Sanctity of Life
Sunday
Epiphany 3
Jan 20, 2013
Fr. Philip Eberhart
In the Grip of Grace
(Audio Sermon click here)
This morning is the
national observance of Sanctity of Life and this weekend is the 40th
anniversary of the Roe V. Wade Supreme Court decision that opened the way for
this national destruction of innocent life.
I only want to quote one statistic this morning and to think on it a
bit. Since 1973, it is estimated that
upwards of 55 million babies have been killed in this national holocaust.
The reason that I use
the word ‘holocaust’ is that the number of abortions in 40 years is almost 10
times the number of deaths in Hitler’s camps.
And this is perpetrated against our own children and grandchildren. How can God NOT judge us as a nation?
This morning I want
to tell another “right to life” story.
Some of you have heard it in various forms, because its my own story.
I’ve titled this
sermon, “In the Grip of Grace.”
I was born to a 16
year old mom and a 17 year old dad in mid-1954.
In those days instead of abortion clinics run by Planned Parenthood,
there were Unwed Mother’s Homes run by the church. Interestingly the one I was born out of was
here in Denver and it was run by the Episcopal Church. It was called the Florence Crittendon
home. It still is in existence today
here in Denver, as a High school for teen moms. Their mission statement is
“educating, preparing, and empowering teen mothers.”
What was a home for
pregnant teens in the 50’s and long before, has morphed into a program of
education for teen moms and dads. The
services find their roots back before Colorado statehood in Family and
Children’s services with the establishment of the Home in 1893, 120 years
ago. 58 years ago, I was born out of
that home.
My mom gave me to the
state for adoption and I was adopted by a farm family from Burlington,
Colorado, on the eastern plains. In
September of 1954 I was the “birthday present” for my mom. I lived in one house and went to one set of
schools until the year that Roe V. Wade happened, 1973.
For a lot of
adoptees, the story kind of ends like that.
Adoptees grow up to live normal, productive lives in our society and are
virtually indistinguishable from those who grew up in their families of origin. And that is probably what would have happened
with me, except I got a call one night in 1987.
My parents in
Burlington had been told that I was adopted because my parents had been killed
in an accident, or that is what I remember being told. It virtually closed the door on any curiosity
I had around any of that in my life and it just became a non issue. Until the call.
Val and I had been
married for 10 years, pushing through undergrad and graduate school, I had
served in churches for a few years, and had worked outside the church for a few
years. Now we were here in Colorado and
waiting on God to point the way for a new pathway into ministry. We felt directed here, back to a place that
we loved, and where, I was to discover, I had deep roots.
In that waiting
period, I got the call. Just a few months
after moving to Denver and a few months before doors opened up for ministry, I
got a call. One night later than usual,
about 10:30 the phone rang. I was
already in bed, but Val was up – duh!
She answered the phone and a lady’s voice on the other end asked for
me. She explained that I was in bed and
with some insistence the lady pressed, so she got me up and I took the call in
my home office.
This is Phil.
Philip … Eberhart?
Yes.
And you were born May xx, 1954?
… um… yes.
She paused.
“Are you sitting down?”
(you know its rarely
good when someone asks that question)
“You might want to sit down.”
Ma’am, what’s this
about?
“I’m your birth mother.”
(I sat down.) long pause
I really don’t
remember much of the conversation past that point. She did most of the talking, introducing
herself, and beginning the almost year long process of moving toward
establishing a relationship with a son she had given up for adoption 33 years
before.
I met Sharron, my
birth mom in August of 1988 and Val and I then were invited and went to
Albuquerque, to her home for Labor Day at the end of that same month. There I met my 4 half sisters and my birth
father, as well. I was a momentous time.
As we drove back to
Denver the words of a Hebrew poem rang through my head that has become my
closely held, heart-felt statement of who I am and whose I am.
Psalm 139
For the choir director: A psalm of
David.
O LORD, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. You know when I sit down or stand up. You
know my thoughts even when I'm far away. You see me when I travel and when I
rest at home. You know everything I do. You know what I am going to say even
before I say it, LORD. You go before me and follow me. You place your hand of
blessing on my head. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me
to understand!
You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together
in my mother's womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your
workmanship is marvelous--how well I know it. You watched me as I was being
formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You
saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every
moment was laid out before a single day had passed. How precious are your thoughts
about me, O God. They cannot be numbered!
These lines capture
for me a truth that God has riveted down into the depths of my soul, because of
the experience of that time and subsequent times as we have now been a part of
a new family for 25 years!
I struggled early on
with whose I was now that I had this knowledge and this new family. My adoptive family in Burlington saw that
struggle and struggled with me. I’ll
never forget my father sitting on the couch across from me, a rugged eastern
Colorado farmer, looking at me with tears in his eyes and calling me his “little
poopsie.”
I was 34 at the time!
After we had the
girls, we struggled with how to refer to these “families.” Until I presided at my birth-grandmother’s
funeral and the family was gathered. The
girls were about three, so we had been in this relationship for about 5 years
or so.
