Sermon No. 1

A Matter Of Life And Death

Today is Sanctity of Human Life Day. Why just human life, I don't know. Schweitzer used the phrase, Reverence for Life, and included animal life. As did Gandhi, Thoreau, Tolstoy and many others.

Life . . . death. The implications of both life and death are many and complicated. They include health care, abortion, the death penalty, ecology, war, euthanasia, suicide, diet, environment . . .

Health care is probably the most pressing issue of the moment. That is of special concern to us who are getting older.

We Americans spend more on health care than any other country -- 40% more than Canada, 90% more than Germany, 100% more than Japan. Still, 58 million people lacked insurance for at least part of the year.

In 10 years, the average family income increased by 88%, while average family health care costs went up 147%. Twenty years ago the average family spent $1 of every $11 of income on health care; Now it is $1 of every $6 income! Health care for the elderly (us!) doubled in the 80's, tripled in the 90's.

Congressional studies indicate that 20 - 30% of present medical procedures are unwarranted. You need to listen to my wife -- Lucille constantly tells us to "ask the doctor questions and insist on answers!"

The cost of medicine rose 152% in 10 years. If you were a mule it would cost $14 for exactly the same medicine which, because you are a human, costs $1,495! A drug that costs $1.50 in Mexico costs $30 across the border in U.S.! A drug vital to AIDS patients costs $26 in Europe, $150 in U.S. A drug for Parkinson's disease costs $28 in Italy, $420 here. Even Valium, which costs $9.70 at your local drug store, has an average world cost of $3.60! Do we need reform of some kind?

Our present system is based primarily on private insurance. The insurance companies want us to continue the present system. They say the private sector is better qualified to manage health care than the government. My response is that they have had many years to do it, but have never provided for low-income people!

Physician-assisted suicide is illegal in Michigan. Because of Jack Kevorkian's activities and because of the response of those who disagree with his point of view, Michigan legislature passed a law in record haste, making physician-assisted suicide illegal. A Detroit judge declared the law unconstitutional! The matter is far from settled, while Kevorkian is in jail!

If it is immoral to help someone end his life, is it moral to help someone extend his life? Is it moral to connect a person to life-extending machinery, especially if the person does not want it so?

And if the sick person is too sick to make such a decision for himself, who should have the prerogative -- his physician? family? rabbi, imam, priest, minister, lawyer? Those are questions we need to contemplate before circumstances force us to do so.

Should the state be empowered to make such a decision legal or illegal? If it is legal, what safeguards should be put into the law? If it is illegal, what should be done when physicians prescribe pain medications which can be taken in lethal doses? One survey of Michigan physicians indicated that 17% of them admit doing so!

Euthanasia, closely related to assisted suicide, is equally confusing. Should it be legalized? If so, who should make the decision, under what circumstances, and how should it be activated?

Is all life sacred, a la Albert Schweitzer, who would not permit the swatting of flies and mosquitoes? and who was a vegetarian on the basis of the immorality of killing? Is hunting immoral when for sport, but moral when for food? Martina Navratilova, famous tennis star and vegetarian, asks, "How can you have one animal for a pet and another for lunch?"

If human life is really sacred, is war moral? Is capital punishment moral? Is it morally right to shoot someone who is threatening your life? What if he is threatening someone else?

Christians have always been active in the moral decisions of society. Christians approved slavery; Christians opposed slavery. Christians approved children working in factories; Christians opposed children working in factories. Christians approve corporal punishment; Christians oppose corporal punishment. Christians approve and promote capitalism; Other Christians disapprove and oppose capitalism.

Christians approve the death penalty; Christians oppose the death penalty. Christians are "pro-choice;" Christians are "pro-life." Christians promote the just war theory; Christians promote a just peace theology.

Are some Christians unChristian? Are some wrong? Others right? Do we have the prerogative to judge the morality of people who see things differently from us? Do we have an obligation to judge, to speak out?

As a minister, I feel obligated to be informed on moral issues, and to take a position in regard to those issues which affect society. As a Bible-believing, radical Jesus follower, I feel an obligation to advocate what I perceive to be right and moral, and to protest what I perceive to be evil and immoral.

