Revelation 21:10,22–22:5; John 5:1-9
Here we are at Memorial Day weekend. As Abraham Lincoln said at the cemetery at Gettysburg,
we remember and give thanks for those who’ve given “the last full measure of
devotion” in service to our country. Memorial
Day isn’t a feast on the church calendar, but it still seems an appropriate
time to pray for those who have died in our armed forces and to pray for the
nation they gave their lives to serve.
I have to say that I’m concerned about
this nation they gave their lives to serve.
That’s not because of a single person, or a single issue, or even several
issues, but because of the way we’ve come to deal with issues these days –
running to our respective corners of disagreement and approaching public policy
as a zero-sum game. By definition, that
polarization separates us from one another precisely at the time when what we
need most is to find common ground.
Among the issues where we see this polarization
play out is one that’s been in the news a lot over the past few months, so much
that people have asked me why I haven’t said anything about it. That issue is abortion, a political potato so
hot that “smart” preachers never talk about it.
Honestly, I don’t want to talk about it, because no matter what I say, I’m
guaranteed to make some of you angry.
More than that, as I’ve said before, you don’t need or want your clergy
pretending to be experts in public policy just because we have collars around
our necks. If you want to know what I,
personally, think about abortion, I’m happy to get together with you; but I don’t
think a sermon is the place for that.
Still, I do think abortion is worth a sermon, not because I have “the answer”
but because people turn to the Church to hear its voice on things like this. And that voice must be a voice of Good News. That voice must be a voice of hope. So, is there Good News for the Church to
proclaim about this seemingly unsolvable issue?
You probably know the legislative highlights
of the past five months or so. At one
end of the spectrum, New York has removed criminal penalties for injury to a
fetus when a pregnant woman is assaulted, which abortion opponents see as a
step toward taking away the personhood of a fetus completely, regardless of the
length of gestation.1 Virginia
legislators considered a measure that would have repealed some restrictions on
abortion, lowering the bar related to how much harm the birth would cause the
mother and allowing abortion even at the end of term.2 At the other end of the spectrum, Missouri has
just made abortion illegal past eight weeks’ gestation – the point when fetal
heart tones begin and a point before
many women know they’re pregnant. With
this action, Missouri joins several other states in passing “heartbeat” laws
about abortion, seeking presenting cases they hope will overturn Roe v. Wade.3
For me, and for at least half of you, this
controversy plays out not in lived experience but in conversation. As I said, over the past few months, people on
both sides have shared their passionate beliefs with me, implicitly or
explicitly asking me to speak or write on their behalf. In fact, I’ve had two conversations just
recently, one over breakfast and one over a beer. One person saw the issue completely in terms
of a woman’s autonomy over her own body and health; the other saw the issue primarily
in terms of a fetus’ complete vulnerability and society’s duty to protect it. In other words, people on opposite sides of this
moral issue were both looking to the Church to affirm their convictions.
And both of my conversation partners could
root that expectation in the same place.
In the Episcopal Church, our job description as followers of Jesus Christ
can be found in black and white in the Book
of Common Prayer – the Baptismal Covenant (304-305). From the three strands of authority we
recognize – from Scripture, tradition, and reason – we’ve come to identify
these baptismal promises as fundamental to faithful discipleship. And I think the last of those promises is where
both my conversation partners would point to support their divergent positions:
It’s the promise that we will “strive
for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human
being” (BCP 305).
You can make a good case that both women
and fetuses fall into a class of people who have been or might be threatened in
terms of their human dignity. Over
pancakes, one conversation partner was highlighting the historical
disempowerment of women, socially and legally, particularly their lack of
autonomy over their own bodies. Over a
beer, the other conversation partner was highlighting the disempowerment of
those who will be, or are, human beings but who can’t speak for themselves from
the womb. Both could have turned to the
Bible to bolster their case. You can
point to scripture like Psalm 139 to affirm God’s love for us as unique
individuals, even in the womb; and you can point to Jesus’ advocacy for marginalized
women when he affirmed their full human autonomy in the face of social oppression.
