Genesis 8 - Noah with Thoughts on the Supreme Court

The Lord promised Noah as recorded in Genesis 8:22 that "While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease." The continuity, regularity, dependability of the natural order stands as a grace of God. This order enables humanity to learn, to produce, to prosper. This grace blesses all living creatures and gives life profound potential, marred only by sin (21) which God chooses to engage and change without reducing human freedom. 

God entrusted humankind from the beginning with the power to bring life into existence through the union of a man and a woman. This union is part of the natural order which God reaffirmed to Noah. The questions of life and death have accompanied the stewardship entrusted to humans from creation. Today we focus those questions primarily on the matter of abortion though people have struggled with war and capital punishment and euthanasia, rationing of health care, the contrast of resources for the basics of life that exist in different ways for the poor and the rich and other matters that influence who lives and who dies and when. Sometimes, lost in the discussion is the reality that all who live will die. The question is how they will live and when they will die. God in his providence has given humans the ability to bring life into existence and to participate in the decisions that may bring life to an end. 

The Supreme Court ruled on Friday June 24 that the question of abortion will be dependent upon the people of the nation working through their representatives in state government. Pro-life advocates and pro-choice advocates will work together through their elected officials to find a way to meet the concerns of all. "To work together" is euphemistic. It will be a struggle for power. The Supreme Court has pushed this question of life and death back to the people to face. It will create controversy and many will feel hurt by the decisions that are made. From a pro-life viewpoint the ones with the most to lose are the unborn, and they, of course, have no voice in the decisions to be made. Both sides in my experience tend to talk past each other and see no possible way that the other side could have an insight that deserves to be acknowledged or incorporated into a decision for the state to follow. 

This inability or unwillingness to listen to the other side has not always been hardened in the way it is today. 

In 1971 the Southern Baptist Convention adopted a resolution on abortion that read as follows: "Be it resolved, that this Convention express the belief that society has a responsibility to affirm through the laws of the state a high view of the sanctity of human life, including fetal life, in order to protect those who cannot protect themselves, and Be it further resolved, that we call upon Southern Baptists to work for legislation that will allow the possibility of abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of emotional, mental and physical health of the mother.  

By 1989 which was ten years after the conservative resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention the resolution on abortion was different. In 1989 the only basis that the Convention affirmed as a possible reason for abortion was "to prevent the imminent death of the mother." The Convention had become more conservative on multiple issues, not just abortion, but this position change may have been influenced by the Supreme Court's decision on Roe v. Wade in 1973 which took the question of abortion out of the state legislatures. In this way the Court made it difficult to search for points of agreement so that most people joined one side or the other.

The Catholic Church has held a consistent position on abortion and on the question of when life begins. However, the Catholic Church does allow procedures to save a mother's life which may result in death of the unborn child. In these cases the Church does not call the procedure an abortion. 

I am hopeful that the coming debate--power struggle--concerning abortion will go beyond shouting the other side down. I am hopeful that Christians, in particular, will understand that abortion cannot be treated in isolation from other pro-life questions. I am hopeful that a consensus will develop in the nation. I am pro-life. I believe that the promise to Noah means that God has given us responsibility for producing life, protecting life, enriching life. I am grateful that the Supreme Court has pushed the question of abortion back to the people so that we can make decisions together that respect our shared life in this country and that we will all make our arguments as best we know how with respect and kindness toward others. Jesus commanded us to love our enemies. Even if we think people who disagree with us are "enemies" we have the guidance of the Lord to treat those "enemies" with love.

What Made Noah Righteous - Genesis 7:1

 Noah's righteousness. Noah's righteousness was qualified. His righteousness was greater than those around him but not perfect. His righteousness was explained--he did all that the Lord commanded (5). Righteousness comes to us as we obey; righteousness is not within us, not even Noah. Only in connection to the Lord are we made and counted and seen as righteous. Our moments of obedience are just moments. None of us is always obedient and in right standing with the Lord. Only God's grace which we see in Christ provides the assurance of a right relationship to God, even for Noah.

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SBC Meetings are being held this month in California. As almost always there is controversy on the agenda. SBC leadership and the messengers at the convention will keep working on the challenge of how to put into the structure of the denomination a means of helping churches address sexual abuse. The controversy on this matter has arisen from past failures. It is good to face the issues, hold people accountable and to come together to find a way to be faithful as churches in protecting people from abuse.

Past controversies in the SBC remind me of a professor I had in seminary whom I consider, now, many decades later as an influence for good on my life that only grows. He was a teacher in a time when professors in SBC seminaries were being challenged on their faithfulness to Scripture; many were dismissed based on these challenges. The professor who meant so much to me was, in my mind, a candidate for challenge and dismissal because he simply did not use the acceptable language of the day in describing the Christian life, Scripture, church, ethics or much of anything else. He was a mystery to students and faculty alike. He was different in tone and language--even body language. He moved in a calm that made one slow down and think and in my case become more prayerful and I hope, more faithful. When I became a pastor in San Francisco I would visit him from time to time just to talk. Always, I left our conversations puzzled but invigorated in ways I could not explain. On one occasion I simply asked him, "How have you survived? You are so different from everyone else! I would think they (the challengers) would have you on their list." Quoting from Shakespeare's "King Lear," he told me, "I am one of God's spies." I am still trying to understand what he meant. I have thoughts about his comment that make me believe, I too, would do well to be one of "God's spies."

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Grandchildren, a Theological Conversation. The "Littles" (aged four and six) had a "sleep over" with us on Saturday evening last. At breakfast on Sunday morning (when I say morning, I mean early morning. The six year old woke us at 4am asking when the sun would come up. Judy got him back to bed, but both boys were up at 6am putting on their "fancy" clothes for church)--so, at our early morning breakfast of pancakes, the question of death came up. The youngest asked if my parents, Maw Maw and Paw Paw, were dead. We replied, yes. The youngest asked if we buried them, again yes. Judy told them that these loved ones were in heaven, so the six year old asked, "Is heaven under the ground?" Talking theology with children reminds me how little I know and how difficult it is to share what I believe I do know. We talked about body and spirit. The body is buried and the spirit is with God. (I know theologians dispute this picture, but I find it in the New Testament). The six year old said, "That's right, the spirit leaves and God catches it--like a football!"  

I love all our grandchildren for being who they are individually and as a part of the family, and I love the fact that they keep me thinking and hopefully, growing. My professor friend, mentioned above, once said that he hoped his last words would be, "what will I be when I grow up?" Stay close to children and youth. They are a blessing. They challenge you intellectually as in all the other ways that youth have always challenged their elders. 

I am sure that I do not always give the right answers to my grandchildren, and from time to time, I remember my faulty attempts at parenting my three sons. Like Noah I need God's grace. Occasionally, I am obedient--for a moment--but all my moments of obedience are far less than children, grandchildren, friends, all I love, need from me. I cast them and myself upon the grace of God.