We must constantly remember that the most brilliant minds often disagree on matters of morality. Please remember two significant principles: the principle of selective perception and the principle of Christian charity.

Somewhere in that mix is the factor of truth. Does truth change? Or does our perception of truth change? We know that "the truth" once told us that the world is flat, that the sun goes around the earth, that this earth is the center of the universe. Anyone teaching anything different was teaching heresy and was subject to the penalty of death! We no longer hang witches and heretics, not because we are more civilized, but because we no longer believe in witches and heretics.

Selective perception, you may remember, is that tendency to see what we want to see, to believe what we want to believe, to resist changing our point of view. We select our perceptions! They become our priorities.

This principle is most obvious in "proof-text" hermeneutics. One can find Bible texts, commentaries, even statistics to prove whatever one wants to prove. Probably the most conspicuous example of this is in the discussion regarding abortion.

Is abortion immoral? What do "pro-choice" and "pro-life" advocates advocate? What position should Christians take? What does the Bible teach?

I strongly believe in the right to life. I see it as a Biblical, Christian point of view. But where are the right to lifers when the children they "save" are on the streets or in the jails? That's where I see them! Where are they on other right to life issues -- health care, poverty, justice, racial and gender equality?

The Bible says a whole lot about those issues. The so-called right to life people say nearly nothing!

Following the logic of most of the right-to-lifers -- that capital punishment and war are perhaps the lesser of evils, I submit that abortion is sometimes the lesser of evils. Consider that the global population doubles every 35 - 50 years. It was at a sustainable level in the 1930s, when natural resources were abundant.

That abundance is gone now, and will never again be sufficient to sustain the population at the present rate of growth. We have reached the top of the J-curve. Already there are parts of the world where people are starving in vast numbers. We face unimaginable social chaos and misery in another generation or two.

Maybe Senator Helms and his cohorts in congress (who refuse to pay our UN dues because some member nations refuse to agree with their anti-abortion views) would do better to promote reliable contraceptives, educate women out of illiteracy and ignorance worldwide.

I would like to take the right-to-life enthusiasts on a tour of one of our three Wayne County jails and introduce them to some of the "babies" they saved after they have lived in poverty for a generation.

That does not indicate that I am in favor of abortion. But I am not in favor of a simplistic, black-&-white mentality.

I strongly advocate the right to choose. I also receive mailings from the pro-choice groups. My objection to their rhetoric is that by the "right to choose" they mean only the right to have an abortion. Why can't they emphasize the responsibility to choose? Why shouldn't people choose not to get pregnant?

Assisted suicide is another relevant "life-and-death issue." I think a person ought to have the right to decide when enough is enough. If I ever become incapacitated, where I am no longer a productive member of society,I hope not to continue to clutter God's good earth. Unfortunately, when one gets to that state of life, he is usually not in a position to make any decisions.

That is precisely why everyone should sign a Living Will and a Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care. They will not cover every eventuality, but they will do as much as is possible under present laws.

The argument by most of those who oppose suicide is that only God gives life; only God should terminate life. Yet they insist that patients in a permanently vegetative state be continually kept "alive" by all sorts of machinery! If God decides it is time for the person to die, these folks want to veto God's decision with modern technology! Whether or not suicide is right, let's be consistent in the application of our principles! Either turn it all over to God, or let us use our own judgment.

During World War II, I was active in training medical cadets for service in the Army. On a wall in my basement is my First Lieutenant commission, with a silver bar in the frame!

Bearing arms was wrong, I believed, but saving lives was right, even tho it was part of the military effort. We called ourselves "conscientious cooperators" rather than "conscientious objectors."

Augustine taught a "just war" theology. That is to say, sometimes war is the moral way to go. I accepted that. Now I would not participate in any war effort. I see war as an evil, violent response to violence.

What should we have done in light of Hitler's atrocities? Was not our military response at least the lesser evil? Gandhi was asked whether Hitler could have been conquered by non-violent resistance.

