1. Please pray with me. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts, be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our Redeemer. Amen. The message from God’s Word on this Sanctity of Life Sunday is taken from Ephesians 2:1-10 and is entitled, “Just As I Am,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. William Ernest Henley only had one leg. Well, he had one leg and half of another. A childhood tuberculosis of the bone took his left below the knee. But he also had shaggy hair, a flame-red beard, and hulking shoulders that one contemporary compared to a dwarf. Another lifelong friend likened him to the Olympian god Pan. Robert Louis Stevenson patterned the pirate Long John Silver after Henley, and J. M. Barrie derived Peter Pan’s, Wendy, from Henley’s daughter, Margaret. His greatest renown, though, came from a poem he wrote in 1875. “Invictus” culminates in these words: “I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.”
3. The Greeks of antiquity had their mythologies. Our time likewise idolizes. We prefer the fable of the self-made man. Pagans such as the Ephesians dreamed in fantasy while we do the same in science fiction. St. Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus here in chapter 2 sings in their song about heavenly places, spirits at work in sons of disobedience, and the prince of the power of the air. They told tales of demons and deities, and our epics focus more on devices. Our fascination with gadgets matches their attention to the pagan gods and goddesses. Where they revered exaggerated creatures—pixies and fairies, we venerate extravagant structures—offices and factories. We simply substitute aluminum and concrete for bronze and stone or swap the statues for screens.
4. What if the rumors are true? What if we did make ourselves? We start with the feet, don’t we? We have to have hard and heavy feet, for stomping and demolishing, to invade, overtake, and occupy. We give ourselves golden skin. Then let’s add a lot of arms, a whole set of hands, an entire collection of fingers to touch, clutch, and grab whatever we want. Our sinful world says that we’ve got freedom to reconfigure our appearance for any reason and redefine our identity at any time.
5. Make me taller. That means more attractive, more impressive, more intimidating. Nowhere should lie outside my ability to occupy. Leave off the eyes and ears. Listening’s too submissive, and ingesting’s better than simply observing. So, a huge mouth. Indulge. Gratify. Not just consume but also command, complain, criticize. Turn lungs, liver, and kidneys into additional intestines. More digesting, discarding, disposing. Forge and weld hearts of steel, efficient like an engine gulping in fuel and pumping out force. Electricity rather than emotion pulsing the torque along, toxic vapor for oxygen and venom instead of blood to repel predators and enemies. Narrow brain, like microchips and motherboards, not for creativity or contemplation but for calculating.
6. We design ourselves and turn out machines. If we decide our life, we end up monsters. If we exist as our own workmanship like the mythology insists, we become Frankenstein’s monster. Our nature, our spirit, our heart remains the one thing we can’t manufacture. Humankind can’t keep our fingerprints and particles, oils and odors off anything we contact and handle, whether substance, situation, idea, or individual. We engineer only in our own sinful image – greedy and gluttonous, lustful and lazy, covetous and competitive, selfish and sinful. We are not self-sustaining.
7. Even an island gets kissed by the ocean. Even a rock feels the rain. Like it or not, we are God’s workmanship as St. Paul says here in Ephesians 2. Humankind bears the image of our Maker. This species carries the signature of the Father Almighty. Ephesians or Americans, long-ago or present-day, Paul calls us poiema theou. It translates as the Lord’s creation, of God’s doing, divine poetry, you are God’s poem, God’s masterpiece. The jewel, the crown of His creation. He has painted and pours Himself into each one of our race. He scribbles Himself all over our kind. Whatever He touches cannot stay as before and becomes uniquely His own. He leaves evidence that the Most-High God was here. He can’t bring us into being without it reflecting His nature and His character. We embody the image of Trinity, relationship and favor and invitation gracing over even the grotesque.
8. Organism implies origin. Child assumes parent. And bride corresponds as complementary to husband. God’s gotten Himself all wrapped up in us. First, He winds His will and His Word into bringing us forth, summoning us into being out of His own desire. Next, He threads His fingers through the dust of the ground, molding humanity on hands and knees, knitting us together one rib to another in mother’s womb with surgical precision, whispering our chests full of His own breath of life. Then, this Author, Architect, and Artisan twists His whole being into our tissue. He incarnates Himself skeleton, skin, muscle, and blood as embryo growing in the Virgin Mary’s belly. Fetus and infant, toddler and teenager, adult and aged, Jesus Christ suffers our sicknesses and shoulders our sorrows. Jesus our High Priest like unto His brothers in every respect and form of a servant obedient even unto death on a cross. Finally, He knots His Spirit into our bodies, templing our flesh by baptismal water and taste of eucharistic bread and wine. He calls such as us by His family name, adopts into His household inheritance, incorporates into His kingdom majesty, and resurrects alongside His Son for abundant honor and everlasting life. And this He performs no matter anyone’s age, ability, history, or appearance.
9. So, the Lord our God fashioned us eyes to draw us outside ourselves like Father to Son and to the Holy Ghost. He furnished us ears as entryways for His promises and truths to our deepest recesses. He formed us with noses that entice us toward hope and instruct us about trust. He fit us with mouths not only to dine and drink but also to disclose and dialogue. Our Almighty Maker ordained our teeth solid enough to advocate and counsel even in adversity but smooth enough to assist instead of attack, tempered by tongues, gums, and lips, making us mindful of tenderness. He allotted us brains that deduce and conclude paired with minds that recognize, remember, and dream. He imparted to us hairs that He numbers the same way He knows our secrets and our concerns, our histories and destinies. Our Heavenly Father granted us arms for embracing, hands for helping and welcoming, legs to dance and play together, and feet that we may accompany one another. He handed us skin, so we sense our limitations, muscles and vessels prepared for connection, spine and nerves suited to communicating, heart and blood because only vulnerable amounts to available. Our Gracious Savior infused in us physical impulse toward recovery that we may long for His forgiveness and live in His redemption.
10. Christ crucified has redeemed us and made us God’s own children. That is to say, Christ risen from the dead bought us creatures back from sin, death and the devil’s hold over us. Every human being is God’s workmanship, mirroring Messiah, just as I am. Juvenile or senile, each one is gift to be received. Surprise pregnancy or terminal diagnosis, each one is privilege to be enjoyed. Impaired or intense, all human lives are special, precious, priceless from fertilization to forever. Beyond behaviors and bills, propositions and principles, beyond personal choice, political controversy, or public opinion, sanctity of life is for speaking, for showing, and for sharing. And above all, sanctity of life is for us, for you and for me, just as I am. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, until life everlasting. Amen.
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