Who Deserves Health Care?

Here’s a question:  Does every sick person deserve to be treated for their illness?  Seems rather heartless to say, “no.”   But if we say “yes,” and the person who is sick cannot afford care, who is going to pay for it?  The answer to that question is as complicated as Obamacare and the accompanying political drama.

Still, I am interested in the whole question of who deserves care and who doesn’t.  As U.S. citizens we believe in “justice and liberty for all,” and doesn’t a just society require that we provide care?  Would care be for citizens only?  Or does “justice . . . for all,” imply a broader interpretation? 

Who deserves care?  Who is worthy?

Some esteemed members of the synagogue in Capernaum came to Jesus one day asking him to heal the ailing servant of a local Roman officer (Luke 7:1-10).  Romans were Gentiles, considered unclean by Jewish law and custom and thus excluded from Jewish worship and community.  However, these Jewish elders who approach Jesus assure him that this particular Roman is “worthy,” or deserving, of Jesus’ attention because he paid for the construction of the synagogue.  Well, isn’t that the way we usually measure who deserves our attention? 

I suspect that Jesus responds to their request regardless of the worthiness of the Roman officer but because Jesus is a man who provides healing, not because people deserve it, but because he is compassionate (Matthew 9:36).  And followers of Jesus are to be compassionate, too.  We are called to respond to people in need, regardless of our perception of what they deserve. 

I know we have to consider the cost of care.  No society can function without counting the cost of services that it provides.  But if we cut services to people who need medical care can we continue to call ourselves a just society? 

I have to let other people do the math.  In lean times governments need to set budget priorities.  I simply raise the issue because I believe our priorities should be guided by compassion.  And I believe Jesus continues to offer us a perspective on what compassion looks like.

On another occasion (Luke 8:40-56), another esteemed Jewish leader asked Jesus to come heal his twelve-year old daughter who was at the precipice of death.  Surely this man was deserving of Jesus’ attention.  But on the way, a woman on the fringes of society who had, because of her illness, been ritually unclean for the same number of years as the little girl had been alive, approached Jesus for healing.  She had been ostracized by her disease.  Her society judged her unworthy and undeserving of human attention, and unlike the Roman officer of the previous story, she had not paid for a synagogue.  But Jesus delayed his visit to the home of the deserving Jewish leader in order to heal and affirm this “undeserving” woman.

Care should not be based on what we deserve.  Care should be based on compassion.  I pray that both Democrats and Republicans will get their priorities straight.  We deserve no less from our elected officials.   

Healing versus Curing

Once a month our church offers a healing service to the community.  Healing has been part of the history of the church’s practice since the days of Jesus.  After all, one of the reasons people were attracted to Jesus in the first place was because of his wonder-working powers – healing paralytics, causing the blind to see, cleansing the lepers, exorcising demons! 

Still, faith healing has taken on negative connotations because of charlatans who have used the gullibility of the ill to make a mockery of the spiritual practices of healing.  In addition, the rise of modern medicine has led to the American public’s placing an incredible amount of faith in the medical profession as the sole practitioners of the healing arts.  So, what is the church’s role, if any in the realm of healing?

A recent radio program on Charlotte Talks, led my Mike Collins of WFAE, included several professionals from both religious and medical arenas, discussing the difference between healing and curing, and the necessity of both.  The consensus among these professionals was that while curing is a term we reserve for targeted health problems of body and mind, healing is better understood as “well-being,” in the midst of all conditions, whether cured or not.  One of the doctors pointed out that there are those who are often cured of their disease but are so disoriented by the process of cure that they never seem to get their life back together.  In other words, they may have been cured of their illness, but they are not yet healed.  While others, never experiencing cures, nevertheless become stronger and more resilient in the process of treatment – more whole than they were before. 

One of the things we learn about Jesus in his healing ministry is that he was always reaching for something more than cure.  To the paralytic he said, “Your sins are forgiven,” and only afterward did he say, “Rise up, and walk.”  To the leper who had been cured of his leprosy, Jesus says, “Rise, your faith has made you well.”  In each case, Jesus is aiming at something more than cure.

We all want to be free of pain, illness, disease.  Just take stock the incredible amounts of medications that Americans take.  Americans also are characterized by increasing amounts of self-medication in the form of substance abuse.  But, for all that . . . we are not very well.  I am convinced that healing is often neglected in our desire for cure.  And I am confident that the church, as the vehicle for Jesus’ continued healing ministry, has something to offer a hurting world. 

