Donation of Life

SERMON TITLE:   “Donation of Life”
SERMON TEXT:    Ezekiel 37:1-14
PREACHER:           Rev. Kim James
OCCASION:           November 26, 2017, at First UMC
 
 
INTRODUCTION
 
                Last Sunday, when I illustrated my sermon by telling you about one of the TV shows I like to watch, Chris Hicks plugged her ears and tried not to listen to what I said.  It wasn’t that our Lay Leader was refusing to hear her pastor’s message.  It was just that she hadn’t seen that episode yet and didn’t want her good TV program to be spoiled.  Well, maybe some of you will need to plug your ears today too because I’m starting this sermon with a recap from the TV show Chicago Med. 
                In the first episode of the new season, a couple came into the ER after being in an auto accident.  The husband was dying, and the doctors had to ask his wife if she would give permission to donate his heart to another patient there in the hospital.  It was an awkward moment because she was suffering from her own injuries, emotionally distraught about the argument they had been having just before the accident, and now faced with the fact that her husband wouldn’t survive.  Having to make an organ donation decision in that moment had to have been hard.  But her husband’s driver’s license didn’t indicate that he was a donor, and the doctors were persuaded of the need and potential to save a life, and so the wife agreed.  The heart wasn’t the right size and had to be re-shaped.  But, the surgery appeared to be a success, and the wife was able to see and feel that she had made a good decision.
                Today I want to talk with you about organ donation.  It isn’t a very normal topic for sermons.  But every year, the United Methodist calendar designates the second Sunday in November as “Organ and Tissue Donor Sunday.”  Usually we’re too busy honoring veterans on that day to make any mention.  And then it’s Thanksgiving and Advent, and the whole topic gets by-passed.  But this year, we have this extra Sunday between Thanksgiving and the first Sunday of Advent.  So I thought, why not?  Why not talk about the donation of life?

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