In a church I used to serve there was an adult Sunday School class called the JOY class. The members proudly explained to me that JOY stood for Jesus, Others, Yourself. I've never forgotten those three simple words that spell JOY. They provide a useful means of setting priorities and a critical tool for decision making. Many churches today are celebrating Health Care Justice Sunday. I thought it might be useful today to focus on health care and show how the simple word JOY can help us think things through.
JOY. Jesus, Others, Yourself. Jesus is the first word. What would Jesus do, when confronted with an issue like healthcare?
Several months ago I took a copy Eugene Peterson's new translation of the New Testament(1) and read it through from beginning to end, marking any passage related to health care. I'm told that 20% of the text of the New Testament is about health and healing. I found 24 passages in Matthew, 23 in Mark, 29 in Luke, and 5 in John--a total of 81 passages in just the Gospels..
In the New Testament, health and healing are central to our faith. The Greek word "sozo" is so rich it takes two English words to cover its meaning. It means both "save", and "heal". In Matthew's Christmas story the angel tells Joseph to name his son Jesus -- which means "God saves" -- because Jesus will save his people from their sins.(2) . But it would be equally true to translate God's words to Joseph as "Give the baby the name Jesus, which means "God heals," because Jesus will bring healing to his people. In this morning's epistle, the point of the letter to Hebrews is that Christ, by virtue of his special priesthood, is able to save us. It can also be translated that he is able to heal us.
For Matthew, healing is the primary sign by which we know that Christ's new Government has begun on earth. John the Baptist asks, "Are you the one who is to come or should we seek another? And Jesus answers, tell John what you see: The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the wretched of the earth learn that God is on their side.(3) When you see these things happening, you know the reign of God is beginning.
To prove the point, Matthew gives 24 stories of healing, and they cover the gamut of things that could be healed from. Jesus heals people from their diseases, including leprosy, fever, hemorrhage. He heals them from their infirmities, including lameness, blindness, muteness, and other crippling conditions including paraplegia. And Jesus heals them from their afflictions, including demons and evil spirits. This morning's Gospel lesson, the healing of Blind Bartimaeus, is one of these stories which testify to the power of Christ and therefore the beginning of God's new reign.
How far does God's reign extend? Well, in every instance when people come to Jesus, and ask for healing, he says yes -- except one. In that one, a Canaanite woman seeks help for her daughter.(4) Jesus tells her, in effect, "You're not in this health care Plan. My healing Plan is for the lost sheep of the children of Israel." The woman, courageous and undaunted because the life of her daughter is at stake, tells Jesus, in effect, "Well, then, extend the plan -- even a family's dogs are allowed to eat the crumbs that fall from the table!" And Jesus praises the woman for her faith and heals her daughter. In Matthew's presentation, it is through a Canaanite woman's courage that God's heath care plan is extended to every human being.
II. Others
JOY. Jesus, Others, Yourself. Others is the second word, and that requires turning our attention to what's around us. I heard once that a Christian is someone who carries a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other. What do we see about healthcare when we look around us?
Our system puts its best foot forward. We have wonderful technology., We have doctors and nurses who perform their duties with skill and dedication. We have an abundant quantity of hospitals and clinics. Many of us have excellent access to this system. Fran is a retired federal government employee and I am covered under her health insurance. I went into an outpatient surgical center for a diagnostic procedure a month ago, they recorded the insurance information, and provided wonderful service covered by an HMO. I haven't seen a bill and don't expect to.
Our system's other foot drags, however. It has a dark side. A study produced this past May by the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured(5) reports that 44 million Americans -- out of 239 million, or nearly one person in five -- are uninsured. Medicaid covers 41% of poor families, but it doesn't cover the working poor. Three quarters of the uninsured are in families where at least one person is working full time, but in jobs where no health insurance comes with their job. More than one fourth of the uninsured, despite the new Children's Health Insurance Program, are children. Ethnically, more than half the uninsured are white, 25% are Hispanic, and 17% are black.
Our health system also includes the underinsured. There are the elderly on Medicare whose coverage does not include prescription drugs and who may have to choose between food and medicine, and whose incomes are fixed while health care costs increase by sizeable percentages each year. There are those with mental illness, which often carries lower coverage.
The health insurance on which we rely can quickly disappear, when major illness causes an employee to lose his or her job, and health coverage with it. Two weeks ago I talked to a couple from Arizona who were self-employed professionals. When the wife became hospitalized, their health insurance premiums immediately tripled, and when the payments could not be made, the insurance was canceled while the wife was still in treatment. They had to declare bankruptcy because of the bills.
At the heart of these problems, we have taken what Christ intended as a ministry and made it a commodity to be bought and sold to the highest bidder and restricted from those who cannot pay. Our system has taken health care workers, from doctors and nurses to x-ray technicians and nursing assistants, and changed them from care givers to retail venders. Seeing health care as a competitive industry, our Government's Anti-Trust Division has undermined the ability of health care providers to cooperate for the benefit of the community.
