Jesus: The Universal Health-Care Provider
Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost
9/6/2009
Keith J. Reeve

I have a title for this sermon: Jesus: The Universal Health Care Provider.
You might think that I chose the readings for today, but I did not. These are the lessons from our regular lectionary for this particular Sunday.

Some people will tell you that God doesn’t speak to them. You would have to have put plugs in your ears this morning not to have heard the word from God spoken directly, compassionately, and unequivocally to us about God’s desire that we should do all we can to see that as many people as possible receive the health care they need and especially the poorest and neediest among us. That word was the promise made by Isaiah 700 plus years before Jesus renewed the vision of the Kingdom of God on Earth, and it was echoed in the Psalm we just sang.

“The eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.”

Just symbolic poetry? Not on your life! Jesus certainly didn’t think so. When John the Baptist asked if he were indeed the Messiah Jesus responded with: “ Look at how I am healing the sick. These are my credentials!” There are more healing stories told about Jesus than about anyone else in the long Jewish historic tradition which itself contains many healing stories. Modern Bible critics who discount the historicity of much of the Gospel accounts, still vouch for Jesus as indisputably a most remarkable healer and exorcist. They point out that his opponents never challenged his ability to heal people. They just said that it came from Beelzebub, the prince of demons. At various times the Gospels cite instances of Jesus healing fever, leprosy, paralysis, a withered hand, a bent back, hemorrhaging, epilepsy, deafness, speech impediment, blindness, and demon possession, which last we might today call emotional or mental illness.

What all these healing stories illustrate is Jesus’ intimate relationship with a compassionate God who loves and cares for all people regardless of their social status.

The Lord’s Prayer is not only the prayer that Jesus taught to his followers; it was also his own prayer to his Father God. Jesus prayed: “Your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven”, understanding that God’s Kingdom comes when all are healthy in mind, body and spirit. Jesus knew that his earthly healing ministry was a sign that God’s Kingdom was indeed already breaking in on earth.

(A short digression here on the subject of types of healing.
It seems that there has always been a mixture of three basic approaches. For much of human history, healing was magical. There were magicians at work casting their spells, mixing their potions and making their incantations in biblical times. Today we still have traces of it in voodoo, shamanism, the use of placebos, New Age remedies, witchcraft, and, some might say, certain TV ministries.

Already, at the time of Jesus earthly ministry, especially the Greeks, with the use of herbal remedies, were practicing medical healing, mostly. You will recall that St. Paul called Luke his beloved physician. Today, of course, with the phenomenal scientific advances since the Renaissance medical healing, with its surgery, drugs, and many alternative techniques and procedures, predominates the field of health care.

The third approach to healing, the type practiced by Jesus, we call miracles, Sometimes it depends for its effectiveness on the faith of the patient, and often on the special spiritual gifts of the healer. Nowadays it is usually administered with the laying on of hands, sometimes with an anointing, but always accompanied by prayer to God. Today there are religious sects where spiritual healing is primary. Some of us can vouch for the healing power of prayer in our own experience. We may have a difficult time explaining it, so we say it’s a miracle and we thank God for it.
End of digression.)

The miraculous healing stories in the Gospel this morning suggest that wherever he traveled Jesus’ reputation for healing preceded him so there were always folks eagerly waiting for him to arrive and make them or their loved ones, whole again. He didn’t just wish them Shalom as in: “Have a nice day” but rather: “I wish you to be whole as God created you to be whole. Be healthy. Be healed. Be all that you can be.

Don’t get too hung up over that strange banter about dog-food between Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman who begs him to heal her daughter. If you have a hard time believing that the human Jesus might have been rude and insensitive at times, like us, but that he also made more mature decisions on reflection, like us, then you have an out. In the opinion of modern Bible scholars, this exchange is Mark’s way of reflecting the later decision of the apostles to expand the original Hebrew notion of the Kingdom of God to include Gentile members, aliens, like us; in other words to make Jesus a universal health provider.

Some of us grew up reciting Thomas Cranmer’s Prayer of Humble Access on our knees, before coming to the altar rail to receive divine medicine for our souls, as had Anglicans before us, for five hundred years. It echoes the sentiments of the Syrophoenician woman, “We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy. “ We can understand why the people who created our modern Prayer Book wanted to eliminate the Prayer of Humble Access. It suggests that our excessive humility competes with God’s perfect grace, especially after we have already made our confession and received absolution. I still miss it though. I miss it both for its sublime cadences and for its effect. It reminds those of us who have received the gifts of good health, comparative wealth, and much, much love from family and friends, that we have received these only, only, through God’s grace and mercy, and therefore we covet an abundant life for all of God’s children and especially for the poorest among us.

The earliest Christian congregations introduced a pagan world to a system for caring for the poor, the ill, widows, and orphans, and other members of society in need of care. They were following the examples of the first apostles who were given the mandate by Jesus to continue His healing ministry. After Constantine legalized Christianity in 313, these systems were gradually formalized into institutions like hospitals and homes for the elderly. Healthcare reform, worldwide, like the introduction of hospice-care, ambulance services, and nursing training, has been a constant concern for Christians.

For example it was in response to the story of Jesus healing of the deaf and mute man with his cry of “Ephphatha, Be open!” that this day was named Ephphatha Sunday in the Episcopal Church for providing a special emphasis on the needs of the deaf, Over a hundred years ago two Episcopal priests, Thomas Gallaudet and Henry Syle, revolutionized the treatment of the hearing and speech impaired with the foundation of Ephphatha congregations, schools and colleges.

Let me bring the concern for healing closer to home. Our longest intercessions here at St. Mark’s are for the sick. We provide special personal prayers for those who need healing during our worship services. We have lay ministers who take Communion to those who are indisposed. Our clergy spend hours and hours in hospital visiting. Thirty-three years ago our Parish Area Care groups (PACS) were designed primarily to provide mutual care and support for members. Our Community Center was built to be used for pastoral counseling during the week. We have our trained team of Stephen ministers ready at hand to meet with and listen to any who request their help. We have opened our facilities to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings since this church was founded.

Apparently, our relationship with God, through Jesus Christ, guided by the Holy Spirit, inevitably draws us into advocating for health care issues. In the current national debate over health care reform, the foremost concern for Christians has to be for the provision of care for the poor. The best ways to provide for that is for our elected representatives to decide as they return to Washington. During these coming weeks they will be arguing the case for and against insurance regulations, government-run plans, cost containment considerations and the management of medical and pharmaceutical providers. God bless them. Who knows what finally will be enacted?

What we as Christian believers do know, however, is that we need to somehow provide health care for the poorest and neediest. For us, that is no longer up for debate. For us, that issue was settled over two thousand years ago by divine mandate. So let us pray for God’s blessing on the Congress as it reconvenes

I am reading Prayer #20 on page 823 of our Book of Common Prayer:

O God, the fountain of wisdom, whose will is good and gracious, and whose law is truth: We beseech you so to guide and bless our Senators and Representatives in Congress that they may enact such laws as shall please You, to the glory of Your Name and the welfare of this people: through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

©2009 Keith J. Reeve