Choose Life, By Carlina Green
Davidson College

It’s 2016. I’m a student at Lower Merion High School, the alma mater of Kobe Bryant, may he and his daughter rest in peace. I have a conditional driver’s license and an 11 p.m. curfew, which I barely make. Most nights, I leave my boyfriend’s house, which is 3.5 miles away from mine. at 10:55 p.m. and then drive 85 in a 25 mile per hour zone to have the car in the garage by 11. One night, I am following my normal evening routine when a police officer notices my 2005 Honda Pilot flying down Montgomery Avenue. He starts following me, so I turn off the main road into a neighborhood and start weaving through the streets in an effort to lose him. I get lucky and slip away without losing my license when, as a threat to public safety, I probably should lose it.

Speed limits and traffic laws exist for very good reasons, as does most of the legislation on the Pennsylvania books today. Historically, however, the law has been utilized to suppress votes, to sequester Black people in poor neighborhoods, and to imprison innocent folks who spoke out against unjust governments. The Law, like anything, can be used for harm or for good.

When the Israelites reached Mt. Sinai in 1446 BC, they had been wandering around in the desert for three months. They had survived an attack by the Amalekites. There had been many arguments among them and they’d worn Moses out seeking his advice and judgment in all of their disputes. The people needed guidance from above; they needed a set of laws that could inform their decisions. When Moses came down from the mountain to meet the people after meeting God, he not only carried the Ten Commandments, but a set of 613 laws collectively called the Torah, instructions for building a Tabernacle, and a ritual for consecrating and ordaining an order of priests. Exodus is a story of God's taking a people who had been slaves, who didn't know Him, on a journey toward becoming His free people who trusted and worshiped Him. The Torah and the Tabernacle were gifts that would help that happen; they would guide a rudderless group of vagabonds, bringing order, meaning, and purpose into their lives.

Forty years later, having broken God’s laws time and time again and narrowly avoided destruction from the resulting plagues and curses, the Israelites were finally authorized to enter the Promised Land. In Deuteronomy 30:15-20, Moses exhorts the Israelites to heed the guidance God has gifted to them through the Law, to uphold the Covenant they made with the Lord by obeying His commands in this new chapter of their lives. Over and over again during the past 40 years, the Israelites had experienced firsthand the consequences of straying from God’s lLw, but over and over again, they had chosen their ways over God’s ways. So, Moses reminds them what’s at stake. “Choose the Law,” Moses tells them. “Choose life!”

Over 1,430 years later, by the time of Jesus’ ministry, the Law at times had been twisted and weaponized. Lepers and other people suffering from illnesses were assumed to have sinned and broken the Law and they were condemned for it. When one woman was accused of adultery, a crowd gathered to stone her to death using the Law as justification. A group of Pharisees even tried to use the Law to trap Jesus and accuse him of wrongdoing. In Moses’ time, the Law had been a life-giving blessing for God’s people, but now some forged it into a tool of condemnation, shame, and even death. For some Pharisees, the Law was the end all, be all. Sometimes their zeal for the Law got in the way of a humble, loving pursuit of God’s justice.

Jesus wanted these Pharisees to get their priorities straight. When they tried to catch him doing work by healing on the Sabbath, he saw a teachable moment. He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”

With this illustration, Jesus shows the Pharisees, and he teaches us that loving people is more important than following the letter of the Law. 

Sometimes, Bisexual theologian Marcella Althaus-Reid argues, “There is no possibility of justice in love unless the Law is transgressed. Love exceeds the limits of words (and The Word) and also the limits of the Law.”

Later on in Matthew, a Pharisee tries to trap Jesus with the question “Which is the greatest commandment?” Jesus has the same message: Loving God and loving others is more important than anything else. When faced with the choice between following the Law and healing the sick, Jesus chooses to heal. When faced with the choice between condemning those condemned by the Law or loving people and treating them with dignity, Jesus chooses to love and respect.

