"Jesus and Health Care"    San Williams, UPC

Mark 5:21-43

My father was a physician.  A "baby doctor" is how he referred to himself, since his medical practice encompassed both obstetrics and pediatrics.  My dad enjoyed his practice and thrived in relating to the kids who came into his office for examination.  One of his funny stories involved a boy around ten years old.  The patient was sitting on the examining table while my father listened to his lungs, checked his ears and so on.  The little boy seemed nervous, and my dad wanted to put him at ease. Noticing the boy was wearing a football jersey, Dad inquired, “Son, are you a split end?” 

“No, sir,” the boy replied in a small voice. “Sore throat.” 

Well, let’s be the doctor this morning and examine the issue of health care. Now, we won’t focus on specific policies currently being debated—issues of cost, private insurance versus public option, and so on—even though these are vital matters about which decisions must be made.  But let’s scrutinize health care as a community of faith, as followers of Jesus who believe that the Gospel can illuminate this and every issue.  So with scripture as our stethoscope, let’s put the issue on the table and have ourselves a look.

To begin, no sophisticated test is needed to make an initial, indisputable diagnosis.  Namely, that health care is central to the mission of God. God wills the healing of all creation.  In our Call to Worship this morning, the prophet Isaiah painted a portrait of God’s dream for a world that has been restored to health and salvation.  In God’s dream for humanity, starvation and disease will no longer take the lives of infants…mothers will not worry that they have lovingly raised their children into their teenage years only to have them blown away by a roadside bomb or dissipated by drugs…the elderly will live out their lives without having to choose between buying food and purchasing expensive prescription drugs. 

In the New Testament, Isaiah’s vision of a world restored to health becomes realtiy in the actions of Jesus. Jesus shows us what God is up to in the world. And in Jesus’ ministry, we see that God is clearly up to making people well. In Mark’s Gospel, there’s a healing story on nearly every page.  Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law, the villagers in Capernaum who come to him with all sorts of diseases, lepers, multitudes at the Sea of Galilee, a blind man, and, in today’s reading, Jesus heals Jairus’ daughter and the woman with a hemorrhage.  We could go on, but you don’t have to be some kind of biblical specialist to conclude that health care is at the heart of God’s mission in Jesus Christ.

But it’s fair to ask:  Health care for whom?  Who’s covered?  Well, consider the case of Jairus. He’s the man we read about who comes to Jesus about his daughter, who is sick and near death.  Notice that Jairus is a man of status and resources.  He is a leader in the synagogue.  Five times, Mark mentions the large crowds surrounding Jesus, but Jairus has no trouble getting to the front of the line. No waiting for him! In today’s terms, he’s the kind of man who, when he needs health care for himself or his family, can pick up the phone and get through to a doctor at M.D. Anderson or the Mayo Clinic. Jairus represents all those in our society with financial resources, a network of support, good medical insurance, and prompt access to services.        

Quite frankly, most of us in this room fall in the same demographic in our society that Jairus did in his.    We’re not necessarily big shots wielding great influence, but, like Jairus, most of us are among the fortunate citizens who have medical insurance and access to a level of health care that is extraordinary. If our hip or knee wears, out we can get a new one.  If we need a tumor removed, a clogged artery cleaned out, even an organ replaced, these medical services are generally available to us. That’s why, when we read today’s scripture, we find ourselves most nearly represented in the person of Jairus.

 Therefore, it comes as good news to us that when Jairus begs Jesus to help his daughter, Jesus immediately sets out to help.  No questions asked. Jesus shows us that God’s love is disinterested. It doesn’t ration out health care according to a person’s status, race, nationality or ability to pay.   Disease, sickness and death are the enemies of God, and thus, wherever Jesus encounters these enemies, he responds with healing.  It makes no difference to God whether cancer cells show up in the body of a millionaire, or in a poor immigrant. Both need healing.  In an Open Letter on Health Care to Conservative Christians in the U.S., Brian McLaren wrote that we should strive for health care reform that helps our poorest neighbors without creating reductions in real service for our more prosperous neighbors. Our scripture today supports that view.  When Jairus, a prosperous man, sought help, Jesus responded.

But our examination of health care doesn’t end with the example of a prosperous man.  In our scripture today,  before Jesus could make his house call on Jairus’ daughter, he was interrupted by an unnamed woman, who, like Jairus,  came to Jesus for healing.  But unlike Jairus, she has no status, no resources, no advocates, no easy access to the healing that she desperately needs. She is like the 41 million Americans who have no health insurance.  Like the estimated 18 million Americans who died last year for lack of health care coverage. This woman, Mark tells us, has used every penny she has on medical care.  She’s spent many a night camped out in emergency rooms, but nothing has helped.  She now comes to Jesus for healing, Mark says, “in fear and trembling.” 

Tuesday at our Uplift ministry here at UPC I asked some of the guests who had come seeking assistance with rent or utilities about their experiences with health care.  “If I get sick, I just sweat it out,” one said.  “I just pray to God my kids don’t get sick, because it would wipe out our finances,” said another.  A homeless man told me he'd left the hospital recently following a heart attack, with a handful of prescriptions for pharmaceuticals which, of course, he had no money to buy.  "When I lost my job, I lost my health insurance,” said a young man who was there with his wife and infant daughter.  So many people in our society—and of course around the world—share the plight of the unnamed woman in Mark's gospel story.  When it comes to their health and the health of their children, they live in fear and trembling.  

But notice the term Jesus uses to address the woman.  Here is a woman without status, without resources, without advocates, without family, ritually unclean, and yet Jesus calls her “daughter.”  In God’s eyes, she too is a human being, as worthy of healing as Jairus’ daughter.  We are all children of God, and thus we are all equally deserving of the best health care our society we can offer.  In 2008, when our Presbyterian General Assembly called for just health care reform, its diagnosis was spot-on. The call urged that health care reform legislation adhere to these three principles:  universally accessible, equitable and affordable.

Now before hang up our white coats, let’s do a quick self-exam.  The most urgent need for health care reform is in the church of Jesus Christ. Yes, the church can advocate for just and fair health care legislation, and we can add our voice to the debates, but our words lack integrity if we are not ourselves a healed and healing community.  It’s not accidental that Mark mentions that the woman’s hemorrhage had lasted 12 years, or the Jairus’ daughter was 12 years of age.  The number twelve is Mark’s shorthand way of saying that he’s also talking about the church.  Healing involves more than good medical care.  Healing takes place in a community where people are growing in love for God and neighbor,  have meaning and purpose in their lives, opportunities to serve others, experience forgiveness and are willing to forgive others.  In other words wellness in its deepest and most holistic sense is found in the body of Christ.  I’ve known people, and so have you, for whom there was no medical cure, and yet they radiated health because—in the words of the Heidelberg catechism—they knew that they belonged body and soul, in life and in death, not to themselves but to their faithful Savior, who is our health and our salvation.

Several years ago, some of us from this congregation joined an Austin Seminary trip to India.  One Sunday while there, we attended worship in a St. Thomas Syrian Church in South India.  When we walked up to receive communion, the celebrant uttered these words; “This is the body and blood of Christ, given for the health of body, mind and spirit.” 

Friends, whether you come to Christ’s Table with all the advantages of a Jairus or with the desperation of the hemorrhaging woman, all are welcome, no one is turned away and everyone is fed with the life of  Christ who is our health and salvation.