Stretch Out Your Hand

Denise Young was CEO of a large YMCA in Northern New York. She recently retired. Denise is smart and strong, very kind. Great sense of humor, an infectious smile. She recently completed a 27 million-dollar aquatic center in a small, rural city with a struggling downtown. That the project was completed during the COVID pandemic would be surprising if you didn't know Denise. Knowing her for many years, it sounds about right. 

Before leading the Y, she worked with initiatives to help people overcome addiction, to find affordable housing, adequate healthcare in the region. She led the center for community studies at the local college and as such gained the great advantage of being well informed but also deeply connected to the people.

On many occasions I heard Denise describe how her heart was formed.  She grew up with a single mother who owned a local bar in one of the poor small towns that make up the North Country.  Her mother had a reputation.  If your life fell apart, if you were in trouble, if you hit rock bottom, she would feed you, house you, care for you, employ you until you got back on your feet.  The bar she owned was a kind of unofficial social service center. To hear Denise tell it, she never knew who was coming to dinner, but she knew if they were at her mother's table, there was hope when all hope was lost.

              The other part of Denise's heart was the tragedy of a sister with a chronic health condition.  As much as her mother seemed to help the poor and the broken, the hospitals and health care providers of the region seemed to injure them.  From prejudice and incompetence, to unending costs and persistent denials of care, Denise's sister died young, in pain, and with far too much suffering.  They were poor and poorly treated.  Where her mother's example fostered compassion in Denise, her sister's illness and death seemed to foster tenacity to bring change.  To fight for the poor and the marginal so they too could be healed, or at the very least, treated with dignity, this was a calling for her.

              I knew Denise for more than a decade when she joined the board of the local hospital.  Even though I knew her story and her life, even though I had no inclination to see her as naive or uninformed, I warned her.  This board is going to be tough for you, I said.  Denise knew the region, knew health care, knew the people in need.  As I started in my caveat, I could tell she was a bit skeptical.  Why would I need a warning flashed in her eyes.  Greed, I said.  At some point you will be overwhelmed by the greed. The greed is painful. 

              What I meant by greed and the need to be forewarned was this.  Doctors, administrators, nurses, aids, service workers, they are not greedy.  The acts of healing and compassion are not based in greed, but healthcare, our healthcare system is built on greed.  As such no matter who you are and what you do, the unbridled gain, the greed, will reach you, compromise you, leave you with no choice but to be corrupted by the corruption. The greed is painful.   

              When Time magazine wrote their appraisal of healthcare costs in 2013, the image on the cover was a white tablet that looked like aspirin.  Instead of the word Bayer the words on the tablet were "bitter pill."  Another news outlet was even more blunt.  There was a patient in a hospital gown walking with an IV stand.  On their chest was an ATM machine. It is debilitating and maddening to know the unreal inflation, the wild frenzy of greedy hands that grope at anyone seeking care.  If you have ever been hospitalized you know the weight of competing cares: will I get better and how much will this cost?   

              When Obamacare was being debated the unbridled greed was always being cloaked.  This was socialized medicine or this was government overreach.  I'll never forget the image of the man holding up a sign that said, "get the government out of my Medicare."  One of the partisan claims meant to confuse was "death panels."  Do you remember this?  If Obamacare is enacted our healthcare will be run by death panels.  That was a false and inaccurate claim meant to conjure fear.  I wrote an op-ed for the paper that claimed, "whether or not the affordable care act passes you want death panels."  I was interviewed on the radio about this article and I'll never forget the hosts trying their best to evoke some sort of controversy, some sort of partisanship in my part.  But it didn't work. 

              As the president of the hospital board I knew that one third of our health care costs, the costs we incur during our lifetime, a third of the total costs is in the last three years of our life.  It stands to reason.  As our bodies breakdown they need more care.  More care equals more costs.  Yet, the point which could not be politicized was this: the end of life required more care, but it also made you completely vulnerable to greed.  Tests, procedures, prescriptions, surgeries none of which led to health or healing are done with nothing gained but money.

              This was the basis of my warning to Denise.  She was the sort of person you wanted to lead a community where the question of care and cost needed to be weighed.  She would champion the dignity of the vulnerable; she would be reasonable about costs and policies to achieve equity for all.  We need people like her to best serve a population given limited resources.  Yet, I also knew how deep was the infection of greed in healthcare.  I knew she would be ready to tilt at the windmill, but how great the challenge when the windmill has become the wind turbine.

