Jeremiah 1:4-10

Psalm 71:1-6, 15-17

1 Corinthians 14:12b-20

LUKE 4:21-32

Sermon – January 28,, 2007

The theme of the Gospel and Old Testament readings today is how challenging it is to be called by God to be a prophet. Even Jesus was not honored in his own home town when he pointed out how much God had showered blessings on foreigners in the past (and, presumably, would do now). And Jeremiah – Jeremiah of all of the great Hebrew prophets was the one about whose suffering we know the most through the record of his eloquent and anguished book. He had the task of speaking the harsh truth to people who wanted to hear only comfortable lies, and he lived long enough to see his direst prophecies come true – and to continue to be persecuted even when they did.

But I’d like to focus on another aspect of “the call” of Jeremiah, for that is what today’s passage is – the story of God informing Jeremiah that God has chosen him to speak for him to the people of Israel. I’d like to focus on Jeremiah’s youth, and on how long God had already known Jeremiah.

Jeremiah is surprised and feels unworthy when God calls on him, protesting that “I am only a boy.” Whatever precise age he was, he felt he was too young to carry out the mission God had planned for him, but God said, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I consecrated you: I appoint you a prophet to the nations.”

God not only could recruit someone as young as Jeremiah or as old as Abraham if God wanted to, but God knew Jeremiah well before his birth. He was already a unique, priceless human being with a special destiny which God had picked out. So it was also with the author of Psalm 139, who declares (verses 12b and 15a), “You [Lord] knit me together in my mother’s womb” and “Your eyes beheld my limbs, yet unfinished in the womb.”

A reverence for human life – for people of all ages, including children, and even before birth – was a characteristic of the ancient Hebrews far more than was typical of their contemporaries. This continued into the first century A.D. As the December 18 article “The World of the Nativity” in Newsweek states, “By the time of Jesus, Jewish family values were noticeably different from those of their neighbors. A Roman father could, for any or no reason, choose to kill his newborn infant either by cutting the umbilical cord too close or by leaving the baby outside, and the Jewish refusal to do so was seen as peculiar. ‘The Jews see to it that their numbers increase,’ wrote the [Roman] historian Tacitus around 100 A.D.’ It is a deadly sin to kill a born or unborn child…’ “ One notable first century Jewish couple who raised their children in an environment which cherished children and their lives was named Joseph and Mary, and it was their first born son who said, “Let the little children come to me, for to such as these belongs the Kingdom of God.” Jesus also made a point of reaching out repeatedly to those of all ages with disabilities, both healing them and welcoming them as followers, and finding them often to be spiritually healthier than the physically unblemished people who had looked down on them. It is impossible to imagine a cold-blooded Roman so blessing children or so embracing the disabled.

The Roman spirit still lives around the world today, though not with technology as primitive as that of the first century, of course. Rather, in some countries modern technology is drawn into the service of ancient, deeply embedded prejudices to eliminate some lives before they start.

In India there are deep cultural and economic prejudices against women, and therefore against girls, and which are now manifested against unborn girls. Despite some modest government efforts to stop the practice, a deeply disproportionate percentage of abortions in India are of girls, made easier by the use of ultrasound and amniocentesis to determine the gender of the fetus. The impact of this practice is more noticeable in the more prosperous parts of the country. In Punjab state in 2003, for example, there were only 793 girls under the age of six for every 1,000 boys. In the capital of New Delhi, there were 865 girls for every 1,000 boys under age six.

“J.K. Banthia, the Indian census commissioner, estimates that several million fetuses have been aborted in India in the last two decades because they were female.” [NY Times 10/20/03]

Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen of Trinity College, Cambridge, England and a native of India said in 2001, “India is catching up with other sexist, modern societies like South Korea and China in sex-selective abortions. It’s a technological revolution of a reactionary kind.” [NY Times 4/22/01]

Oh, yes, China. Last June, China decided not to have any legal penalties for aborting a fetus purely because she was female. As the New York Times reported calmly, on June 27, “A three-decade old policy limiting most couples to one child has made abortions a widely used method for controlling family size. As a result, and because of cultural preferences for sons, China faces a growing population imbalance, with many more boys than girls. The New China News Agency said there were now 119 boys born for every 100 girls, a larger gap than the government’s previously published figure of 117 boys per 100 girls. Globally, the average ratio is about 105 boys to 100 girls.”