His answer was, "Yes, but it would have been costly!" Of course, it was costly anyway!

Actually, citing Hitler's regime to justify war is somewhat begging the question. Certainly it is a unique example. The Vietnam war, Persian Gulf war, our military action in Lybia, Granada, Panama. Iraq, Cuba cannot be justified on any such "noble" basis.

I perceive nonviolence as the Christian answer to conflict. It is indeed costly. It cost Jesus and Gandhi and thousands of others their very lives. Do we decide what to do on the basis of expediency? Do we "count the cost," and do whatever costs less?

The death penalty is presently debated here in Michigan -- again! We were the first state to abolish the death penalty. We did so after a man was executed and later found to have been innocent.

I compiled a compendium on capital punishment when L. Brooks Patterson was trying to reinstitute the death penalty in Michigan. You may take (or request) a copy -- it is titled "Burn, Baby, Burn."

In summary, I oppose the death penalty for these reasons: (1) It is a breach of the Right to Life principle. I do not have the prerogative to take the life of another person, for any reason. (2) Many innocent people have been executed. (3) The most often reason given by those who promote the death penalty is "he must pay the price of his crime." "Justice must be served." We have heard family members of victims say, "I can't rest until justice has been done."
Justice is not really the issue. Revenge, retaliation, retribution are the obvious motives. They are not Christian virtues! (4) It is too costly. It costs us taxpayers more money, believe it or not, to carry out an execution than to incarcerate the person for life!

As we contemplate death, our own death, we need to prepare for it. We are all going to die at some time. There is a specified amount of time between tick and tock, but that time runs out when the clock strikes.

Most of us will be told farewell at a funeral. My final service is to be like the Service of Memories we had for Sallie -- a meal and a time when those who care to, may speak of their memories.

In Joseph Heller's Catch 22 there is a wonderful scene where Yossarian complains to Lt. Scheisskopf's wife about the incompetence of God. "And don't tell me God works in mysterious ways. He's not working at all. He's playing. Or else he's forgotten all about us. That's the kind of God people talk about -- a country bumpkin, a conceited, uncouth hayseed."

As his diatribe continues, the Lieutenant's wife has had enough. "Stop it, stop it!" she screams.

"What the hell are you so upset about? I tho't you didn't believe in God."

"I don't," she weeps, "but the God I don't believe in is a good God, a merciful God, a just God. He's not the mean, stupid God you make him out to be." Heller has captured the struggle we all face at the death of loved ones.
A woman stood at the side of her husband's grave and said, "All good marriages end up here." So very true! Just as all good friendships end up in death. But when we stand beside the grave, we remember that Jesus stood by the tomb of Lazarus, and cried. Then he said, "Lazarus, come forth!"

Dear saints, when we stand at the side of death, remember that Jesus will come again, and at that time he will raise his saints to everlasting life.

Isabel Allende fled Chile in the wake of the coup of 1973. She spent the next year at the bedside of her daughter Paula, who was in a coma. After Paula died at age 29, Isabel said, "It is impossible to conceive a greater pain. But if I had to summarize what I learned, it would be that after you have lost everything, the only thing you have left is the love you have given."

Essayist Anatole was dying of cancer. He said, "Once we had a narrative of heaven and hell. Now we make our own narratives. I would like a doctor who enjoyed me. I want to be a good story for him!"

That is my desire. I want to be remembered by my doctor and by all of you, as one who enjoyed life. And if God lets me have my way, my life and my ministry will end simultaneously, like it did for William Wiberforce, John Wesley and Charles Schultz.

CBS founder William Paley was angry as he lay dying, "Why do I have to die?" One wonders if anyone proffered an answer!
My final plea to you in the matter of life and death is that you prepare, in the spiritual realm and in the physical realm. Get right with God. Be at peace with God and with your loved ones.

And . . . make all your funeral arrangements. If you don't, your loved ones will have to do it. If you do, then you are sure your funeral will be what you want it to be.

Make a Living Will, a Power of Attorney, and make explicit whether you want your body to be buried or cremated.