One of my
half-sisters introduced herself to my girls as their aunt. We had always called my birth mom, Aunt
Sharron, with the girls up to that point, to avoid grandma-confusion. So Valerie took the girls downstairs and told
them the story of the adoption in kid terms.
After she finished, Aly’s face brightened with the light of knowledge
and she said, “Sooo, Sharon is daddy’s mommy, but Grandma is daddy’s forever-mommy.”
Yep --- case
closed! That was the end of my ambiguity,
at the hands of a three-year-old.
Just one more story,
and then I’ll close.
After that initial
call of introduction, Sharron sent us a card for Christmas, I think it
was. She sent us, not a picture of
herself, but a picture of my father when he was in his late twenties or early
thirties. Val opened the card and took
out the picture, held it up beside me and said, “Well I don’t know who Sharron
is but this guy is definitely related to you.”
In another phone
conversation, after several such conversations that winter, Val said, “I can
see references and hear them, that lead me to believe you might be a
Christian.” Sharon acknowledged that she
was. “Well it might be interesting to
you to know that we are as well, and in fact, that your son is a
preacher.” Long silence and tears
followed. “I’ve been praying for him for
33 years.”
The weekend that we
met this “birth family” we ended our time on Sunday with a church service at my
birth-mom’s church. Val and I took our
instruments and played “On Eagle’s Wings” as a special for that evening
service. I’ve since officiated at
weddings and funerals for the family and have visited many times in their
homes.
But I want to come
back to Ps 139 for a moment with just one more story.
Some of you were
present when I was ordained as a Priest in 1994 in December at Good
Shepherd,
just up the road here, on Dry Creek.
My birth father was
not a religious man. But that weekend in
1988 set he and I in a relationship that is unlike anything I’ve ever known and
the same for him. It’s not buddy-buddy
or even father-son, really, but there is
a quiet and deep connection that I cannot explain.
When it came time for
my ordination, as we were planning it, I got another call. This time from Corky, my birth father. “So, do you think I might be able to drive up
and come to this?” I was stunned! The question rocked me. I thought of my parents, my “folks” as I now
call them, from Burlington … what would they think?
How would this effect
them on one of the biggest days of my life?
So I called and
asked. I put the priority on that
forever relationship, but wanted to honor Corky’s request, because of this
connection that had developed over now 6 years.
And my parents gave their consent.
Just Corky came, no other members of my birth-family.
So the day, I became
“Father Phil” – Dec 17, 1994 – in the pew behind me sat my wife, my mom and
dad, and my birth father, invited to sit with the family and be a part, fully,
of this blessing and beginning.
How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be
numbered!
I can't even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand! And when I
wake up, you are still with me! Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me
and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and
lead me along the path of everlasting life.
On this Sanctity of
Life Sunday, I want you to know how much God knows, understands and cares about
you. It’s total.
God knows you totally. Every thought, motive, movement and meaning.
God understands you
totally. Not ambiguity for him. It’s all crystal clear.
God cares for you
totally. He loves you with an
everlasting love. The OT calls it Unfailing Love. The NT calls it AGAPE – unconditional love.
Paul tells us in
Romans 5 that while we were still strangers and enemies, God loved us. While we were weak and powerless, God loved
us. And not only that, it was then that
He gave Himself to the cross for us – before we did anything.
This is the core of
my being. Sanctity of Life isn’t just a
Sunday, it is the settled knowledge of whose we all are as His creation. The whole world, born and unborn is in His view. And as we come to faith, we become His
children again – as He gives us the right to become, as we’ve talked about in
the weeks prior to this.
I thank God and my
birth-mom that she did not seek abortion.
Granted it wasn’t as easy then, and perhaps that’s the point of this day
of remembrance.
We must take up the
call that Ps 139 presents as a mandate from God to do all we can to end the
tide of abortion in our land. It is not
a political thing for me. It is a
personal thing for me. And I believe it
needs to be a personal thing for all of us.
God makes every life,
no matter the circumstances of their birth, good, bad or indifferent! And God wants us to honor life, from our
everyday choices to the choices of our politics and our policies. So let us set our faces together, again
today, to stand for God’s love and for the individual dignity and rights
guaranteed by our constitution and the God of our republic, in whom we say we
trust: The rights to life, to liberty
and to the pursuit of happiness, in that trust.
May God help us and have mercy upon us in this nation.
Amen.
Let us pray,
O God, the author of
life and giver of mercy and grace;
Assist us with your Spirit to set a course in our lives and in our land
to honor the value of every human life, from conception to natural death, as
coming from your hand. Lead us to
actions that restore to our communities the values of family, faith and freedom. And give us, we pray, an awareness of your
great love for each one of us and all who we meet, that we might be your
ambassadors, extending your kingdom of love and peace to all; by the power of
your loving sacrifice, Lord Jesus, who, with the Father and the Holy Spirit,
reigns in glory, One God, now and forever.
Amen.
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