Today's Sermon on Abortion: A Christian Response

In our times, there are those in religion and politics who take joy in building and setting of cultural bombs and watching the divisiveness they cause. Christians must engage themselves in the sacred, but dangerous work of “Dismantling Cultural Bombs.” Christians cannot, indeed must not, avoid being a part of today’s debates over crucial cultural issues.

We must weigh in and let it be known what Jesus had to say about these matters, or in the case of abortion, what he did not have to say. Polls show that too many preachers of the Gospel avoid the cultural issues of the day. I am not one of them.

Abortion is the longest running political and religious wars on the planet. It didn’t begin with Roe v. Wade. This debate began thousands of years ago and may not end for thousands more. Abortion, at the time of the prophets and Jesus was commonplace and either extremely dangerous or notoriously ineffective. For example, mercury, a toxic compound, was used to induce abortions.

Hippocrates, known for the “do no harm” Hippocratic Oath, performed abortions. Plato proclaimed the right of women terminate pregnancies 500 years before Christ was born. An ancient Egyptian medical text from the 3^rd millennium BCE, taught how to do abortions.

Chapter 5 of the Book of Numbers, written 1400 years before Christ was born, instructs priests how to force miscarriages by mixing holy water in an earthen vessel with dust from the tabernacle floor to make what scripture called “the waters of bitterness.”

When a wife became pregnant, having slept with a man not her husband, the priest could force her to drink the bitter waters, which along with a curse, induced miscarriage in a guilty woman. Noticeably absent is any consequence for the man who fathered the child.  

As Jesus walked the earth, unwanted babies in the Roman Empire could be lawfully taken from the womb, left to die if the father was dissatisfied for any reason with the newborn, for example when the child was a girl and not the son he wanted. There have been pro-life and pro-choice arguments since long before the birth of Jesus and they raged during his lifetime. Given that history, doesn’t it seem odd that neither Jesus nor other Biblical writer ever said a word about it?

True, early church fathers said a great deal about their own views, nearly all opposed to abortion. But, I am intrigued by the silence of the Son of God and God’s chosen prophets.

My evangelical friends take issue with my assertion that the Bible says nothing about abortion. They point to Jeremiah 1:4, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you,” but they take it out of the context that makes it clear God is speaking only about his prophet Jeremiah and that these are the words of Jeremiah’s consecration.

Some point to the Commandment that thou shall not kill to support their anti-abortion views though most who do so have no objection to the death penalty and war.   

Some clergy single out other verses, taking them out of context, and twisting them into a fuse to set off this cultural bomb; it’s just not there. Nothing in the Bible speaks to this issue. Nothing Jesus says. Nothing the prophets say. Nothing. And the silence is deafening. What conclusions can we draw from that silence?

I wrote this sermon with what Paul called fear and trembling though it’s an issue I’ve prayed about and thought about and grappled with for much of my career first as a politician, later as the head of Wyoming’s child protection agency, and now as a pastor.

Coincidentally, as I worked on this sermon, my old friend Charlie Hardy gave me two letters I wrote to his late and devoutly Catholic sister in 1973. I was a very young legislator, serving my 2^nd term in the State House. Abortion was a big issue in the immediate wake of Roe v. Wade and I was pro-life.

This one is dated February 19, 1973, I assured Francis I’d vote to protect the unborn. Five days later, I wrote her a second letter explaining how, after hearing an emotional debate including a colleague describing the anguish he and his wife lived through faced with this awful choice, I  voted against a bill that would have denied them that choice.

I tell you that so you’ll know how long I have grappled with this matter.

Let no one leave thinking that either God or I are pro-abortion. But then, I know of no one who is. I am sure it would please God if abortions ended just as it would please each of us if all pregnancies were healthy and all babies were loved and nurtured and  had the opportunity to grow up with all they need in life.

God knows better than we that life is not like that for millions of God’s beloved children waiting to come into this world and millions who are already here.

Why then is the Word of God silent on the issue? Perhaps the reason the Biblical writers and Jesus, all Jews, are mum on the subject is that Jewish law did not, then or now, share the belief of abortion opponents that life begins at conception, nor did it consider the fetus to be a full person deserving of protections accorded to human beings.

In 1^st Century Judea abortion was not just permitted if the mother was endangered, it was compelled in such cases. In Jewish Law from the earliest times to the present the mother's life has priority over that of a fetus at any stage of development. It is the woman’s decision, not the government’s and not the father’s.

Maybe that’s why Jesus and the Hebrew prophets didn’t talk about abortion. And maybe there’s another reason. Maybe they didn’t talk about abortion because they didn’t think it was any of their business.

