ‘yes.’ Long ago the psalmist
declared, “For it was you who formed my inward parts; you who knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made…My frame was not hidden from you, when I was
being made in secret…Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed
for me, when none of them as yet existed.”
Now here’s a question
for you. Do you think the these ancient words have anything to say to us when it comes to some of the important issues that
we’re wrestling with these days? Issues like abortion, the death penalty,
assisted suicide, stem cell research and the ability to clone life itself.
All those ancient
words make me wonder if we’ve become too comfortable playing God when it comes to matters of life and death. They make me wonder if we’ve become too comfortable playing God when it comes to who gets to live
and who gets to die.
The words that God spoke
to Jeremiah reminded me the other day of something Archie Bunker said once. You remember Archie Bunker right? In is book,
Good Man And Archie Bunker, Spencer Marsh shares a scene from All In The Family. It’s a scene where Archie makes it
clear to Mike that he doesn’t believe in using organ transplants to prolong a person’s life. In his usual animated way Archie says, “When you gotta
go, you gotta go. You go because he wants
you. And when he wants you. And he don’t want no quack doctors putting new hearts into you and keeping you
here against his will, ‘cause it throws him off his schedule. It throws
him all off. Now you do that to him…throw his schedule off like that, and
when you get up there, you’ll have to answer to him, won’t you? Because
he’ll want to know why you didn’t come up when you were called. Why
you were late.”
Now most people would disagree
with Archie’s position when it comes to organ transplants, but there is a
lot of merit to his underlying argument. Have we become too comfortable playing
God when it comes to who gets to live and who gets to die?
Now I’ll admit that
I’ve never had to decide if I’m going to have an abortion. So, I
don’t know what it’s like to be in those shoes and I’m not going to condemn anyone who has made that decision. I also don’t know what it’s like to loose someone close to me because
of a stupid and senseless act of violence. So, I’m not going to condemn
someone who has and wants the guilty person put to death. It is possible though
that I may one day find myself struggling with a debilitating disease and wondering if I should be allowed to just let go
and die in peace.
What would you do if you
found yourself in that situation? Maybe you’d want the freedom to bring your life to an end. Then again, maybe you’d react the same way a farmer reacted after he was involved in a terrible accident. It happened while the farmer was driving his truck.
The farmer had his faithful dog by his side and a much loved horse in the back of the truck. Unfortunately, the farmer was driving too fast and the truck ended up tumbling violently off the road. When a state trooper arrived on the scene he found the horse lying in a ditch clinging
to its life. So, the trooper did the only humane thing he could do. He took his gun out and put the poor animal out of its misery. The
trooper also put the badly injured dog out of its misery. It wasn’t until
then that the trooper heard the badly injured farmer moaning in some nearby bushes. “Are you okay?” the trooper asked. The farmer looked at the trooper standing there with his gun. Then he looked at all of his cuts and broken bones and said very emphatically, “To tell you the truth
officer, I never felt better in my life!”
Many years ago I found myself
talking to an elderly woman who did want her life to come to an end. I was just
a young and inexperienced minister when I went to see this elderly woman. She
was in the hospital at the time and living with a cancer that was both terminal and very painful. After doing my best to comfort the elderly woman I asked her if there was anything I could do for her before
I left. Instead of asking for a prayer she looked at me through her pain and
said, “Yes. There is something you can do for me. Would you please take
this pillow and hold it over my face until I stop breathing?” I was stunned.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “but I can’t do that.” The
elderly woman then closed her eyes and said very firmly, “Then what good are you?”
Abortion, the
death penalty, assisted suicide, and the ability to clone life itself, they’re all difficult questions. They’re difficult question though that need to be answered in light of those powerful words
that God spoke long ago to the prophet Jeremiah. “Before I formed you in
the womb I knew you…before you were born I consecrated you…”
Instead of playing God, maybe
we better let God be God. Unfortunately, we live in a society that doesn’t
encourage you to do that. We live in a society that keeps finding new ways to
minimize and marginalize God. It’s very similar to the experience that
a five-year-old boy had one day while playing with a new toy. The toy was one
of those Speak-and-Spell electronic gadgets. The boy kept pressing different
letters and the toy kept saying the words back to him. After a while the boy
typed the letters G- O – D. Much to his surprise the electronic voice announced,
“Word not found.” The boy typed the letters G- O – D again
and once again the electronic voice announced, “Word not found.” At
that point a disgusted look came over the boy’s face and he said very sternly, “You know, Jesus isn’t going
to like this!”
When you take God out of
a toy it’s not a big deal. When you take God out of your life and start
playing God yourself it is a big deal. In fact, sometimes it’s a matter
of life and death. Amen.
Rev. Dr. Richard A. Hughes
January 28, 2007
