The Value of Life
Exodus 20:13
Matthew 5:21-24
Go out on
the street and ask any passerby to name any of the Ten Commandments and chances
are they will mention this one first. “Thou shall not kill.” It’s the one everyone seems to remember. Ask those same people if they believe they’ll
go to heaven when they die and chances are they’ll say, “Yes”. Ask them “why” and often you’ll hear, “I’m
not a bad person, I’ve never killed anyone.”
Keeping the sixth commandment for some becomes the bare minimum required
to enter God’s Kingdom.
I guess
this is so because the command seems so simple and straightforward and easy to
understand. But, is it? Some of the most
controversial and contentious issues of our day swirl around the question of
life and its value and when it might be taken.
Several years ago, the State of Florida, the United States Congress, the
President of the United States and every talk show from here to Honolulu
involved themselves in a family conflict between the husband and parents of
Terry Schiavo who lay unresponsive in a coma for many years. Should she be
taken off of life support? Is it right
to withhold food and water? Is that
murder?
Around the
same time our government began preparations to enter into a war with Iraq. One of the reasons given was to prevent a
cruel dictator from possibly using suspected weapons of mass destruction
against our country or our allies.
Condolezza Rice, then Secretary of the National Security Agency and
Sunday School teacher at the National Presbyterian Church justified this by
saying, “You don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” Many
theologians and the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church that year were
troubled by this new pre-emptive strike policy and wondered if this fit into what
had become a traditional understanding of the requirements needed to begin a
“just war”?
Shortly
after that new Supreme Court Justices were needed to fill vacancies and that
re-opened the debate on Abortion and Stem Cell research. “Pro-choice” once again squared off against
“Right to Life”. People of faith found
themselves on opposite sides.
The sixth
commandment is evidently not so clear as it would seem on a first read. So, how
do we interpret and understand this basic right to life? Do we plant our flag in a pacifist camp and
say under no conditions is life ever to be taken? No war, no capital punishment, no abortion
under any circumstance. Or do we march
across the battleground and claim our cause is righteous and just and declare a
holy war? Or do we find ourselves
somewhere in the middle puzzled by the questions raised by scientific advances
in medical technology and worried about weapons of mass destruction and
befuddled by legal distinctions only a lawyer can understand? Chances are that is where most of you find
yourself, so this morning we’ll try to look at these questions through a
theological lens as we each make our own decisions. Let us pray:
Creator of
life, you have made us in your image so we are bound to be our brother’s keeper. We are to value the life you have given and
protect it as best we are able. Grant us
your wisdom as we make important and complex decisions on life and death. Amen.
First off,
we need to get the language right.
Hebrew has a word for “kill” and a word for “murder”. One is used on a chicken and the other on a
person. This commandment does not forbid
chicken soup or even justifiable homicide.
It does forbid the taking of innocent human life.
Now, I
wonder how Moses felt the first time he read these commandments. He may have checked them off one by one: “No other Gods” – sounds great. That’s what I’ve always believed. “No graven images” is good when you’re
traveling because you don’t want to be carrying around any heavy statues. “Do not take the name of the Lord in
vain”. Well, he may have paused over
that one and made a mental note to clean up his language. “Sabbath” was just the ticket because if
there was ever anyone who needed a day off it was he. “Honor your father and mother” was easy because
if not for their sacrificial love Moses would have never made it beyond his
infancy.[1] Then he came to this one, “Thou shall not
murder”.
I imagine
Moses must have taken a deep breath when he got to that one because he had
already broken it. He had taken the life of an Egyptian overseer back in Egypt.[2]
The verse describing this act tells us this was premeditated because “he looked
this way and that before he killed him”, but was it justified? To be sure the Egyptian had been beating a
Hebrew slave, but was there no other way to defend him? Moses after all was Pharaoh’s adopted son, so
not without power or influence. Was this a righteous act or the flash of a hot
temper? Was this justice or vengeance? It’s not always so easy to tell. Did the punishment fit the crime?