Maybe they knew what they didn’t know. They knew they could not know the deeply personal emotional and spiritual pain confronting pregnant women faced with this choice.

They were aware of those times when a pregnancy threatened the life of the mother and/or the baby, or when circumstances surrounding a pregnancy and the absence of support from the father, the family, and the community made it impossible for the woman to meet basic needs of a newborn or when the pregnancy resulted from sexual violence or other circumstances so deeply personal that a question of terminating the pregnancy was considered.

Perhaps these God-infused men were silent because they concluded it was a matter of the woman’s free will to be decided by her in quiet, personal dialogue with her God.

Maybe Jesus was saying, “Let’s kick this one upstairs to the God of Creation. He and the woman can handle this. The rule makers in the Temple and the government should stay out of it.

No one can sit in a legislative chamber or stand at a pulpit and know all the facts or circumstances known only to a woman faced with the horrible choice. But, God knows.

Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of a woman late in her pregnancy. She expects to carry it to term. She’s chosen a name, bought blankets and a crib, redecorated a bedroom for the expected child. Friends have had baby showers. Grandparents-to-be are excited.

Then, one day, comes devastating medical news about the viability of the pregnancy. An impossible, unthinkable, awful choice must be made. Who do you think God believes should make that choice?

If she looks for a Biblical guide through that minefield, God provided it through free-will. That’s not freedom to make flippant choices but the freedom to make a personal choice of conscience, guided by faith and her own, deeply personal relationship with her God.

God’s hope is there would be no need for abortion, that women got pregnant only in loving, responsible relationships, and that all pregnancies were healthy, fewer children were awaiting adoptions, fewer abused and neglected children were in foster care, that laws and policies were in place to help all mothers and fathers provide all that their babies would need.

But, there’s nothing Biblical about allowing the government a place in the decision-making process. The woman has a greater love for the well-being of that child than the government ever exhibited. She will consult with doctors, calculate the medical advice, discuss it with her spiritual adviser, and where appropriate with the father of the child.

In the end, it is her decision and politicians, preachers, and people of faith should focus instead on what Jesus said about feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, healing the sick. Now, that’s something Jesus and the prophets spent a lot of time talking about.

It’s not always the health of the mother or fetus that make this choice difficult. It is also the politicians who cut food stamps, refuse to raise minimum wages, oppose universal healthcare and safe, affordable housing and child care, and oppose equal pay for women.

Jesus and the prophets were aware of cultural and health barriers that existed in the lives of women facing pregnancy. Maybe that’s why they judged not those women they knew were getting abortions and instead spent their time talking about caring for widows, the poor and orphans.

We Presbyterians have some guidance on the issue. In 2006, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA issued a statement saying in part: “When a woman faces the decision whether to terminate a pregnancy, the issue is intensely personal, and may manifest itself in ways that do not reflect public rhetoric, or do not fit neatly into medical, legal, or policy guidelines. Humans are empowered by the spirit to prayerfully make significant moral choices, including the choice to continue or end a pregnancy. Human choices should not be made in a moral vacuum, but must be based on Scripture, faith, and Christian ethics. For any choice, we are accountable to God; however, even when we err, God offers to forgive us.”

Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, the head of the PCUSA, of which Highlands is a part, more recently said, “There is growing and widespread concern in the wake of Alabama’s recent anti-abortion legislation, which will almost totally prohibit any such procedure and remove from the pregnant woman and her attendant physician any choice in the matter whatsoever.

“As Presbyterians,” he continued, “we are part of a church that has wrestled with this issue for decades, guided by actions of our General Assemblies on the matter. Perhaps the most important was taken by the 1983 General Assembly, which addressed abortion in the context of the plight of women who had limited access to medical care during pregnancy, or who did not feel they had the resources to raise a child.”

His statement concludes, “As this matter grows in prominence in the news and possibly within our church communities, may we all be mindful of the integrity of women and physicians who are at the center of the controversy and may we be more responsible in nurturing the life that is already among us.”

How do we dismantle this cultural bomb? With honesty. The Biblical writers and Jesus were aware that abortions were being conducted in their communities. Jesus and the prophets decided not to make it their business. They left the choice to the woman and her God.

Furthermore, we dismantle this cultural bomb by following the example of Jesus and the prophets, by doing what they did. Banning abortions will not end them. What will significantly reduce their numbers is to do what Jesus and the prophets did and what they did was to make it their business to work for the well-being of the struggling children and families living among them.

So it should be among all who follow Jesus. AMEN.