Did I mention that Jesus not only blessed children and healed people with disabilities, but also welcomed women into his community as high-ranking disciples and denounced sexist laws that made women second class? It sounds to me like Jesus is just as radical and counter-cultural today as he was 2,000 years ago. And oh, yes, Genesis says that both men and women are created in the image of God.

But of course, Christians are tiny minorities in India and China. What would the values be in a country where, at least on paper, a majority of the population is Christian?

I’m not going to talk about what the law should be in this country. The law is what it is as of now, so given the law permitting “choice”; the question now is in the hearts and minds of people. What choices are made, and what values are held up by society

I also, as always, welcome different perspectives from ones I am sharing in this sermon, and we could have a discussion of some of the issues raised if anyone wishes. I also recognize that this is a highly emotional and personal matter, and I am willing to listen confidentially and caringly to anyone, whatever their perspectives or experiences have been.

Episcopalians hold a wide range of perspectives on abortion. The official position of the church is that abortion should be legal, safe and rarer than it is: not to be used for birth control, to choose the sex of the child or without profound reflection, care and prayer. Making choices on that basis would mean far less than a million abortions a year in our country.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, on the other hand, recommends that all pregnant women, regardless of age, be offered genetic counseling and diagnostic testing – because 80% of all babies with Down syndrome are born to women under 35 years old.

As George Will reports in his column in Newsweek which is now on the newsstands, “The ACOG guidelines are formally neutral concerning what decision parents should make on the basis of the information offered. But…at least 85 percent of pregnancies in which Down syndrome is diagnosed are ended by abortions.”

Many Americans aren’t as different from the Romans as we thought.

George Will has strong feelings about this issue; his son, Jon, was one of the children who was allowed to be born – and is now a cherished and productive member of society, far exceeding all expectations, especially those of the hospital’s geneticist who asked his parents if they were going to take him home. “They answered that taking a baby home seemed like the thing to do.”

Whatever we each may feel about what the laws should be and whatever each of our personal experiences and perspectives may be, I ask us to think of the parents who decided to have their babies, sometimes with challenging conditions, sometimes in challenging circumstances, and sometimes both.

Whether we think of ourselves as “pro-choice”, “pro-life”, or somewhere in the murky middle of “sometimes” and “maybe”, as I am, I personally believe we all can come together to care for the children who have been born, especially those who have been born with challenging conditions or under challenging circumstances or both. And we can do so with compassion for those who have made or are making anguished decisions about pregnancies, whatever those decisions are or were.

So I offer all of us the children. All the children. I offer us the child in Camden who, according to Diane Sawyer of 20/20, starts school not knowing that most Americans consider three meals a day to be normal because he has never had three meals a day. I offer us the girls who were born because they had parents who believe that both men and women are created in the image of God and are equally worthy of life. (If you think theology doesn’t matter, ask them.)

I offer us the children who were born with disabilities and who someone predicted would never make it. Yes, raising a child with some disabilities is challenging, but it also has special rewards. Just ask me sometime. The really “disabled” people are the ones who don’t realize that every human being has unlimited spiritual potential – to, as we say in the baptismal service, “grow up into the full stature of Christ.” Wow!

I offer us the kids who work as “buddies” for Challenger Division Little League players, and the adults who work in the Special Olympics and similar events who are so committed that one former participant who I know very well said at the conclusion of the day, aged 10, “We’re all winners.”

I offer us all the people who reach and teach special needs kids, including those in this parish. I offer us all those who support and are involved in the
Fresh Air Fund and similar efforts to give a real summer to poverty-stricken inner-city children. I offer us the shelters for families and the shelters for the littlest victims of domestic violence, and the opportunities they represent for safety, healing and hope.

I offer us foster parents, including those in this parish. And I offer us adoptive parents, including those in this parish, some of whom have taken on the challenge of raising children with challenging conditions or from challenging circumstances – or both. You know who you are, and you deserve medals.

But it takes a village to raise a child – a village where all children are cherished. Let us strengthen our calling as a church to be such a village.

(The Rev.) Francis A. Hubbard

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

Monmouth Junction, NJ