To answer
that question you have to go back to the beginning of the Bible. The fourth chapter of Genesis obviously
follows the third, which described the entrance of sin into the world and the
fall of humanity. That’s the well-known
story of the garden and the snake and the forbidden fruit. When the dust settled, Adam and Eve found
themselves on the outside looking in and so began a new life far from the home
into which they had been born.
They made a
new home for themselves and began to raise a family – two boys, Cain and
Abel. Now the Bible says Abel was a
shepherd and Cain was a farmer, so each brought what they had as an offering to
the Lord, but God for reasons only God knows accepted one but not the other.
The sacrificial lamb was apparently more significant than sacrificial zucchini,
so Cain in jealous rage killed his brother.
Murder was the first sin committed outside of Eden.
Cain did
what people do when they are caught red-handed.
He lied. When God asked, “Where
is your brother?” Cain said, “Don’t
know” and then asked, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Well, it turns out he was or at least was
supposed to be his brother’s keeper and since he did such a poor job of it, God
sent him into exile. In those days, that
was tantamount to a death sentence because away from the protection of family
you stood little chance in a cold and cruel world. Cain knew that and so pleaded for
leniency. God granted this request for
grace and marked Cain in some way in order to protect his life.[3]
Grace and justice became intertwined in that moment. Cain was punished for the
crime, but the reprieve from capital punishment allowed for the possibility of
redemption. That would not be the last
time God would weave grace and justice together.
The next
scripture that speaks to this question of life and how it is to be protected
and when it may be taken is found a few chapters later in Genesis. “Whoever
sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for God made man in his
own image.”[4] With
this declaration human life is valued because we have been created in the image
of God. For that reason life is to be
protected and when it is not, when an innocent life is taken, capital
punishment in this particular verse is not only appropriate – it is
required. Murder was seen not only a sin
against society, but also a sin against God.
“The Lord gives life and the Lord takes life.”[5]
When you
read the chapters that follow these Ten Commandments you will find a number of
infractions listed that fall under this capital punishment rule:
“Whoever
strikes a man so that he dies shall be put to death.”
“Whoever
strikes his father or mother shall be put to death.”
“Whoever
steals a man, (kidnapping) shall be put to death.”
“Whoever
curses his father or mother shall be put to death.”[6]
The list
goes on. When you are a wandering
through the wilderness of Sinai imprisonment was impractical, that left only
three forms of punishment: death, exile, which was just about the same thing,
or a financial fine and court costs. Justice was best understood then, as it is
for many today with the verse, “Eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth”.[7]
As time
passed by the people settled down into the Promised Land. They built houses and courthouses and jails,
so justice mellowed a bit and was not enforced quite so severely, but still the
death penalty was handed down for a variety of offenses. We find an example of
this in the eighth chapter of the Gospel of John.
In the well-known story of the woman
caught in adultery scribes and Pharisees asked Jesus whether or not he agreed
with the law and its requirement that people guilty of this sin should be
executed? That is, did Jesus agree with
Moses? Was he for law and order or was
he soft on crime? Since Jesus was already
known for his emphasis on God’s grace, they thought they had boxed him into a
corner. Either he repudiates his earlier
words or he offends all who believe justice must be done.
Most of us know what happened
next. Jesus knelt, doodled in the sand
and said, “Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone.” The Pharisees now found themselves in a box,
unable to fulfill their understanding of justice lest that same standard be
applied to them and so they melted into the shadows. Jesus then said to the woman, “I don’t
condemn you, but go and sin no more.”[8] Grace and righteousness were interwoven once
more.
This story
highlights one of the problems inherent with capital punishment and that
centers on the question of equality.
That is, if capital punishment is to be used to serve justice; it must
be fairly applied. Everyone must be
treated the same regardless of gender, race, or position in society. Notice, in this story, only the woman caught
in adultery faced an angry mob with rock-laden hands. The man, and there would have had to have
been a man, was not dragged into the town square. No one was calling for his life. So, in this case capital punishment was one
sided, to be enforced on one and not the other.
