Let us pray:Gracious and Holy God, God of our mothers and fathers, source of all life and new life, we are saddened by the conflicts we often experience; conflicts between life and life, between the affirmation of potential new life and the ongoing life that we have committed to nurture and strengthen, conflict between our own life and the lives of those we uphold and sustain. Loving God, we are sad - in fact we are devastated - when we are faced with such choices, for there is just never a wholly, completely good way; these are choices against a potential life or against existing life.
Gracious God, we would really like to neatly arrange our lives - and yet sometimes that doesn’t happen - sometimes it just isn’t possible. So be with us - we pray - strengthen and enlighten us - to live as you would have us live through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

What an incredibly difficult subject! One that for many obvious and some not so obvious reasons, many - perhaps most - ministers steer clear of.

And certainly I do not stand before you this morning claiming to know all the truth there is about life. Even more than that, I do not presume to tell you what to think or how to feel. It is my hope, though, that during this time of worship you and I can look together at this difficult subject, seeking God’s insight and discernment about the sanctity of human life.

I think we can all agree that you and I live in an imperfect, finite world where many people have access to many sides of the many-sided truth about life. As a wise colleague of mine once said, I believe that truth is too important for any one person to have it all. So I begin this morning with humility, and with the honest recognition that as certain as any of us would like to be of God’s particular will in this life, we simply cannot in this life really know for sure if we’ve got it exactly, completely right.

Let’s begin with a fascinating teaching from Judaism. It comes from the rabbis who lived in the second century or so. These great scholars knew their Bible virtually by memory - and they were thinking about what happened at Mount Sinai when the 10 commandments were given. Now if ever there was a time when God’s “truth” should have been crystal clear, Sinai has to have been that time. The Bible says, “God spoke these words,” and then records the words in the Book of Exodus. But listen to what the rabbi’s taught about it.

They said that when the Voice of God came forth at Mount Sinai, it was like a hammer hitting a rock. When the hammer hits, sparks fly. And every one of those sparks is the result of the hammer’s impact upon the rock.

That is what makes the sparks all alike. And yet, every one of the sparks is also unique - they are all still different.

So it is, the rabbis taught, that every verse of Scripture throws off its own sparks. Not just one spark but many sparks, which is to say that the richness of Scripture holds not one meaning but many meanings. And no one interpretation of any text is automatically the correct interpretation-for our purposes this morning there is no one text which favors a woman’s right to choose, or one which favors that the choice be forbidden. But if I understand the rabbis’ teaching-both sides (even if they seem to be contradictory) have a sincere claim to being God’s intent.

Remember God’s response to Moses at the Burning Bush? When Moses wanted to know God’s name, God simply replied, “I am what I am.” which was God’s way of saying, “Moses, you cannot have my name. You cannot pin me down. You cannot ever totally grasp my being while you are a human being. There will always be uncertainty, always mystery.”

I suspect that the whole, complete truth about life and women and choice might be much more subtle, far more complex than we could ever imagine.

I don’t know about you - but with subjects like this, I would often really appreciate it if God could be unequivocal - iGod would just render an absolute judgment it might be so much easier.

But instead, the sparks fly.

And after weeks of reading and research I am convinced that both sides of this debate are doing their very best to live honestly and to honor life in the midst of a world of sometimes joyous, sometimes difficult choices.

Psalm 139
How could we not love this Psalm? It’s so beautiful, so reassuring, so loving.
I chose this psalm because it is so beautiful, and because it is so often used in debates regarding women’s choice. And as the gathered people of God, as the Body of Christ in the world, it’s important for us to be certain of what the Bible really says about this issue.
Nothing. Not one word.
This psalm has often been quoted to prove that the Bible forbids choice.
The argument is that we are fully formed, protected persons from the moment of conception.” And yet scholars agree that this Psalm is not about choice - it’s not even about human gestation. It’s a psalm about human love and praise - human gratitude and wonder - that reflects the amazing omnipresence, omnipotence of God.

The Bible does not speak of our issue for this morning. Not directly. Of course, the opinions of some people formed from their faithful interpretation of the Bible. Understanding the Bible’s emphasis and especially Jesus’ emphasis on protecting the weak and helpless and voiceless leads many folks to believe that choice is always and necessarily wrong. And we can see that, can’t we?

And yet interestingly, in Biblical times - which spans both Old and New Testaments, the Israelites, the Jews believed that human life began at the first breath. There are numerous references in the Old Testament and in other writings of the time that strongly suggest that unborn children were never considered to be fully human. In the book of Leviticus, the Jewish law is clear that if a person takes the life of another, that persons life will also be taken. But in Exodus we learn that if another person causes a woman to miscarry, the person is to be fined whatever the husband deems appropriate - showing a distinct difference in the understanding between life, potential life and human life. Then too there are numerous references, like our text from Ecclesiastes this morning that suggest there are things in this world which are far worse than not ever being born.

I think that it’s safe to say that all of us recognize and affirm that all life, indeed all creation is sacred. And that part of being human is being able to hold all life and creation in sacred trust. We also affirm that part and parcel of that responsibility is to be responsible, moral, decision makers.
And we know-only too well-that moral decision-making involves much more than just making a bad choice or a good choice. Even our very young toddlers can do that.
Moral decision-making is more complicated than that. It isn’t a matter of plugging all of the variables into a pre-determined formula to find the perfect ethically appropriate answer. Ethical decision-making always involves weighing competing needs and costs and making the complex, moral decisions that are unique to complex, moral circumstances. Ethical decision-making always involves living in a difficult and uncertain realm of ambiguity.

As a counselor and a minister, I have met way too many women who thought they had to choose between their conscience and their church or faith community. Women who-when faced with a problem pregnancy-read their Bibles, talked with their families, their doctors, their counselors, prayed and prayed and prayed some more and finally made a difficult decision - all the time knowing that the choice meant alienation from their faith community when they most needed its support. And years later, many women are still haunted by the accusations, condemnations and disrespect heaped upon them by those who said they were speaking in the name of God.

Did you know that the vast majority of religious Americans are pro-choice?
Did you know that the vast majority of religious institutions, and all of the main-line Christian denominations are pro-choice? And we are Pro-choice, not in spite of our faith, but because of it - because we value and affirm the sacred nature of existing human life and the freedom that God gives to each one of us.
Our faith does not ever teach us that God will deliver us from the realms of ambiguity. Instead, our faith promises that God will always, always be with us in it.
Our United Methodist Social Principles are pro-choice - because I believe that as an institution we are committed to understanding the struggle of women and men and children and families who long to be faithful to God’s will for them in the face of the very real complexities of their lives.
And I pray that we can always respect the very real challenge of making and acting on and living with complicated ethical decisions.

I chose not to share a bunch of statistics with you this morning. I decided not to cite a lot of technical, scientific data not only because we are a family friendly church but also because I believe that most of you have seen all of it before. If you haven’t, I encourage you to do some research and read enough to make an informed decision about what you believe about this issue. I am certainly no expert. One thing I do know though - with this issue, as with any difficult issue we face, we MUST, we MUST as a community of faith be willing to not just tolerate one another, but also respect one another in our differences. We must agree to disagree when necessary. And together we will seek the will of God for ourselves, for us as the church, and for the world.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.