Pastor’s Page

Volume 12 Week 45 November 5, 2006

The Church and Issues of Human Life!

Speaking With A Prophetic Voice Is Not Easy, But Part of Our Calling!

Prophet is a lonely job. It’s no fun speaking out against wrong, but it’s a job each of us has been given by our calling into Christ. As uncomfortable as it can sometimes make us, the children of God in this world are the living, breathing spokespersons for the will of God in heaven.

Most prophets in the Old Testament record their resistance to the call. Moses said, “I don’t have the gifts!” Jeremiah said, “I’m too young!” Amos said, “I’m just a simple farmer!” Isaiah said, “They won’t listen!” And in truth, they were all right. None of them was suited for the task, and the people, most often, did not listen.

But it’s never about the messenger. It’s always about the message. In every case, God had a word to deliver to a world that had gone wrong, gotten out of line with His will, and in every case that word was spoken. It was often without effect, but it was spoken.

Missouri is embroiled in a shouting match concerning the ethics of embryonic stem cell research and a proposed amendment to our state’s constitution. Some have argued that it is the Church’s place to remain silent.

It’s obvious why they feel that way. Some who supposedly speak for the Church of Christ in our generation have given Jesus and His word a bad reputation by speaking out where they ought to have kept silent. We are called to speak, but only where God’s word is explicitly clear. That calling to speak has too often been abused.

But the matter before us, according to the clear teaching of God’s word, invites the voice of the Church, calling us to make clear to the world what God has said about matters of life.

I’m embarrassed that so many in our churches and in our own Lutheran Church do not know what the Bible teaches about the holiness and immeasurable value that God places on human life. Look to the cross of Jesus if you want to know how He feels about the value of life. Jesus would do anything to save a life, to bring a human being into the presence of the Father for eternal blessedness.

I was tempted earlier this week to use the Pastor’s Page as a forum for teaching, going through the Bible and recounting the creation where God breathed the breath of life into the dust of the earth and made us in His own image. I was tempted to enumerate the many, many times when God spoke of those lives whom He knew by name from the moment of their conception, including our Lord Jesus. I was strongly considering a review of the call we have been given to defend human life, especially the lives of the weakest among us.

All of that is certainly needed. It’s tragic that Christians don’t know God’s word and that the hearts and minds of God’s children are shaped and formed by culture and by human nature, and not by His word. Please do something about that. If you need help as you go to the Bible this week before the vote, I’d be glad to help. There are plenty of resources to guide you.

So instead of using this forum for teaching, let me instead use it as a place to issue a calling: speak with the prophetic voice you’ve been given.

I’m not the greatest student of Church history, but a quick overview of our worst moments reveals a recurring theme: silence at all the wrong times.

At the final day, at the appearing of Jesus, all who dance joyfully into the eternal blessedness of glory will run to find those faithful proclaimers who shared with them the great good news of the Savior’s love. Our thankfulness for the word that showed us our sins and then showed our Savior will be beyond measure. We’ll look back at our lives and accomplishments and finally realize that the only thing that ever truly mattered was that God spoke through the words of those who were bold enough to point out our failures and faults, and them tell us God’s plan for salvation through the forgiveness Jesus gives.

At that final day, we’ll be glad for the prophets of God, our parents, Sunday School teachers, our friends, whoever it was who directed us to the truth.

We owe it to our neighbors to speak out about the dangerous pathway our society is on, this continuing step in the devaluing of human life that is proposed in Amendment 2.

I’m sorry that so much of the rhetoric in this very heated debate has twisted and manipulated the truth. I sincerely apologize if any of the information disseminated by our congregation has added to that misinformation. The advocates of both sides do not need our help in the shouting match that rages around us. Our intention is communicating truth.

Our purpose has to remain sharing the saving love of Christ with those around us who are suffering.

Sometimes the care for suffering is offered through the healing arts, often with a cure, but never with an escape from death, our final enemy. The progress of the past few decades of human history is unparalleled. (I’ve had a couple of nasty bouts myself with pneumonia that my grandfather might not have survived!) We should all be thankful for cures developed through research. Ethical debates have always surrounded such research. The lines have too often been crossed. People of conscience and people of the word have spoken into the debate before, and will again.

I’m convinced that this is one of those times to speak.

But I’m even more convinced of our calling to provide care where there is no cure.

Suffering is a part of this world caught between the cross and our Lord’s return. Jesus, we are told, sometimes walked away from the crowds before everyone received his healing touch. He offered His apostles and others who followed the Spirit’s gift of miraculous healing, but it has always been far from universally given.

In fact, Jesus and the apostles clearly taught that the way of this world would always be the way of suffering. We do all we can to alleviate pain and suffering through the technologies of the healing arts, but not more than we can. The utopian dream of universal cures is foolishness.

But the Christian calling to care and love and protect the weakest among us, including the unborn, is our mandate that cannot be ignored.

If you find this a painful and difficult tension to live with, you have joined with every generation of saints before you. We do all we can, but not more, and into the suffering of the human condition we speak the words of hope to all, the words of the Suffering Servant who entered our pain, more than we’ll ever know, so that we might find the cure for death itself.

As you go to the polls Tuesday, be informed. Understand the issues around somatic cell nuclear transfer. More importantly, understand God’s love for every human life.

And understand that the battle for the hearts and minds of all people will never be won at the polls. That battle is won one person at a time, when our witness in word and action to the saving love of Christ brings another of God’s dearly loved into His forever family.

That’s God’s intention for every human life.