Is abortion wrong? Let us begin by examining why we have abortions in the first place. They end unwanted pregnancies. (Of course, there are other alternatives for this. Contraceptives do work. We will leave their efficacies for another discussion.) We live in a promiscuous age. People are having sex out of wedlock, often making little preparation for birth control. Both men and women want to exercise their freedom in how they choose to use their bodies.
Is this something that Christians are allowed? The Apostle Paul writes:
Do you not know that whoever is united to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For it is said, “The two shall be one flesh.” But anyone united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Shun fornication! Every sin that a person commits is outside the body; but the fornicator sins against the body itself. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6:16-20)
Do we have such rights as men’s and women’s rights to choose? No. Our bodies are not ours to do whatever we want. If Jesus is Lord, he is Lord of our bodies, minds, and spirits.
But is an unborn baby really a person. Medical science indeed suggests that. An electrocardiograph clearly shows a living organism. But what does scripture say? The psalmist writes:
For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written
all the days that were formed for me,
when none of them as yet existed. (Psalm 139:13-16)
Let us examine the call by God on the Prophet Isaiah. When did that call begin?
Listen to me, O coastlands,
pay attention, you peoples from far away!
The Lord called me before I was born,
while I was in my mother’s womb he named me.
He made my mouth like a sharp sword,
in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
he made me a polished arrow,
in his quiver he hid me away.
And he said to me, “You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”
But I said, “I have labored in vain,
I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity;
yet surely my cause is with the Lord,
and my reward with my God.”
And now the Lord says,
who formed me in the womb to be his servant,
to bring Jacob back to him,
and that Israel might be gathered to him,
for I am honored in the sight of the Lord,
and my God has become my strength—
he says,
“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to restore the survivors of Israel;
I will give you as a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” (Isaiah 49:1-6)
Where would we be without this great prophet? How many prophets have we aborted in the womb?
The Church should be the moral compass. Are we not speaking out that abortions are wrong? But what if the life of the mother is at risk? How often does that occur? Enough to justify the killing of millions of babies? Is not abortion, for the majority, just a convenient form of birth control?
But abortion is too controversial. I may lose offerings. I may lose members. I may be accused of hate speech by the government or news media. Who is the head of our church?
Preaching the Lectionary 