Eastertide #4: Loving the Born vs. Unborn (Roe v. Wade & Buffalo, NY Shooting) | @kaleophx

Illustration Black fetus in womb by Chidiebere Ibe

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May 16, 2022

Even in the conception for this national case – Jane Roe lived as a poster child for both abortion and anti-abortion. Her story reveals that a woman’s choice is nuanced by lived experiences! Below is a recording and transcript of my message.

LAND ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Hello everyone, my name is Erin and my pronouns are she/her. I’d like to begin with a land acknowledgment to honor the Native people that existed here before us. This land we dwell upon today (Grace Lutheran Church in downtown Phoenix) is the ancestral land of the Tohono O’odham Nation. We acknowledge their historical roots in this place, the many generations who were stewards of this land before it was stolen from them.

BUFFALO, NY

I’d like to also acknowledge the incident that happened in Buffalo, NY, yesterday, May 14th.

Peyton Grendon, an 18-year-old who allegedly wrote a 180-page White supremacist manifesto on how people of color are replacing white people in America, traveled from hours away to a predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York, and opened fire in a supermarket.

While live streaming on Twitch, the 18 year old shooter had the n-word scrawled on his rifle. He targeted Tops Friendly Market store in a predominantly black area killing 10 people and wounding three. 11 of those shot were Black.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I want to acknowledge what has happened in Buffalo because it's important...to acknowledge and tell the truth about the lived experiences of Black people in America. It is the only way we can create safe spaces for us to exist together among other White people.

To my fellow Black friends:

I know that every time something like this happens, we go out into the world a bit more on high alert.

I know that every time something like this happens we go to bed a bit more nauseated.

I know every time something like this happens we look at our Black friends and family a bit longer and hope they don't encounter a White terrorist in the world.

I know every time something like this happens we take a deep breath and hope the White allies around us stay White allies.

I know every time something like this happens we just want to put on a Black movie, or get around Black people, or do whatever we can to put an image of Black people winning in front of us...because it feels like the news only shows us Black people dying.

I know every time something like this happens it takes faith to keep trusting that the ways of Jesus can make a difference....to believe that the system of White supremacy isn't too big for us...to believe in White friends who are truly abolitionists...and to believe that the ways of Jesus are more powerful than the power to kill that exists in the world.

I stand here as a Black woman...a Black pastor standing among Black AND white people...some Native American. Some Asian and Pacific Islanders. Some middle eastern.... trying to figure out what to say to this community of people that we might live as beloved community.

Trying to imagine a multi-ethnic community that truly cares for the health, safety, and well-being of each other. I'm trying to imagine a community that doesn't pretend like White Supremacy doesn't exist but imagines a new world in spite of it.

That's hard to do...but I'm hopeful.

Because Jesus rising up from the dead is proof that His ways are greater than empire. Greater than empires' desire for power. Greater Than empire’s desire to kill. I'm hopeful because Jesus was a subversive political leader...and in this room are His followers. People willing to live subversive to empire. People willing to restore the dignity of our brothers and sisters. People willing to redistribute land and resources to Native Americans and Black people because our government won't do it. There's something in me that wants to believe that's possible and…that is why I'm standing here today.

I stared into the face of my Black husband a bit longer today...not knowing all that may happen in his life but praying that God would protect him...that God would protect us.

Let's take a moment of silence for the people and families impacted by the White supremacists / terrorist attack in Buffalo, NY.

INTRODUCTION

“‘The unborn’ are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. It’s almost as if, by being born, they have died to you (worthy of open fire in a grocery store; police brutality; and shots in the back). You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus but actually dislike people who breathe.

Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? (Friends unshowered and without homes?) All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.”

- Methodist Pastor David Barnhart

ABORTION DOCUMENTARY

A few years back I watched a documentary called “AKA Jane Roe.”

It tells the story of Norma McCorvey, the “Jane Roe” whose unwanted pregnancy led to the 1973 case that legalized abortion nationwide, Roe v. Wade. The documentary unravels the mysteries closely guarded by Jane Roe throughout her life.

