Jesus' Universal Health Care System

On Wednesday, President Obama will address the nation on his plans for national health care system. This health care debate has stirred up a hornet’s nest of opposition, led by groups as diverse as massive health care companies who worry about the bottom line and citizens who worry that we’re drifting into an ever deepening spiral of socialism, spending, and government intrusion in our lives. Town Hall meetings around the country have produced more panic than the swine flu. At one rally a guy who opposes a national health care option got into a fight with a guy who supports it. In the fracas, someone bit off part of his finger. Doctors reattached the finger. Medicare will cover the bill of the guy who wants the government to stay out of healthcare.
Some of the craziness stirred up by recent political debate has been worrisome: people have shown up to political rallies with automatic weapons strapped to their backs, a political candidate for congress joked on a radio program about taking out a hunting license on the president, and now we hear of parents so opposed to this administration that they won’t allow their children to watch the President of the United States give a talk about being responsible citizens at school. With all the hyperbole about Death panels, state secession, Hitler and Nazis come to life again, is it too much to say that we all need to take a deep breath and chill out??!.
I find it interesting that the nation can get so stirred up over something so innocuous as making sure all citizens have access to quality, affordable medical care. We’re not expecting to solve that issue this morning, but I find it interesting that our scripture today finds Jesus wrestling with the question of who has a right to health care.
It happened when Jesus was trying to get a few days away from the crowds. He and his disciples went all the way to the sea, then ventured north to the Lebanese city of Tyre. There we find Jesus sneaking into a house when a woman from the area recognized him and approached him with an urgent request. The woman was driven by the most pressing problem a parent can have. She fell at Jesus’ feet and spilled out the story of her desperately ill, demon possessed daughter, asking Jesus, begging Jesus to heal the girl. Unfortunately, the woman had five strikes going against her:
*She caught Jesus at a time when he didn’t want to be interrupted. That may explain why he seemed a bit snappy!
*She was also the wrong gender—there wasn’t much attention given to a woman in a rabbi’s world.
*The woman was the wrong race; Jews didn’t mix much with these people.
*She followed the wrong religion.
* On top of all that, she had a daughter who was demon possessed. Wasn’t it obvious that God was punishing her?
Before we speak of Jesus’ answer to the woman, let me point out that some sadistic lectionary editor paired this morning’s text with the second chapter of James, which tells us that favoritism in human relationships is fundamentally incompatible with the way of God. James outlines a number of ways that believers play favorites and ends with the warning: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.
Jesus obviously didn’t read that passage during his quiet time on the day when this foreign woman came to him seeking health care for her little daughter. Because if he had read those words warning him not to show partiality, he might not have said: “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” Talk about being politically incorrect! Jesus did the very thing James just told us not to do! Jesus blew her off with the same kind of favoritism that James warns us is so dangerous to display. His answer still sounds rough, abrupt, and final.
“…it’s not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” “The dogs” was a common derogatory metaphor for describing gentiles in Jesus’ day. In other words, this woman has no business being in the company of a Jew, much less the Messiah. It’s like oil and water. It’s like an illegal alien marching into the Oval Office to see President Obama. It is like a bag lady trying to make an appointment with Bill Gates. She begs Jesus to heal her daughter, but it sounds as if he doesn't have time for her.
Was it just fatigue and stress? Was he testing the woman? Was he trying to give a caricature of “the Jewish position” of how God works in the world, setting her up for a Kingdom alternative?
Let’s pay attention to where the account of this story is placed in the text. Mark has just told us about the Pharisees raking Jesus over the coals because his disciples didn’t wash their hands, didn’t follow the rules. Jesus upbraided them, saying, You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition. You pay more attention to your Jewish customs than you pay to your own father and mother, holding back from helping them in their old age by saying you’ve saved that money for a church offering. You care more about your traditions than you do your own father and mother!
Immediately after we find this story, where Jesus has to choose between following customary religious separation passed down by the elders and reaching out to meet human need. In his confrontation with the Pharisees, we are told that Jesus declared that all foods clean. In this story Jesus has the opportunity to declare that all people are clean, and worthy of attention. He first summed up the common wisdom of the elders on the matter. You’re a dog and you don’t have any grounds for coming to me, or to God for that matter.
