Scriptures: Deuteronomy 30:11-20; John 10:1-10
I wasn’t quite ready to preach this sermon last week, or I would have done it. I may still not be ready to preach it this week, but I’m going to do it anyway.
During the time I was away from church, there were, as you know, several things going on in the world that dominated the news: the sound and the fury surrounding Terry Schiavo, and then her eventual death, and also of course the illness of Pope John Paul II, and his eventual death. I didn’t follow either of those stories with any great intensity and feel no particular need now to weigh in either on the specifics of the Terry Schiavo case or to make some assessment of John Paul’s papacy and whether he was a great man, a great Christian, or a great pope. I just don’t feel particularly well qualified to be making grand pronouncements about what may have been right or wrong with regard to Terry Schiavo, good or bad about the tenure of the Pope, though I have my opinions.
On the other hand, these were to say the least high profile news items and short of being in a coma myself I could hardly have avoided being aware of the situations and thinking about the issues they raised, the many issues they raised. One of the reasons I wasn’t ready to even mention Terry Schiavo or the Pope last Sunday is that there were so many issues raised—easily a couple of dozen that could each have been the subject of a sermon all by itself—and I didn’t know which way to go with all that sermon material. As I say, I’m not sure how much further along I am now—this is still probably going to be a sermon that really ought to be at least several sermons, and maybe will be at some point—but as I have continued to mull things over, I found myself being drawn back to a phrase that George Bush used several times in public comments, and that he used in his inaugural address, and maybe he was using it before that, though I have only taken note of it more recently—the idea that we ought to be involved in building up a “culture of life”.
I agree with that. I support the idea of trying to create a culture of life. My religious tradition calls me to the task from Moses saying to his people, “I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life…”, to Jesus saying, “I have come that all may have life and have it abundantly”. The spirit of those scriptures and many others can quite legitimately be interpreted to mean that we are to be about the task of creating a “culture of life”. My own instincts or sensitivities point me in the same direction as scripture. Choose life. Embrace life. Embrace life’s abundance. Build up a culture of life. How can we not, as Christians, as human beings want to be engaged in building up a culture of life?
The trouble, of course, is in knowing exactly what those words mean. The trouble is that people seem willing to use the phrase as though its meaning were specific, limited, and obvious, when I’m afraid that is not the case. With all due respect to Moses and Jesus, they didn’t exactly lay it out—what choosing life would mean or what abundant life is exactly. And in our situation, if we’re going to talk about creating a “culture of life”, and I do think it’s a perfectly good phrase and something we should talk about, but if we’re going to talk about creating a culture of life there are at least some questions that we ought to be asking.
Some of those questions are pretty apparent and were suggested by even the briefest review of the various positions Pope John Paul was identified with. Many people pointed out that from a certain perspective there was a consistency about the Pope’s various positions such that he ended up frustrating or angering just about everyone, and by the same token pleasing just about everyone, at one time or another. Though he made clear, very clear, that he supported the traditional Catholic teaching on abortion, he also was public in his opposition to capital punishment and the war in Iraq. At least the way things play out in the United States, a large majority of people could probably find something there to be upset about. But it does raise the question—not a new question, but a still unresolved question—why would any one of those issues be of concern from a “culture of life” perspective but not another? Why would the availability of legal abortions be a threat to a culture of life but sending people off to war or having people killed by the state not be a threat to a culture of life? And vice versa. Why would capital punishment be of concern to someone who cared about creating a culture of life but abortion not be of concern? There may be answers to those questions, good and convincing answers as to why one issue is relevant but not another, but those answers are not just ridiculously obvious and apparent, at least not to this Christian.
It is also not apparent to this Christian that saying you believe in creating a culture of life necessarily makes it clear what position a person should have on even one issue, much less whether that position is consistent with other positions a person might hold. With regard to abortion, for instance, might it not be that nurturing a culture of life would have less to do with passing laws and more to do with making sure that women have available to them accurate information, competent medical care, caring counsel, and adequate support during and after unwanted pregnancies?
And asking that question leads, I’m afraid, to still more questions. What about life after birth? Might it not be that trying to build up a real culture of life, as opposed to taking a stand on one or two issues, suggests that children, all children, be well nourished, cared for, and educated. Might it suggest funds for day care and head start and public education? Or does a culture of life have nothing to do with the quality of life at the beginning or end or in the middle? And speaking of competent medical care should there be good and compassionate care for the Pope and Terry Schiavo and pregnant women and children, both wanted and unwanted and for everyone? Doesn’t it seem like a culture of life ought to mean at least that much, and doesn’t that maybe suggest some system of universal health care?
And just the idea of universal health care leads me to still another question. Doesn’t the phrase “culture of life” imply that it includes everyone? If it doesn’t then were not talking about a culture of anything and certainly not a culture of life.