So that we don't end this discourse of a morbid note, listen again to this Epistle:

"Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. . . . After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words."
(I Thessalonians 4:13-18)

Let us pray . . .



		A Matter Of Life And Death
		Today is Sanctity of Human Life Day. Why just human life, I don't know. Schweitzer used the phrase, Reverence for Life, and included animal life. As did Gandhi, Thoreau, Tolstoy and many others. Life . . . death. The implications of both life and death are many and complicated. They include health care, abortion, the death penalty, ecology, war, euthanasia, suicide, diet, environment . . . Health care is probably the most pressing issue of the moment. That is of special concern to us who are getting older. We Americans spend more on health care than any other country -- 40% more than Canada, 90% more than Germany, 100% more than Japan. Still, 58 million people lacked insurance for at least part of the year. In 10 years, the average family income increased by 88%, while average family health care costs went up 147%. Twenty years ago the average family spent $1 of every $11 of income on health care; Now it is $1 of every $6 income! Health care for the elderly (us!) doubled in the 80's, tripled in the 90's. Congressional studies indicate that 20 - 30% of present medical procedures are unwarranted. You need to listen to my wife -- Lucille constantly tells us to "ask the doctor questions and insist on answers!" The cost of medicine rose 152% in 10 years. If you were a mule it would cost $14 for exactly the same medicine which, because you are a human, costs $1,495! A drug that costs $1.50 in Mexico costs $30 across the border in U.S.! A drug vital to AIDS patients costs $26 in Europe, $150 in U.S. A drug for Parkinson's disease costs $28 in Italy, $420 here. Even Valium, which costs $9.70 at your local drug store, has an average world cost of $3.60! Do we need reform of some kind? Our present system is based primarily on private insurance. The insurance companies want us to continue the present system. They say the private sector is better qualified to manage health care than the government. My response is that they have had many years to do it, but have never provided for low-income people! Physician-assisted suicide is illegal in Michigan. Because of Jack Kevorkian's activities and because of the response of those who disagree with his point of view, Michigan legislature passed a law in record haste, making physician-assisted suicide illegal. A Detroit judge declared the law unconstitutional! The matter is far from settled, while Kevorkian is in jail! If it is immoral to help someone end his life, is it moral to help someone extend his life? Is it moral to connect a person to life-extending machinery, especially if the person does not want it so? And if the sick person is too sick to make such a decision for himself, who should have the prerogative -- his physician? family? rabbi, imam, priest, minister, lawyer? Those are questions we need to contemplate before circumstances force us to do so. Should the state be empowered to make such a decision legal or illegal? If it is legal, what safeguards should be put into the law? If it is illegal, what should be done when physicians prescribe pain medications which can be taken in lethal doses? One survey of Michigan physicians indicated that 17% of them admit doing so! Euthanasia, closely related to assisted suicide, is equally confusing. Should it be legalized? If so, who should make the decision, under what circumstances, and how should it be activated? Is all life sacred, a la Albert Schweitzer, who would not permit the swatting of flies and mosquitoes? and who was a vegetarian on the basis of the immorality of killing? Is hunting immoral when for sport, but moral when for food? Martina Navratilova, famous tennis star and vegetarian, asks, "How can you have one animal for a pet and another for lunch?" If human life is really sacred, is war moral? Is capital punishment moral? Is it morally right to shoot someone who is threatening your life? What if he is threatening someone else? Christians have always been active in the moral decisions of society. Christians approved slavery; Christians opposed slavery. Christians approved children working in factories; Christians opposed children working in factories. Christians approve corporal punishment; Christians oppose corporal punishment. Christians approve and promote capitalism; Other Christians disapprove and oppose capitalism. Christians approve the death penalty; Christians oppose the death penalty. Christians are "pro-choice;" Christians are "pro-life." Christians promote the just war theory; Christians promote a just peace theology. Are some Christians unChristian? Are some wrong? Others right? Do we have the prerogative to judge the morality of people who see things differently from us? Do we have an obligation to judge, to speak out? As a minister, I feel obligated to be informed on moral issues, and to take a position in regard to those issues which affect society. As