If that happens justice is not really served.
Since there
is no correcting a mistake made in this matter, the process for determining
when it should be used needs to be perfect. You’re looking to score a hundred
per cent on this test, because even one mistake is too many. On this scripture is clear, no one, not even
the government has the right to shed innocent blood.
This same
principle of protecting the innocent would apply to the other right to life
questions of our time. The debate on
abortion and stem cell research must ultimately focus on the question of life
and when it begins? On the back end
there is another question on when life ends?
In these areas, medical
advancements in technology and information has both muddied and cleared the
waters. Today, almost every parent has
seen through a sonogram his or her little one wriggling around in the womb long
before the child is born and since “seeing is believing” conclude that life is
present and to be protected. But, how far back do you go? Some in the Christian community say life
begins at conception and so forbid the use of birth control methods that do not
allow a fertilized egg to make a home in the womb. Others protest and say that restriction will
result in the unwanted pregnancy you’re trying to avoid in the first place.
All of this
can get pretty complicated so people of faith do come to different conclusions
on the question of when life begins. There are those though who believe this
question is irrelevant and so these decisions are to be made only on the basis
of power, on individual rights and the ability to do what you want. On that
Richard Neuhaus once observed, “In the absence of truth, power is the only game
in town.” All that matters then is that
you have the power to do whatever you want for whatever reason you decide is
valued. The only qualifier nearly everyone accepts is that no one has the right
to infringe upon the right to life of another.
So we come full circle to the question of when life begins.
On the
other end of life we run into the opposite question on when life ends. Anyone
who has ever stood next the intensive care bed of a loved one and watched
medical technology perform all the functions needed to sustain life knows that
as with the questions of life’s beginning, the questions of life’s ending can
be confusing as well. While measuring
quality of life to determine when life must be sustained or when it may be
concluded can be a slippery slope and very subjective leading to decisions
based on convenience or cost; it is equally true that modern medical technology
creates ethical questions our grandparents never had to consider.
Waiting rooms in hospitals
everywhere are filled with people who wonder, “Is this what Mom would have
wanted?” “Is it right to keep Dad in
this medical purgatory where machines to sustain every bodily function without
any hope of recovery?” These are all
tough decisions and very personal, so the important question becomes, “whose
interest is being protected – the one laying in the bed or the one standing by
his side?” Motive matters.
Maybe
that’s where Jesus was going when he linked murder to anger in his beautiful
but impossible Sermon on the Mount. “You
have heard it said, “you shall not murder”, but I say to you if you are angry
with a brother or sister, if you insult a brother or sister, if you call them
“Raca”, fool you shall be liable to judgment.”[9] Intent, motive, matters of the heart, have
always seemed to matter as much to God as the actions we take. The Bible says, “While we look at the outward
appearance, God looks to the heart.”[10]
So, while
someone may boast, “I’m going to heaven because I’ve never killed anyone”; they
would likely fail this litmus test on anger.
If God’s justice is measured by our attitudes as well as our actions,
then none of us can stand tall before him proud and unblemished. For that reason, Jesus said, “we must take
care when we judge another, lest we be judged.[11]
All of us
look for justice and wonder what it must look like. All of us believe life is a gift of God and
so to be protected by this sixth commandment, but we don’t always agree on what
that means. The stakes are high, a
matter of life and death, so we wrestle with these questions of life and when
it must be protected and when it may be taken.
In confusing and complicated times we all run the risk of being wrong,
and that is why we all must rely upon the grace of God in order to fulfill the
justice of God.
From the
beginning of God’s Word to the end, from the cross on Calvary to the empty tomb
God weaves together justice and mercy in ways we can barely comprehend. Faith
becomes our only hope for making our way in such a world and in making our way
to the next.
Lord, in
Jesus Christ you have promised life abundant.[12]
Help us to celebrate and share that life so that all might see you way,
understand your truth, and experience your life.[13] Amen.
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