I happened to read—maybe some of you came across this as well—as I say I wasn’t reading everything I could get my hands on, so I came across this sort of accidentally—a reference to a child named Sun Hudson. Sun Hudson, who happens to have been African American, and whose mother happens to have been uninsured and unmarried, was born last September with an as-of-now incurable disease that prevented his lungs from developing. Doctors gave no hope that he would live a full life. His mother fought to keep him alive on life support in the hope of a miracle or a medical break-through or just to have him with her as long as she could. On March 15, under the provisions of a Texas law called the futile care law dealing with patients who are in critical condition but uninsured, doctors removed his life support. Though he died almost immediately, he was fully conscious up to the time the life support was removed.
Sun Hudson’s situation was as heart-rending and raised at least as many difficult questions as did Terry Schiavo’s, but there was very little attention paid to him. I am not going to suggest that there was something unethical about Sun Hudson’s death. I said I didn’t follow all the details of Terry Schiavo’s story. I really don’t know the details of Sun Hudson’s situation. But of course that is just the point. Terry Schiavo attracted all sorts of attention. There are numberless people who don’t get the attention or the care Terry Schiavo got. It makes the idea of a culture of life seem a bit empty.
When I happened across the reference to Sun Hudson, I couldn’t help but remember the harrowing true story Enid Krieger wrote about in the first issue of our Sojourners journal, Journey. Enid’s story is a first hand account, and I can’t tell it nearly as effectively as she, but it was about the birth of a premature infant—actually two premature babies, one born to a black, unmarried, uninsured woman in a public hospital in Harlem, the other born to the wife of an attending physician at a private hospital. The black baby weighed about 12 ounces and at first it seemed there were no signs of life until one of the nurses noticed some movement in the chest. The baby was breathing. In spite of this, and in spite of the nurses’ pleas to do something, the resident directed the nurses to wrap the fetus up. It was just a fetus and wouldn’t survive. When the nurses refused, the resident called in the attending physician who with an attitude of disdain—these are Enid’s words now—“removed from the shelf a large bottle filled with formaldehyde…unscrewed the top of the bottle, and after looking at us with one more sneer, dropped the tiny black infant with the beating heart into the jar.” Enid goes on to describe how a year earlier she had witnessed a birth almost identical to this one, a 12 ounce baby just barely breathing but in this case born to a well-insured, privileged, white family where the father in addition was one of the attending physicians. Every resource the hospital possessed had been marshaled to try to keep the baby alive. And the efforts were successful. After 10 months of round the clock, one-on-one nursing care and the best efforts of modern medicine, a five-pound girl named Teresa was released from the hospital and went home to live with her parents. How are we doing at building a “culture of life”?
My answer to that question is that we have a long way to go on a whole lot of fronts. Having said that, I hope you were not looking for uncomplicated and unequivocal, clear moral guidelines for how to deal with beginning of life and end of life decision-making or expecting me to put forward my 12-point program for how to bring about a culture of life. I do have some general principles that I feel like I need to try to articulate even though, like everything else I’ve been saying this morning, they deserve more careful and thoughtful treatment than I’m able to do in these few minutes. I have a belief that grows out of my faith and that puts me in company with many people who I may come out on different sides of issues with. It is that we humans are possessed with what one theologian I remember describing as “an alien dignity”, meaning that the worth of our lives does not depend on what we make of ourselves. There is a value to every human life apart from our usefulness, our productivity, our creativity, cogency, or helpfulness. That value comes from somewhere else. It is not a result of our efforts to prove that we are worth something, even though many of us spend an awful lot of time trying to do just that. A life is not more valuable because it is more educated, more talented, or more privileged. Jesus may have come that we may have life and have it abundantly, and we may long for abundant living whatever that means for us, but life does not need to be abundant to have value. And the question of when life ceases to be worth living is one that we best approach with big doses of humility.
At the same time I have a belief rooted in my faith, that embracing life, or working toward a culture of life is not the same thing as resisting death at all costs. From a faith perspective, death is not the worst thing that can happen. From a faith perspective a culture of life must be distinguished from a culture that is engaged in a denial of death, that doesn’t see death as a part of life. From a perspective of faith a culture of life is not the same as a culture in search of perpetual youth, that doesn’t value aging and often tries to hide it, that seeks more than anything to prolong life and hide dying. From a perspective of faith, there is a difference between affirming life and prolonging death. From a perspective of faith a culture that acknowledges the limits of living at the same time makes the living we do more precious. And the question of when in the name of life we may need to let go of life, or let loved ones let go, is one that we best approach with big doses of humility.
All of which suggests that one of the first needs we have so far as shaping something that approximates a culture of life is a profound awareness of both the sacredness and the ambiguity of our living and our dying. There are no definitive answers to the many questions raised by thinking about a culture of life, no definitive answers just sitting, waiting to be discovered if we can only think a little harder or find someone who can come along and spell it all out for us. If we value life, we will value its sacred ambiguity. We do well to abandon pronouncements in favor of prayer. We do well to look less for moral certainty and more for compassion. Given who Jesus was I think there is a very good chance that that is what he meant by abundant living. Amen.
Jim Bundy
April 17, 2005