Medical Ministry at Watermark

As Christians in medicine, it is important for us to participate in the current national debate on health care.  The point of medicine is to manifest the glorious Gospel of Christ (see the following link for a longer defense of that claim (http://watermarkblogs.org/medical/files/2009/11/Medicine-A-parable-for-the-Gospel-WM-2009-blog.pdf).  Having the Gospel as a starting point, we are better able to contribute in meaningful ways to the current contentious debate over health care.

At the heart of the debate is the question of whether health care is a right or a privilege.  Those who consider it a right are typically the ones arguing for some kind of universal health care system.  Those who consider it a privilege contend that health care, like all other privileges in life, ought to be earned.

The Christian viewpoint does not align with either of these, but rather approaches the issue within the context of the Gospel.  To the Christian, the theology of grace directs us to see all good things in life as undeserved blessings.  So health care is neither a right nor a privilege, but rather a blessing from God.

Whatever humanity deserves for its god-belittling, stiff-necked rebellion against its Holy creator, it certainly is not health care for all.  The fact that God built our bodies with immune systems to fight off disease and endowed us with incredible biological powers to self-heal; not to mention the last century with all of its enormous progress in medicine, is a testament to God’s mercy.  We do not deserve antibiotics to destroy bacteria, much less MRIs for our sore knees, and yet God has granted them to us out of his kindness.

Seen in this light, as a kind of reversal to the typical right vs. privilege debate, health care can be properly understood as a way of manifesting the mercy of God to a sinful and rebellious humanity.

The implications of this view are significant to the current debate.  It is wrong to argue that all people deserve health care, but it is also wrong to contend that health care must be earned. Grace is neither deserved nor earned; it is given by God as an act of mercy and kindness, as a way of glorifying himself and drawing us back to him.

And so it ought to be with health care.  Like the grace of God, Christians ought to compassionately find ways of offering health care to the most amount of people as a way to manifest the kindness and mercy of God.  We ought to do this for the same reason we seek to share the Gospel with all people – out of love for them and for Christ.  Health care then becomes a tangible manifestation of the Gospel, and the Church ought to be on the forefront of encouraging and supporting health care for more people.  Those of us who find ourselves with fantastic health insurance, with MRIs and second opinions galore, ought to realize how underserved those blessings are, knowing that we have not earned them any more than the next guy.

And yet we must be cautious about offering this blessing blindly and systematically as a kind of government obligation.   Grace only works when it falls on the contrite heart.  Blanketing every living soul in America with the promise of all available modern health care as a human right defeats the design of sickness to lead us to repentance.   When what is not deserved is turned upside down and made something that everyone demands as a right, there is a rotten effect on the receiving heart, making it spoiled and self-centered; and ironically, less healthy.  The threat of sickness with all of its costs, both physically and on our pocket books, ought to serve as a societal pressure encouraging healthy living.  Removing that pressure by giving it as a low cost right is like reversing our nervous system, making what ought to be painful stimuli something numb, with everyone running around stubbing their toes and burning their hands.

As Christians in medicine, we need to be bringing these truths to the debate.  More than any other members of the Church, we ought to be sensitive to the plight of the sick and uninsured in our communities.  We ought to be the ones waking up every day concerned about our neighbors in Dallas who are sick and unable to find a way to get healthy.  We have in our hands the God-given power to heal, and more than that, we have one of the most powerful ways of physically manifesting the grace of God.  If we do not take that call and find ways of bringing health care to more people in our communities, then we have failed and will be held to account.

The sacrament of Communion offers an analogy here.  To the Christian, equality means that we are all equally sinful, equally deserving of death, equally in need of mercy; and praise be to God, equally able to obtain it through faith in Christ.  There are no racial, ethnic, or socio-economic divisions as we sit at the communion table.

At the same time, we do not offer the body and blood of Christ as a right to all people, showering our cities with bread and wine.  Rather, communion is given and received within the context of community in a way that it can be properly explained, understood, and received.

In a similar way, we are all equally undeserving of health care, and yet we find ourselves as a nation with a good amount of it nonetheless.  What are we to do?  Christians in medicine ought to be relentless in their pursuit of bringing the most amount of healing to the most amount of people, but we ought to seek to do that within the context of a community that emphasizes the mercy and grace of God.  In other words, Christians in medicine ought to be the champions of health within their communities and with the support of their local churches.  Sadly, our failure to take on this responsibility is partly why our government feels the pressure to step in and do it instead.

May we rise up to the challenge, repent of our failure to fully recognize our God-given responsibility, and offer our city and our country an alternative vision for how best to care for the sick.

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This entry was posted by Chris Berry on Sunday, January 3rd, 2010 at 9:14 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.