By Gary Gunderson
Interesting days to be a preacher. Five days after our new president was inaugurated, I found myself preaching at a progressive United Methodist Church across town — its head pastor bailed out to California and asked me to fill the pulpit. And last week, a few hours after the new healthcare strategy was released with no numbers or projections, I brought the devotions to the board of the hospital called Baptist.
Before the discovery of germs
The first thing to say is that the Bible isn’t much help in knowing how to fix a deeply broken 21st century democracy. Jesus lived 12 centuries before the Magna Carta, 17 before the U.S. Constitution, 18 before African Americans and Women began voting and 21 before we did public policy by tweets.
From a hospital perspective, he also predated the discovery of germs by 17 centuries. And 18 centuries went by before doctors were required to wash their hands, 20 before medical schools has scientific standards, 21 before we began to figure out how to advance the health of the whole population through population health.
Jesus never voted. He never ran an organization with thousands of highly technical professionals managing billions of denarii. We, the grown up citizens, administrators and board members, and staff need to figure out how to run these things.
Character and values
But the Bible is very specific and bright light about the character and values by which we will be held accountable as we figure the mechanics out.
What both faith and every kind of health professional — hospital or public health — view as sacred, blessed, honorable, worthy of praise and sacrifice are the practices, behaviors and choices that lead to life, protect it, enhance it, extend it and spread its blessings widely across the people.
The Hebrew prophets always meant the whole public whenever they said “people,” they never meant selected individuals. There can be a lively working partnership between health and faith in an academic medical center built around a hospital because we are family. And we are both optimistic about the future. We don’t think God is done, and we don’t think science is done. This focuses our attention on the possibilities, not just what exists now.
Just the right work
My counsel to our beloved doers of health is to not stop talking about facts, analytics, determinants, vectors, patterns and predictors. But we must also talk about our crazy love for the people — the public. And we talk about why we continue to hope for better, hope for more and simply won’t quit hoping no matter what. You can turn our payment systems to mush, play politics with insurance, protect Big Pharma and only pretend to pay for the poor. We won’t quit. Why? Because we are in a lovers quarrel with the public — the people — God so loves and we so love.
This is the time for those who just can’t stop loving the messy, disappointing, ever-muddling gaggle of humans called “the people.” We are in just the right work at just the right time. We are where the people God loves needs us to be. While others rant, we must speak out of that love. We attend to the spreadsheets and budgets, as we know that science is a friend of people and what we are possible of. But we must speak out of love first, especially in public, especially with the public, especially about the public.
Love is never wasted and never fails
Here the Bible helps us a great deal. Let me tweak it for our times only slightly:
If we speak in the tongues of humans and angels but not in love, we will be like a dull alarm or clashing cyball. If we can see the future and discern the mysteries of everything and then have such confidence to move mountains like those in DC but don’t have love, we are nothing. If we give away everything we have and hand over our very corporate life to “community benefit” in a gorgeous IRS Form 990 but don’t have love, we have gained nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind and not jealous, it doesn’t boast, isn’t arrogant, isn’t rude and doesn’t seek its own advantage. It tried to do the right thing. It isn’t irritable and doesn’t whine, is not happy with injustice but appreciates the truth. Love puts up with everything, trusts in the overall good, hopes for all things and never quits. Love never gives up, is never wasted and never fails.
(Corinthians 13 ff, Common English Bible paraphrased)
