🔊 Formed in the Womb

Welcome to AnchorCast, a weekly podcast of homilies and sermons from Christ our Anchor Anglican Mission in Nashville, Tennessee.

Let us pray.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer.

Amen.

Today’s first lesson we hear from God.

He says, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.

By this meaning that no person is an accident, no person is unwanted, and that everyone is known by God.

Now, if you at all follow national or state politics, you know that personhood has been a hot topic for a good while in our political discourse, if we could even call what we do a discourse.

The questions of what is a person, who’s wanted, what is our responsibility to one another?

These have been the topics.

And I think this last week, especially at least in my circles as I’ve looked around, I’ve seen a lot of people come out of the woodwork and make declarative theological statements about what Jesus or his church thinks about this, or thinks about that, or should think about this, or should think about that.

But again, God’s Word says, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.

And I think that God’s Word, not just here, but everywhere, should give us pause.

I think it should cause us to shut our mouths and instead bring us to wonder and praise.

God is saying that every single person in the womb, out of the womb, lawbreaker, law-abiding, rich, poor, housed, unhoused, all, all were made by God, thought out, planned, created, and loved.

Now, of course, we all have political opinions.

We’ve got policy decisions to make.

We’ve got work decisions to make.

We’ve got family, church, and government budgets to make.

In our fallen world, where resources are seemingly scarce, where we must compete to provide for those we love, where nations and borders exist, in this fallen world, let us not forget the true reality.

Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.

This applies to everyone.

The political opponent you don’t like, the person who’s taking your job, the inconvenient child, the immigrant, the criminal, the nuisance.

God calls us to see the world with His eyes, to see everyone as a purposeful creation made by God’s hands.

Therefore, no one can be a mistake, no one can be invisible, and no one can be unwanted.

So sure, we do have decisions to make.

And yes, in the reality of only having twenty dollars left in your pocket, that means that you can’t help everyone.

And yes, you getting the job means someone else doesn’t.

Politics surely exists.

Policy exists.

Budgets exist.

And yet, we must trust God.

We must never cease to see our fellow man as human.

We must default to love and kindness, even in political disagreement.

We must see our neighbors and enemies, and we are to love them.

Now if the realization of God’s deep and powerful love and purpose for His creation pulls you immediately to make political policy declarations on social media, I would admonish you to maybe slow your roll, to touch some grass, to meet a neighbor.

Because in the end, no policy or politic will fix what is wrong with us.

That’s completely and entirely a God thing.

We are to trust in Him, and we are to see His mighty work in the faces of our brother man.

In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

Christ Our Anchor is an Anglican mission in East Nashville that meets on Wednesday evenings for prayer and fellowship.

And join us on Wednesday evenings at 5 30 as we live into what Jesus has called His church to be.

Everyone is welcome.

Christ Our Anchor is an Anglican mission in East Nashville that meets on Wednesday evenings at 5 30.