Some of those mysteries include are the fact that she never actually had an abortion; Her life was hard; her mother hit her; she was shamed for kissing and falling in love with another woman; she escaped a marriage to an abusive man and then quietly stood her ground as a queer woman until her dying day.

“Eventually, she was considered too divisive and unpredictable by many in the abortion movement, Jane Roe stunned the world in 1995 when she made a public religious and political conversion.

She was baptized on television in a backyard swimming pool; she wore overalls and came out beaming. She declared herself a newly anti-abortionist and spent the last two decades of her life crusading against the ruling her own case had made possible.”

But the complications of her life story don’t end there. They go on. Her captured portrait in the film reveals that even at the age of 69 with heart failure leading to her early grave, she yet again said she was for abortion.

Her story is complicated, messy, and seen by political leaders on both abortion and anti-abortion campaigns as the catalyst for their political agendas.

What’s most revealing about this story is that even in the conception for this national case – Jane Roe lived as a poster child for both abortion and anti-abortion. Her story reveals that a woman’s choice is nuanced by lived experiences, money, power…and the lack thereof; manipulation, and the complexities of systemic injustice; and the complexities of life itself.

Even in the conception of Roe vs. Wade, it was never actually ever about Jane Roe. It was about politicians on both sides getting behind a sellable story that would grant them the power they were after all along.

What would Jesus do with the fight against a woman’s right to choose?

JESUS CALLS US TO LOVE

Within this season of Eastertide we encounter the resurrected Jesus again and again as we are invited to live as resurrection people, filled with the Spirit, joining Jesus in fulfilling what he set out to do: ⁠Bring Good News to the poor, the least, the lost, the left out.

When it comes to women’s rights being changed in our land, large changes such as overturning Roe v. Wade has the greatest impact on the poor, the least, those marginalized, and left out.

So if Jesus can’t bring good news to the here and now; then what are we here for? If we will not preach good news to women here and now, then what are we preaching? If we will not embody good news (deliverance and liberation) to women here and now, then what we are embodying to our neighbors?…because it may not be Jesus at all.

JOHN 13:31-35 (NIV)

31 When he was gone, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him. 32 If God is glorified in him,[a] God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once.

33 “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.

34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

At the beginning of the chapter in John 13, Jesus takes time to wash his disciple’s feet. He washes their feet and says you do this also for one another.

Jesus then takes bread and wine and tells them to partake and to do so in remembrance of Him.

Let’s back it up a bit.

It’s interesting that Jesus washes everyone’s feet. The one who will betray him (Judas) the one who will deny him (Peter) and the ones who faithfully try to follow Him. He washes all their feet.

And on the same night, he has communion. He says take of this, partake and eat of this bread – which represents my body and do this in re-membrance of me. Take this cup of wine, drink of it, and do this in re-membrance of me.

What Jesus is saying is that, “The ones who betray me, the ones who deny me, the ones who try to faithfully follow me…do this together…and RE-MEMBER what the world tries to DIS-MEMBER – the truth that you belong to one another and inside of all of you is part of Me.”

There’s a concept from Mike Marsh that talks about the difference between DIS-membering and RE-membering found in our passage tonight.

Jesus creates space for the re-membering of all involved by commanding that we love one another and care for one another. For we were all once unborn, but the command cannot be followed by those who are unborn. The command can only be followed by those who are present with us.

This is the pinnacle and fulfillment of all our re-membering. The love Jesus is speaking about is not a feeling. It is steadfast loyalty and commitment to another and her or his well-being. Love is a verb, an action, and it has the power to change our lives and the world.

Love looks like tears for and outreach to Ukraine; a parent’s sleepless night with a sick child; sitting at the bedside of a dying loved one; supporting, encouraging, and calling forth the best in another; commitment to one who has fallen and lost her or his way; caring for those in need; celebrating the joys and successes of another; sitting with and holding the grief of another, working for justice; forgiving hurts and healing relationships; living in gratitude.

You cannot love without re-membering. Love is the way of re-membering. For we all belong to one another.

Even in this historic moment of the possible overturning of Roe v. Wade, I cannot ignore the participation that Christian Nationalism has on this topic.

CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM

The throughline of anti-abortion historically comes from Christian Nationalism, an obsession with converting people to believe the same and act out religion the same. There is a hightened obsession with sameness instead of the love and care for all people no matter what that looks like or how it is expressed.

An article by Katherin Stewart says this:
“Christian nationalism drew its inspiration from a set of concerns that long predated the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade and had little to do with abortion. The movement settled on abortion as its litmus test sometime after that decision for reasons that had more to do with politics than embryos. It then set about changing the religion of many people in the country in order to serve its new political ambitions. From the beginning, the “abortion issue” has never been just about abortion. It has also been about dividing and uniting to mobilize votes for the sake of amassing political power.

End quote.

What is lacking in our society is the acknowledgment that the movement of anti-abortion is historically rooted in the desire to remove the rights of women, to remove health care for women, and to deem women incapable and unable to choose the best way to care for their life, body, and offspring.

On the other hand, the Civil Rights movement set the example on how to build a movement that encourages the freedom of human rights instead of the control of human rights.

CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

In an article called “The Civil Rights Movement and Public Religion,” Dr. Wilda C. Gafney writes…

Certain public officials are trying to transform freedom of religion into freedom to impose religion. They seem to imagine that their religious beliefs or moral conscience is superior to those of others, and trump matters of settled law, (such as) Roe v. Wade, and the professional judgment of the medical community by trying to deny women access to healthcare for which they do not care, or more specifically to which they object on the basis of their personal ideological and religious beliefs.

I believe our Senators, Representatives, presidential candidates and other politicians would do well to take a lesson on the use of religion in the public square from the Civil Rights Movement.

The Movement emerged from the Black Church and was based on principles articulated and affirmed in Christianity and its scriptures, including the inherent dignity of black men and women (sadly in that order for some) as human beings having been created in the image of God, and the liberating gospel of Jesus Christ. Yet when the Movement pressed for legal remedies to the social and statutory marginalization of persons of African descent, the Movement appealed to the founding documents of the United States and our Legislative, Judicial and Executive branches of government.

The tireless Civil Rights workers and their leaders did not seek to impose their vibrant, transformative, egalitarian Christianity on the public square. Rather they were fueled by their faith to work through the legal and political systems. By not specifying a normative Christian practice for those who would advocate for the full enfranchisement of black people, the Civil Rights Movement was home to persons of a variety of faith commitments.

The faithful witness of the Black Church was on display to the world without ever asserting a call to capit-u-lation or conversion…

Dr. Gafney goes on to say…

Freedom of religion is also freedom from religion. No one has the right to impose their religion on another person, on or in her body or to deny her medical treatment -- whether she pays her own insurance premiums or not -- or to use medical professionals and technology to intimidate women or men into making choices in accord(ance) with someone else's religion.”

CONCLUSION

With that being said…

Does it matter that the woman at the center of Roe v. Wade changed her mind…twice?

I think what it suggests is that the best person to decide if a woman should have an abortion is the woman who has to make the decision.

“(Even) Jesus affirmed the moral agency of women. Those of us who are Christian should follow that example. That means, like Jesus, we trust women to make their own decisions.”

…without shame. Without judgment. For we are not the judge. But are simply called to love one another and show up for one another the same way Jesus loves and shows up for us.

As the band comes up would you close your eyes, take a deep breath and reflect on the things you’ve heard tonight.

PRAYER PRACTICE

Imagine the ways the world and people have betrayed you. The ways they’ve dis-memebered you…and maybe made you feel like life was falling apart.

As you look at the broken pieces on the floor around you. Each piece represents a part of the broken systems that don’t serve you. The systems that were meant to harm you.

Then see Jesus as He enters the room. He picks up the pieces in love and in His justice he begins to reorder them and make something new. He organizes the pieces in a way that makes your life and the lives of every person around you flourish.

His new world order is built on love. Not control. Not manipulation. Not dominance. See Jesus standing there…with kind eyes and a warm smile…telling you that He loves you and He has always loved you…from the moment you were born. And he says to you, “Love one another…as I have loved you.”