Hospitality and the birth decision– A Human issue
Written by Dan McDonald
A
Prayer:
Our
Father we are astonished to know you have created us in your image. Even
in our follies you have visited us in grace and kindness. We
have received mercies without boundaries from your heart so
that we might extend grace and hospitality to those around us. Our
Lord, teach us thy beautiful ways. Amen.
The issue is a deeply divisive one
in American politics. For many people, abortion is to be viewed as the taking
of an innocent vulnerable right. For others, a woman’s body is her body to
control as is her conscience and the state should not interfere with a decision
which concerns her body. The debate has raged for decades and the lines have
become well established and the perspectives set forth time and time again. But
I wonder for those of us who view ourselves as pro-life, if we have set aside
our most poignant way to address the issues of mother and child when abortion
is being considered. We have tried to win a legal battle, while setting aside
the more compelling arguments of the heart appealing to the possibilities that
we might be gracious, merciful, and hospitable. We have argued over what is
right and wrong rather than appealing to the desires of men and women to live
beautiful lives. What is the sense of reason in these issues when instead of
arguing right and wrong, lawful and unlawful, we ask “what is gracious,
hospitable, and beautiful?”
We so easily set aside the beauty of
the Gospel message when seeking a politicized answer to the drama of a woman
carrying a child while believing she is not prepared to face motherhood. The
pro-life argument that fails to appreciate the drama of a woman with a child
for which she is not prepared is surely going to appear to be insensitive to
the woman’s needs. The pro-choice perspective that fails to appreciate that at
the very basic level, a fetus is a growing human life will never convince the
other side that disposing of a growing human life is a reasonable option. By
treating the issue of abortion as primarily a political issue we have reached a
political stalemate. For the person who is pro-life this is a stalemate which
has been on the legal front already lost. It is not likely that anytime in the
near future there will be a change of law to protect the unborn infant. But the
Christian does not need the support of a law to make his appeal to men and
women everywhere that there is a way of beauty, grace, and hospitality which
reaches out to both mother and child in a way preferential to abortion. Why do
we insist on the constraining powers of the state to argue for a way of life
that if presented as a beautiful way of life has the stronger appeal?
In the Biblical message of the
Gospel, the first promise of redemption was given in the promise that the woman
would give birth to a son who would overcome the seed of the serpent. The
Gospel message has been given to us within the hope of a woman giving birth to
the deliverer. I suppose there are ways to make the story oppressive or to
diminish the value of womanhood outside of an act of giving birth – but I do
not believe such minimization of womanhood was God’s intention in the promise.
Yet the promise of redemption was somehow extended into our humanity as a
promise of a woman and her offspring bringing God’s promise into the world.
A Shutterstock image
In the New Testament fulfillment of
that promise the angel Gabriel comes to Mary and announces to Mary that she is
chosen of the Lord to bring forth a son, the Holy one, who shall be the Son of
God. She wonders how this could be when she had not been with a man. Gabriel
explains that she the Holy Spirit would enable her to conceive and thus God’s
redemption would come into the world through her. In this instance, as Luke
tells the story it appears that God doesn’t invade Mary’s body but that he
explains to her His desire to bring redemption into the world through her. Mary
responds in a way that treats this promised infant who would inhabit her womb
as an act of hospitality. She replies to Gabriel when she understands what he
is telling her by saying, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be
done to me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38 NAB) In Christmas sermons we
often hear ministers describe how there was no room at the inn when Jesus was
about to be born, and so we are asked if there is room in our hearts for Jesus.
Do we in an act of faith and hospitality, say to Jesus “Come in, there is room
for you within me?” Luke describes how Mary let her womb become the first inn
for God and God’s redemption as he came into the world.
The New Testament does not withhold from
us the difficulties Mary faced bearing her child. Joseph, her fiancé was
suspicious. He did not instantly think that Mary was a virgin happening to
carry a child in her womb. He began to consider how he might set her aside for
her unfaithfulness while not seeking to shame or destroy her in her young age.
Then God revealed to him what was taking place. Joseph, when doubting her
faithfulness to him as his fiancé, showed that he was desirous nonetheless to
seek a just and merciful way to release her from the vows she had seemingly
broken. By his mercy and his extending a gracious hospitality to her future
well-being he showed that he was the man whom God would call upon to raise the
child as his own. He had shown faithfulness and hospitality to the mother with
the burden of bringing into the world a child she could not explain.
In coming into the world, Jesus
Christ as believed upon through the centuries is the fullness of God made the
fullness of humanity. We can grant that it is a mystery when the fetus within a
mother’s womb can be said to bear the image of God, except that the incarnation
redefines the issue. When God chose to enter the world in the humanity of the
son of the woman, he entered the world “conceived of the Virgin Mary by the
Holy Spirit.” When God entered the world in human flesh he associated with our
humanity from the beginning of human life, at conception. Jesus’ fullness of
humanity – perhaps the greatest of mysteries – began at conception. That is
when the mystery of humanity began to be revealed into the world.
Yes indeed human life is a mystery.
It was a mystery as the Psalmist looked back to his being brought to creation
in his mother’s world and would be a mystery as the same Psalm could describe
the Jesus who was invited by Mary into her womb. The Psalmist praises God for
his act of creation within his mother’s womb. He views her womb as a
continuation of the act of creation. Her womb is the earth, even as God created
man from the dust of the earth, and then he enables the woman from the earth of
her womb to bring forth life of one created in God’s image. The Psalmist praises
God in this mystery saying, “You formed my inmost being; you knit me in my
mother’s womb. I praise you, so wonderfully you made me; wonderful are your
works! My very self you knew; my bones were not hidden from you, when I was
being made in secret, fashioned as in the depths of the earth. Your eyes
foresaw my actions; in your book they were all written down; my days were
shaped, before one came to be.”
In his humanity, Jesus entered our
humanity with us in our being conceived within the wombs of our mothers. He has
associated with us in our conception. This is not a good scientific answer as
to when our human life began. It is not a good philosophical answer in regards
to what point in our development we became persons in the image of God. But it
is a beautiful answer in the mystery of incarnation. God created man in his
image that God could visit humanity in our humanity. The story of the
incarnation leads us to realize that we receive God when we see humanity in
need. For God is unseen and so we display love and show truth of our worship by
showing love to our neighbor created in God’s image. The story of the
incarnation celebrated at every Christmas is the story of God entering the
world in conception, sharing our humanity beginning with the mystery of life in
the womb. The story describes how Mary said yes in presenting her womb to
become an inn for the human life about to enter the world. The story describes
how Joseph saw a woman with child in need and sought to show her mercy.
The Gospel from the first promise in
Genesis 3 was the description of a woman who would bring salvation to the world
in her offspring. It was also an act of hospitality, when a woman allowed her
womb to become the inn for creating a life created in God’s image. The woman
with her child was also for those around her; family, friends, lovers,
communities an act of hospitality helping mother and child through the
difficulties of giving birth and motherhood.
I wonder if perhaps God has chosen
not to bless our desires for legislative answers, for his greater desire that
we might learn hospitality in remembrance of the sacred promise of a Gospel
declared in a woman’s bringing forth of a child. If we as human beings learned
these lessons of grace, mercy, and hospitality in relationship to the woman and
the child in her womb, I suspect that soon abortion would become rare even if
no law were passed. I believe my greater need is not to be a crusader who gets
a law passed to make abortion illegal, but my greater need is to be one through
whom my neighbor is encouraged because I have shown grace, mercy, and
hospitality so as to help prepare a way for their life decision.