              Our reading today is about healing.  At its most basic, this is a story of a man with a malady who was healed by Jesus.  His hand was withered and then it was healthy.  Simple really.  But it's never simple is it?  It was the sabbath; and the sabbath is about rest.  The man needs to be healed, but the man didn't ask to be healed.  And the Pharisees are furious when any normal person should be happy.  Jesus says, stretch out your hand and the man stretched out his hand.  No one was hurt; no animals were injured in the making of this movie.  Someone who suffered wasn't suffering anymore.  Isn't that a good thing?  "They were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus."  Fury is never a good thing.

              In 2011 during a political debate a moderator asked a candidate a hypothetical question.  What if a young man needs six months of extensive care to be healed but does not have the money to cover the costs.  What should we do?  When the candidate, Rand Paul, evaded the question, the moderator was blunt, "should we just let him die?"  The crowd erupted with cheers and shouted, "let him die."  The crowd was furious.

              If you read the story of the man with the withered hand, you would be right to say, "this makes no sense."  Why does it matter what day of the week it is?  Why are the Pharisees so upset about a man being healed?  Why didn't Jesus just say to the man, hey, meet me out back and I will fix you up?  No need to upset the locals.  No. Stretch out your hand.  Insert "fury."  None of this makes sense.  But such is the impact of greed and corruption.  Why would I need to warn Denise?  Why would anyone shout, "let him die?"  When the simple becomes complicated, the chances are we are lost in evil.

              Two quick asides.  The first was a moment I will never forget.  The hospital needed to buy new machines.  17 million dollars worth of new machines.  I led the debate which lasted all of five minutes.  The machines pay for themselves.  All those in favor of 17 million dollars of debt?  Aye. Opposed.  No one was opposed.  Later that day, moderating a session meeting, a 1000 purchase was debated for quite some time before it passed.  Listening to the second debate after the speed of the first was surreal. 

              The second aside is more germane.  The PCUSA Board of Pensions just voted to increase the cost of healthcare charged to churches to 40%.  Churches will be taxed at 40% of the pastor's effective salary for health care.  For congregations struggling with the prior tax in the mid-thirties, this seems untenable.  And it is untenable.  Yet, it really isn't a change.  The increase is all too consistent.  Does it make sense?  Is it what healthcare really costs?  No.  But it is what you should expect when greed and corruption define a system.

              When Jesus healed on the sabbath he broke the rules in a sense.  Sure.  But what he really broke was the hold of the Pharisees.  The sabbath was the basis of their control.  In a very public way he said, life is not to be controlled.  We choose justice over prestige; power is meant for freedom not control.  There is no way around the truth that Jesus was making a point, pointing out injustice: he was fighting the power. 

              When there were rumors of change to our healthcare costs and how they are structured, I must confess a secret hope.  I secretly hoped we would fight the power.  The Presbyterians are not the largest denomination, not the wealthiest, but we are protestants.  I hoped we would protest.  We have done it before. Find a way of exposing the greed, stand up to corruption.  Yet, in the end, the decision was to raise the rate once again, test the market. It was not to fight the system.  I felt like I was back in the moment warning Denise.  The greed will hurt.

              Stretch out your hand.  It seems so simple.  A man was hurting; a man was healed.  What was broken was made whole.  "They were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus."  Doesn't make sense, does it?  But you know the Pharisees were convinced.  They were absolutely sure they were right to be angry.  Right?  Fury has little room for doubt.  "They were filled with fury" it says. It doesn't say, "wow, he's right.  Does it really matter what day of the week it is; does it make sense to be angry?  He did a good thing, right?  Jesus is a good guy." They were filled with fury.

              The anger doesn't make sense until you consider greed and corruption.  How the healings occurred, how people were "restored" and by whom was the purview of the Pharisees.  This was their business.  And their business was not open on Sundays.  Even more, though, the Pharisees were the ones who made the rules, held the power. Jesus upended the power of control.

              The greatest part of our reading today is something that didn't happen.  Jesus said, stretch out your hand and the man did.  Be it faith or hope or desperation, he stretched out his hand and hoped for change, for healing, for a new day. What didn't happen was the man didn't balk, he didn't withdraw with fear, he didn't recoil knowing the likelihood of fury.

              In their anger they shouted, "let him die."  In their fear they voted, let us raise the rates.  To conjure fear they warned of death panels.  The man who was suffering stretched out his withered hand. He didn't recoil in fear.  I wonder when we will be so bold.  Will we stretch out our hand or continue in the corruption and greed?  I know what Denise would do.  Amen.