a Bible-believing, radical Jesus follower, I feel an obligation to advocate what I perceive to be right and moral, and to protest what I perceive to be evil and immoral. We must constantly remember that the most brilliant minds often disagree on matters of morality. Please remember two significant principles: the principle of selective perception and the principle of Christian charity. Somewhere in that mix is the factor of truth. Does truth change? Or does our perception of truth change? We know that "the truth" once told us that the world is flat, that the sun goes around the earth, that this earth is the center of the universe. Anyone teaching anything different was teaching heresy and was subject to the penalty of death! We no longer hang witches and heretics, not because we are more civilized, but because we no longer believe in witches and heretics. Selective perception, you may remember, is that tendency to see what we want to see, to believe what we want to believe, to resist changing our point of view. We select our perceptions! They become our priorities. This principle is most obvious in "proof-text" hermeneutics. One can find Bible texts, commentaries, even statistics to prove whatever one wants to prove. Probably the most conspicuous example of this is in the discussion regarding abortion. Is abortion immoral? What do "pro-choice" and "pro-life" advocates advocate? What position should Christians take? What does the Bible teach? I strongly believe in the right to life. I see it as a Biblical, Christian point of view. But where are the right to lifers when the children they "save" are on the streets or in the jails? That's where I see them! Where are they on other right to life issues -- health care, poverty, justice, racial and gender equality? The Bible says a whole lot about those issues. The so-called right to life people say nearly nothing! Following the logic of most of the right-to-lifers -- that capital punishment and war are perhaps the lesser of evils, I submit that abortion is sometimes the lesser of evils. Consider that the global population doubles every 35 - 50 years. It was at a sustainable level in the 1930s, when natural resources were abundant. That abundance is gone now, and will never again be sufficient to sustain the population at the present rate of growth. We have reached the top of the J-curve. Already there are parts of the world where people are starving in vast numbers. We face unimaginable social chaos and misery in another generation or two. Maybe Senator Helms and his cohorts in congress (who refuse to pay our UN dues because some member nations refuse to agree with their anti-abortion views) would do better to promote reliable contraceptives, educate women out of illiteracy and ignorance worldwide. I would like to take the right-to-life enthusiasts on a tour of one of our three Wayne County jails and introduce them to some of the "babies" they saved after they have lived in poverty for a generation. That does not indicate that I am in favor of abortion. But I am not in favor of a simplistic, black-&-white mentality. I strongly advocate the right to choose. I also receive mailings from the pro-choice groups. My objection to their rhetoric is that by the "right to choose" they mean only the right to have an abortion. Why can't they emphasize the responsibility to choose? Why shouldn't people choose not to get pregnant? Assisted suicide is another relevant "life-and-death issue." I think a person ought to have the right to decide when enough is enough. If I ever become incapacitated, where I am no longer a productive member of society,I hope not to continue to clutter God's good earth. Unfortunately, when one gets to that state of life, he is usually not in a position to make any decisions. That is precisely why everyone should sign a Living Will and a Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care. They will not cover every eventuality, but they will do as much as is possible under present laws. The argument by most of those who oppose suicide is that only God gives life; only God should terminate life. Yet they insist that patients in a permanently vegetative state be continually kept "alive" by all sorts of machinery! If God decides it is time for the person to die, these folks want to veto God's decision with modern technology! Whether or not suicide is right, let's be consistent in the application of our principles! Either turn it all over to God, or let us use our own judgment. During World War II, I was active in training medical cadets for service in the Army. On a wall in my basement is my First Lieutenant commission, with a silver bar in the frame! Bearing arms was wrong, I believed, but saving lives was right, even tho it was part of the military effort. We called ourselves "conscientious cooperators" rather than "conscientious objectors." Augustine taught a "just war" theology. That is to say, sometimes war is the moral way to go. I accepted that. Now I would not participate in any war effort. I see war as an evil, violent response to violence. What should we have done in light of