But there was something deeper going on, and the Syro-Phoenician woman sensed it. She knew that God’s choosing of Israel meant that he kept his eye on the Jewish people. But she also sensed that God chose Israel so that he might use them to bless all nations. Instead of fighting God’s choice, the woman chose to believe that she could find help for herself and her daughter through God’s gift of Jesus. She believed that there might even be something for her. She believed that God’s grace was so strong in Jesus that it literally spilled over into the lives of all who came into contact with him. So she boldly persisted. She showed real chutzpah. She got in Jesus' face, begging him to heal her daughter. If she was a dog, she was going to keep nipping at Jesus' heels until she got what she needed.
“Sir,” she said, “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Here she showcased not only her debating skills, but also her faith. She took Jesus’ words and turned them back on him. "Children get fed before the dogs? You've got that right, Lord! But even the dogs get to eat the children's crumbs; even the pets get the scraps that fall from their master's table!" She is arguing that even on his own terms, there should be something from him--some scrap of grace--for someone like her who comes to him in faith. She is challenging him. "What are you going to do, Lord: Judge me by externals only--or judge me by my heart?"
This passage reminds me of Jesus’ words in Matthew 7:
7 Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. 9 Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
James 4:2 says: “…you do not have because you do not ask.”
It’s not just this Canaanite woman and her daughter who find herself under the table of God. We were outsiders too—we were under that table too…all of us whose ancestors were non-Jewish. We were lost, without hope, without God in the world. But we were included, elevated, invited to the table, because of God's amazing grace poured out in Christ. We deserved nothing from God, not even the crumbs that fall from His table; and yet, we are invited to eat the bread of God's grace each week.
Is there something you have not received because you haven’t had the faith, the persistence of this woman to ask? We have the promises of God that he listens, he waits to hear from us, and he will answer our needs.
Jesus said to they Syron-Phoenician woman: “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
So let me ask you, “Does this story really have anything to tell us about the way our country ought to think about health care?” In one sense…no, not really. But this account of Jesus, the best health care provider of all time, meeting a woman who had no other way to have her health care needs met proved irresistible to me, given our current political environment. But these accounts from Mark, and from James aren’t proof texts on which a country like ours should build public policy.
But in another sense, both our morning scriptures should have everything to do with the way we who are followers of Christ stand to be counted in areas of ethnicity, religious diversity, poverty and riches, generosity and favoritism. Let us remember, even in our political life, that God cares deeply about the helpless, the poor, the outsider, the sick among us, the defenseless. Those folks must be priorities for us too. God cares about life; we should too. God cares about peace and unity; we should too. Let us not show partiality to the rich, to the strong. God cares about the poor, the helpless, the underprivileged, the weak…and we should too. It doesn’t matter if you consider yourself a Republican or a Democrat…you’ll find plenty of reasons to cheer and jeer either camp. But we must constantly make our political stands based on our primary identity as citizens of the Kingdom of God.
James goes on to say: What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? 15If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, 16and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? 17So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.
Our first priority is to make the gospel of Jesus Christ visible within our church community. Jesus broke racial taboos, religious taboos, gender taboos, and economic taboos…and he expects us to break them too. Here among us the poor find a welcome; here people are treated with dignity as children of God. Here we are colorblind to the distinctions of race. Here it matters not whether you graduated from Harvard or didn’t even graduate from High School. Here everyone is welcome to the table of God.
And when we go out into the world, let us carry the same values. Our political process these days is characterized by so much ugliness, so much mean-spirited ill-will, so much fear, so much cynicism. May our faith in Christ call us to be kind, even tempered, patient, helpful. May the example of Christ make us open to people of different backgrounds. May Christ’s example make our hearts soft to those who are suffering. Let’s be a part of solving the sicknesses, the woes, the hurts, the poverty of our nation and our world.
So we celebrate the day when the gospel of Jesus Christ went to the dogs. Where the traditions of the elders and the religious law saw only an outcast, Jesus saw a woman's heart of faith. And the day the gospel went to the dogs was also the day it came to us. We are the "dogs" who have received the good news and a place at the table! When Jesus opened himself up to mission to the whole world, he opened his church to the world. Let’s live like Jesus, open to the whole world, unthreatened by those who are unlike us, attentive to the needs of those who struggle. Spread the Good News…those who once gathered crumbs under the Table have found a welcome at the Table!