Jesus destabilizes the Rule of Law with the Force of his Love. What’s Black and White on the page, Jesus splatters with the color of his heart. The hardness of the hearts of those who use the Law to judge and condemn can only be overcome with the softness of Jesus’ mercy.

Jesus reminds us that where the Law is used without love, it is worthless. The Law is meant to build and grow us, not to tear us down or destroy us. When the Law is turned into an axe instead of a plow, it must be melted and reformed. This is what has happened in my own denomination in relation to the LGBTQ+ community. The Presbyterian Church has begun to recognize and affirm the dignity of queer folks and to see how they can follow Moses’ call to choose life as their authentic selves.

In contrast, some evangelical circles have promoted a code of behavior that they’ve used to judge and condemn certain groups of people in our culture. This code, which they’ve couched in Christian language, has been politicized and weaponized in  a way similar to how some Pharisees used the Law against certain groups in Jesus’ day.

According to Lutheran Pastor and former Staley Lecturer Nadia Bolz Weber, before the 1970s, Evangelical Protestants almost universally believed that life began at the first breath. Just as life had entered Adam when God breathed into him, Evangelical Protestants thought, life entered babies when they filled their lungs for the first time. Enter Paul Weyrich, founder of a Think Tank called The Heritage Foundation. 

It was 1968 and Bob Jones University was being pushed by the Federal Government to desegregate, and Weyrich mobilized to defend its racially discriminatory policies. Then, when he and other evangelical leaders searched for another issue they could use to rally American Christians as a moral force and a political block, someone suggested they could build a movement around abortion. That was the day Evangelical leaders started changing their rhetoric around what the Bible says about when life begins.

The people whom the religious culture in 1st century Galilee excluded, ostracized, and enacted violence upon on grounds of the Law, Jesus embraced because of his radical love. Acting on his expansive vision of who belongs in the Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus touched lepers with his healing hands, shielded adulterers from harm, and washed the feet of tax collectors. People who were the most marginalized and despised were the ones Jesus wrapped in his arms and pulled closest to him.

Are we not called to do the same?

It is in that spirit, and out of my positionality as a feminist Presbyqueerian, that I personally would like to honor and pray for LGBTQ+ Christians and Christians who have had or performed abortions. A few months ago, I encountered a website called Parity that works to help faith organizations become more LGBTQ+ sensitive and celebratory. In honor of the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising, they launched an initiative called Glitter Blessings to celebrate LGBTQ+ people as beloved and created by a loving God. Out of this conviction, they sent us vials of blessed, frankincense-scented holy oil from Jerusalem and biodegradable rainbow glitter.

After my prayer, we are going to enter a brief time of reflection. If at any time during this period, you want to be anointed and to receive a glitter blessing, or if you would prefer to receive a more traditional blessing, Rob will be standing in this corner. If you would like the glitter blessing, please indicate that by putting your hands on your shoulders like this so Rob knows to give you that blessing. If you would like a traditional blessing this week, cross your hands and place them on your shoulders like this so Rob will know to give you that blessing. And of course, you are welcome to remain in your seat and spend this time entirely in reflection. Now I’d like to offer up a prayer.

Lord, we thank You for your radically inclusive, everlasting, limitless love. Thank you for showing us that loving our neighbor is the way Jesus taught us to fulfill the Law and honor You. Thank You for giving us this space, this time, and this community to reflect on your Word and on Jesus’ example for us.

God, I know that the full extent of your Love is greater than words, even the words of Scripture, can express. Your Love, Lord, reaches over, beyond, around, and through the confines of our own understandings.

Some of us, myself included, have thought that other people need to change their hearts, their identities, or their actions to better fit your Law or your will. I ask you to help us reconsider how our hearts need to change. Help us to lean into that transformation. As we remember the magnitude of your Kingdom and the creativity of your love, make us more like you, Lord and help us to love like you love, without condemnation and with a wide embrace, holding fast to you and the fullness of the life you offer. Amen.