Through prayers accompanied by the traditional practices of anointing with oil, or laying on of hands, people do experience healing.  While not everyone receives cure, everyone may be healed, and the workings of God in the midst of all this remains a mystery which is not under our control.  But of one thing I am confident, whatever pain we are dealing with – mind, body, spirit - God invites us all to be well.

"Let not many of you become teachers"

I just read of another teacher who has been arrested for an improper sexual relationship with a student.  Seems like every week another report of impropriety, or even depravity, on the part of one teacher or another gets spread abroad on the news.  I hate to hear it.  Such reports, if frequent enough, make a person believe that the whole profession has lost its integrity.  If you can’t trust your child’s teacher, then who can you trust, right?

But there’s another view of this picture.  We hear about the bad apples because that’s what makes for sensational news.  We more rarely hear stories about the overwhelming number of teachers who, day in and day out, sacrifice themselves for the sake of the children they nurture.  We all have an inherent agreement to the scriptural instruction, “Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, for you know that we who teach shall be judged with greater strictness (James 3:1).”  We tend to believe this in our bones rather than in our heads, which is why even those who are not people of faith nonetheless feel some sort of moral indignation when a teacher betrays the public trust.

But again, the overwhelming majority of teachers are credits to their profession; wonderful nurturers and protectors of children.  Teachers today have to be skilled at many roles – teacher, counselor, social worker and, recently, human shield.  The heroic actions of Newtown teachers who put themselves between Adam Lanza’s murderous rampage and the children they were called to teach have been well documented.  Now, in the wake of the Moore, Oklahoma tornado of this past Monday, we hear more stories of teachers who were found cradling, or embracing children, in attempts to protect them from the storm that destroyed their school.

In these days when politicians are cutting state budgets with sometimes self-righteous ruthlessness, teachers and education have been “judged with greater strictness,” to twist the scripture just a bit.  The loss of tax revenues necessitates cuts, of course.  However, I don't believe educators should be the target of the scissors.  I'm just not sure you can ever pay teachers too much.  They hold in their hands our children and what they will become.  Our teachers are shaping the future.  They deserve our respect.  They deserve our gratitude.  They deserve to be compensated.  As CNN columnist L.Z. Granderson wrote this week, On a typical day teachers do more than enough to be fairly compensated without being unfairly vilified by budget cutters.  “But on a day that's not so normal, we hope and pray that they are willing to do much more. And time and time again, in the face of terrible tragedies, we have learned that many of them do.” (http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/21/opinion/granderson-oklahoma-teachers/index.html)

God Leads

I want to write a book.  Don’t know when I’ll have time to do that, but it would be a response to all the literature that is now so prolific on the subject of leadership.  Every week I get an email newsletter with leadership tips.  I regularly get invitations to participate in leadership summits, conferences, and workshops; all guaranteed to strengthen my leadership skills.  I can use all the help I can get.

But it is a curious thing.  The Bible reserves the term “lead,” almost exclusively as a description for the activity of God.  Psalm 5:8 is an example:  “Lead me, Lord, lead me in thy righteousness.”  While we often say that Moses led the people out of Egypt, in the memory of the people of Israel it was the Lord who led the people with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, and Moses is remembered not so much as Israel’s leader but as God’s servant.

God leads.  The people serve.  Some church workshops have picked up on that servant language and provide instruction on “servant leadership.”  Oh, well, maybe that’s a shift in the right direction.

I think I can illustrate this kind of servant leadership in the life of Charles Eurey.  When my father got his first appointment as a pastor after returning to North Carolina from 18 years of missionary service in Brazil, he was sent to Rhyne Heights United Methodist Church in Lincolnton.  Our neighbor, two doors down from the parsonage, was Charles Eurey.  Charles was a strong voice in that small membership church, and he also was a regular attender at our annual conference at Lake Junaluska.   Mr. Eurey is a man of strong convictions and was never reluctant about expressing his opinions from the floor. 

My father recalls trying to convince the folks at Rhyne Heights that they should build an outdoor combination tennis and basketball court for the young people of the community as a way of reaching out.  Charles Eurey was opposed to the idea and voiced his opinion at the Administrative Board meeting.  However, when the vote was taken, the motion to build a recreational area was approved.  After the vote, Charles pulled out his check book and was the first to write a check to support what the church had decided.  Though his preference had been defeated, he accepted the will of the church, in deed and word.  He submitted to servanthood.

That sort of God-led service is what is being asked of us all who claim to be disciples of Christ.  If God is leading us, we can do no less than to follow.  Perhaps the world would pay more attention to Christians if we led a little less, and followed a little more.