Both my conversation partners saw a need
to protect the dignity of people whose full humanity has been threatened or
denied.
What happens when there are competing
claims on that Gospel value of human dignity? And what do we do when those competing claims
drive us apart and deafen us to one another’s authentic cry for justice?
Perhaps through our readings this morning –
on this weekend when we honor a nation worth dying for – perhaps God might
speak a word of Good News, even a word of hope.
And I believe that word of hope is this: “healing.”
In our Gospel reading, Jesus visits a pool
where broken people come to be healed.
The blind, the lame, and the paralyzed come to this pool of Beth-zatha, where
apparently healing happens by immersing oneself in the life-giving waters. There, Jesus sees a man who’s been coming to
this pool a long, long time, someone who’s been blind or lame or paralyzed for
38 years. Thirty-eight years. By this
point, illness and disability have become second nature for this man; he
probably can’t imagine what it would feel like to be healthy. “Broken” has become his way of life.
So, Jesus looks the man in the eye and
asks a question that just seems wrong – wrong in at least a couple of
ways. He asks, “Do you want to be made
well?” (John 5:6). We might hear that as
a dumb question: This is a disabled man
at a healing pool; of course he wants to be made well. Or, we might hear it as a question so direct
as to be almost rude: “What are you
doing? After 38 years, you haven’t found
a way to get yourself to the healing water?
Do you want to be made well?” Myself, I hear it that second way. Sometimes love is confrontational, and I
think this is one of those times. No
more excuses, Jesus says. “Stand up,
take your mat, and walk” (5:8), because God needs you out there, working for
the kingdom.
But, you know, God doesn’t just desire our
healing as individuals. God’s purposes
include the healing of this nation and of all the nations. We heard it in the reading this morning from
Revelation. In this vision of the city
of God, the vision of eternal life that’s awaiting us all, the nations of the
earth come and bring their glory to God’s throne – people once at war with each
other, people who’ve cut each other down for generations. They will come to the throne bringing God “the
glory and the honor of the nations” (Revelation 21:26); and there, they will be
healed of all that’s left them broken – all the pain that comes from our
chronic inability to listen to the heart of the other. And there, when God brings the heavenly city to
our redeemed earth, we will find the “river of the water of life” flowing
through the city (Revelation 22:1); and beside that river will be the tree of
life itself – the fruit of the tree from the garden of Eden now freely
available to us all – “and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the
nations” (22:2). That’s where God is calling us – toward the healing of the nations. God’s dream of love includes the coming
together of even those who’ve never heard each other’s hearts.
That’s hope. That’s healing. And we don’t have to wait until the second
coming to find it. In fact, I believe
God asks us to seek it, even – especially – in the bitterness of our deepest divides.
If you were here a few weeks ago, you may remember
a sermon about breakfast on the beach.
Jesus met Peter, and grilled fish for him, and worked through Peter’s denial
and the rupture of their relationship. I
believe God has a similar call for us now.
And on this Memorial Day weekend, nothing less is at stake than the health
of this nation worth dying for.
That call is something as simple as sharing
pancakes, or sharing a beer. Find someone
you disagree with. Make time for breakfast
or a drink together. And then listen to
one another’s heart. God’s desire for us
is healing – healing of our own wounds, and our nation’s wounds, and our world’s
wounds. And I believe the most effective
way each of us can be agents of healing is to put human dignity first –
beginning with the person sitting across the table from you.
Even in the abortion debate, there is Good
News to be found. For God is calling us
to practice a way of hope. God is
calling us to practice a way of healing. As Jesus might say, the question is: Do we want to be made well?
1.
“Reproductive
Health Act.” Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reproductive_Health_Act. Accessed May 24, 2019.
2.
“Repeal
Act (Virginia).” Wikipedia. Available at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repeal_Act_(Virginia). Accessed May 24, 2019.
3.
Thomas,
Crystal. “Missouri House approves near-total
abortion ban, sends it to governor for signature.” Kansas City Star, May 17, 2019.
Available at: https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article230523469.html.
Accessed May 24, 2019.
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