As a business, the health care industry's first obligation is to make a profit. When Managed Care came to the Maryland Medicaid program, they told the state, "give us 95% of what you have been spending, and we will take care of those on Medicaid." In their calculations, they reserved 20% off the top, for administrative costs, marketing, and executive salaries, leaving only three quarters of the original resources to actually provide care. The diversion of resources intended for the poor into the bank accounts of health industry executives is reminiscent of Isaiah's lament in the Bible -- you who are rich have the spoils of the poor in your houses."(6)
JOY. Jesus, Others, Yourself. Yourself is the third word. You can seek Jesus in the Bible, and look for others in the newspaper, but in the end, you have to come back to yourself. Where are you in this matter?
As a disciple, Jesus has given you responsibility for health care. "Tell people," Jesus commands his disciples, "that the Kingdom is here: Bring health to the sick. Raise the dead. Touch the untouchables. Kick out the demons."(7) In the Gospel of John Jesus goes further and tells the disciples, "the one who believes in me will do greater works than these."(8)
Our United Methodist Church has faced this issue. Every four years nearly a thousand delegates from all over the world assemble together to set forth our church's positions on important issues. Time after time our delegates have voted by large majorities, that United Methodists consider health care to be a right, to which all persons are entitled without regard to race, religion, national origin, gender, and economic status.
Where there is a right there is a corresponding duty. In the Great Commandment, the basic Christian duty is the duty of hospitality, to not only "love the Lord your God with all your Heart, Mind, and Soul," but also "your neighbor as yourself."(9) The duty of hospitality has two key parts, a duty of mercy and a duty of justice.
We see the duty of mercy in Jesus' story of the good Samaritan.(10) Remember how a Jewish traveler had run into robbers and been left beside the road, bloody, beaten, and in need of medical care. A Jewish priest and Levite come down the road, see the traveler, and pass by on the other side. They had an obligation of hospitality to a traveler of their own people--and violated that obligation. Finally, a Samaritan -- despised by the Jews -- came along, provided the needed medical care and took the traveler to a hotel to recuperate. This man, Jesus says, is the neighbor, because he acted on the basis of hospitality and fulfilled the duty of mercy.
Churches have traditionally excelled at the duty to show mercy. A basket at Thanksgiving, a donation of warm clothing, an evening spent serving food at a homeless shelter - fulfilling this duty is immediate, personal, and easy to understand.
The duty of justice is more challenging because it requires that we understand how systems grind people down and then work to change the systems. When God calls us to change systems, powerful interests are affected. You can count on these interests telling us that religion's business is the next life, not this one, and to stay out of what is not our business. To fulfill the duty of justice and change hurtful systems may be controversial.
United Methodist delegates passed a "Resolution on 'Correcting Injustice in Health care," at the 2000 United Methodist General Conference. It highlights as an injustice they way our current health-care system excludes the poor and the physically and mentally challenged from access to adequate health services.(11)
Our General Board of Church and Society supports the Universal Health Care 2000 campaign(12) a grass roots campaign across our nation to put universal health care back in people's conversations with themselves and their representatives in Congress. We also support legislation for a Patient's Bill of Rights to protect patients who are denied care by their insurance company.
In our own state, an exciting initiative is gathering steam--Maryland Citizens Health Initiative. This Maryland grass roots organization commissioned a study by the Lewin Group(13) earlier this year. The study concluded that if Maryland switched to a single payer system, Maryland could provide full health insurance to all persons in the state, including "the estimated 760,000 uninsured...while actually reducing total health spending in Maryland by about $345.8 million." In a letter endorsing this campaign, our bishop Felton E. May stated that guaranteeing health care is a top priority for the United Methodist Church.(14) The Bethany, Mt. Zion, Poplar Springs and West Liberty United Methodist Churches in Howard County have already endorsed this grass roots campaign,(15) and I have commended this campaign to our own Church Council for possible endorsement.
But whatever we may decide on specific courses of action, if the name Jesus truly means "God heals" as well as "God saves," then each of us are trustees and stewards of God's healing power. God works through each of us, and God heals through us when we are neighbors to each other. If beyond that we engage in a healing ministry, we do it to prepare the way for the God who heals. If we face decisions that relate to health care, whether as an employer, a health care professional, or simply as a voter, we face these decisions as trustees for the God who heals.
Jesus, Others, Yourself. JOY. God gives us a feeling of both peace and accomplishment when we've thought something through and know we've done the right thing. This morning we've applied that simple word to health care. We can apply it to other issues. Jesus, Others, Yourself. Whatever issue we apply it to, it puts things in perspective and helps us do the right thing.
1. Eugene H. Peterson, The New Testament in Contemporary Language.
2. Matthew 1:21
3. Matthew 11:3-5
6. Isaiah. 3:14. 12. http://www.u2kcampaign.org
13. John F. Sheils and Randall A. Haught, Final Report: Analysis of the Costs and Impact of Universal Health Care Models for the State of
Maryland: The Single-Payer and Multi-Payer Models. The Lewin Group, Inc., May 2, 2000. Executive Summary