Hitler's atrocities? Was not our military response at least the lesser evil? Gandhi was asked whether Hitler could have been conquered by non-violent resistance. His answer was, "Yes, but it would have been costly!" Of course, it was costly anyway! Actually, citing Hitler's regime to justify war is somewhat begging the question. Certainly it is a unique example. The Vietnam war, Persian Gulf war, our military action in Lybia, Granada, Panama. Iraq, Cuba cannot be justified on any such "noble" basis. I perceive nonviolence as the Christian answer to conflict. It is indeed costly. It cost Jesus and Gandhi and thousands of others their very lives. Do we decide what to do on the basis of expediency? Do we "count the cost," and do whatever costs less? The death penalty is presently debated here in Michigan -- again! We were the first state to abolish the death penalty. We did so after a man was executed and later found to have been innocent. I compiled a compendium on capital punishment when L. Brooks Patterson was trying to reinstitute the death penalty in Michigan. You may take (or request) a copy -- it is titled "Burn, Baby, Burn." In summary, I oppose the death penalty for these reasons: (1) It is a breach of the Right to Life principle. I do not have the prerogative to take the life of another person, for any reason. (2) Many innocent people have been executed. (3) The most often reason given by those who promote the death penalty is "he must pay the price of his crime." "Justice must be served." We have heard family members of victims say, "I can't rest until justice has been done." Justice is not really the issue. Revenge, retaliation, retribution are the obvious motives. They are not Christian virtues! (4) It is too costly. It costs us taxpayers more money, believe it or not, to carry out an execution than to incarcerate the person for life! As we contemplate death, our own death, we need to prepare for it. We are all going to die at some time. There is a specified amount of time between tick and tock, but that time runs out when the clock strikes. Most of us will be told farewell at a funeral. My final service is to be like the Service of Memories we had for Sallie -- a meal and a time when those who care to, may speak of their memories. In Joseph Heller's Catch 22 there is a wonderful scene where Yossarian complains to Lt. Scheisskopf's wife about the incompetence of God. "And don't tell me God works in mysterious ways. He's not working at all. He's playing. Or else he's forgotten all about us. That's the kind of God people talk about -- a country bumpkin, a conceited, uncouth hayseed." As his diatribe continues, the Lieutenant's wife has had enough. "Stop it, stop it!" she screams. "What the hell are you so upset about? I tho't you didn't believe in God." "I don't," she weeps, "but the God I don't believe in is a good God, a merciful God, a just God. He's not the mean, stupid God you make him out to be." Heller has captured the struggle we all face at the death of loved ones. A woman stood at the side of her husband's grave and said, "All good marriages end up here." So very true! Just as all good friendships end up in death. But when we stand beside the grave, we remember that Jesus stood by the tomb of Lazarus, and cried. Then he said, "Lazarus, come forth!" Dear saints, when we stand at the side of death, remember that Jesus will come again, and at that time he will raise his saints to everlasting life. Isabel Allende fled Chile in the wake of the coup of 1973. She spent the next year at the bedside of her daughter Paula, who was in a coma. After Paula died at age 29, Isabel said, "It is impossible to conceive a greater pain. But if I had to summarize what I learned, it would be that after you have lost everything, the only thing you have left is the love you have given." Essayist Anatole was dying of cancer. He said, "Once we had a narrative of heaven and hell. Now we make our own narratives. I would like a doctor who enjoyed me. I want to be a good story for him!" That is my desire. I want to be remembered by my doctor and by all of you, as one who enjoyed life. And if God lets me have my way, my life and my ministry will end simultaneously, like it did for William Wiberforce, John Wesley and Charles Schultz. CBS founder William Paley was angry as he lay dying, "Why do I have to die?" One wonders if anyone proffered an answer! My final plea to you in the matter of life and death is that you prepare, in the spiritual realm and in the physical realm. Get right with God. Be at peace with God and with your loved ones. And . . . make all your funeral arrangements. If you don't, your loved ones will have to do it. If you do, then you are sure your funeral will be what you want it to be. Make a Living Will, a Power of Attorney, and make explicit whether you want your body to be buried or cremated. So that we don't end this discourse of a morbid note, listen again to this Epistle: "Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. . . . After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words." (I Thessalonians 4:13-18) Let us pray . . .