On Monday morning, the Lifewatch Service of Worship took place in The United Methodist Building, which is located on Maryland Avenue, NW across the street from the United States Supreme Court.  The congregation was small, but most importantly Jesus Christ was there in Word and Sacrament.  The morning’s sermon was delivered by Dr. Kendall Soulen, a professor at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington.

Preaching on ”Election, Not Selection,” Dr. Soulen sided with the little guys: “Eugenics prefers healthy people over unhealthy people, smart ones to stupid ones, hearing people to the deaf, and so on.  To the degree that eugenics can be said to confer benefits at all, it does so not by improving the condition of those who are needy, but rather by selecting for existence those for whom life can be expected to go well.   Even when eugenic interventions are successful in their own terms, they do not cure any person's disease or raise anyone's intelligence or confer longevity upon anyone.  Instead, they bring about a world filled with people who enjoy these advantages from their beginnings.  In this respect, eugenics does not really require us to have hopes for our fellow human beings, to bear their infirmities, or to labor on their behalf.  Rather, it requires us to exercise a preference for the sort of neighbors we will have, namely, the kind who are least likely to trouble us with their infirmities in the first place....

“The God attested by the Scriptures is a God who chooses the least likely: Moses the stutterer, or David the youngest of eight brothers, the Suffering Servant without form or comeliness.  In God's household, it is not only the weak who are dependent on the strong.  Time and again, the well-being of the strong turns out to be dependent on those who by human reckoning are least. 

“This is the basic point: the Christian faith holds that human worth does not vary according to genetic endowment, nor does a person lose his or her moral worth or purpose in life simply because he or she suffers genuine afflictions such as mental retardation, physical malformation, or disease.  Such conditions should not be sentimentalized, but neither should they be treated as insurmountable obstacles that render a person unsuited to God's electing purpose.  Indeed, paradoxical and offensive though it may seem, human weakness is often the very place where God's strength is revealed....”  Hearing this powerful sermon made the long trip worthwhile.

After the receiving the Bread and Wine and singing the hymns, most of us headed down Capitol Hill to join the assembly of tens of thousands of pro-life marchers on the Mall at 7th Street, NW.  It was a joyous crowd.  Very young.  Very upbeat.  And there was all that youthful energy again.

Several of us carried the Lifewatch banner in the march.  (The same banner was featured in a Washington Post photo of the 2005 March for Life.)  We talked, laughed, and kidded each other the entire trek, with the thousands, up the Hill.

By 3:00 p.m. we were back in The United Methodist Building (after begging the DC police to gain entry).  We passed by a woman at the desk who was a bit agitated “that so many kids were missing school” that day.  The Lifewatch Board Meeting, in a quiet conference room, went on for a couple of hours.

After catching a hamburger at Union Station, it was back to the hotel’s underground parking lot.  Driving into the dark rain at 7:10 p.m., I parked the car at St. Peter’s Church at 1:10 Tuesday morning.  No traffic jams on I-95 this year!

This annual pilgrimage is hardly restful.  But it is inspiring.  It is a time filled with life and love, forgiveness and hope, truth and unity.