{"id":2351,"date":"2019-10-13T11:00:01","date_gmt":"2019-10-13T15:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=2351"},"modified":"2019-12-03T11:50:14","modified_gmt":"2019-12-03T16:50:14","slug":"spring-tonic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2019\/10\/13\/spring-tonic\/","title":{"rendered":"Spring Tonic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click here to hear the full service<\/a><\/p>\n

2 Kings 5:1-15c<\/a><\/p>\n

2 Timothy 2:8-15<\/a><\/p>\n

Luke 17:11-19<\/a><\/p>\n

Click here to hear just the sermon<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Every Spring, when I was a child, right through high school, our mother would dose my brother and me with our \u201cSpring tonic\u201d of cod liver oil.\u00a0 It came in a tube, colored a sort of sickly green-blue-gray, and on the tube was a line-drawing of a fish, balanced on its tail, with a distressed look on its face \u2013 no doubt because of the spigot drawn protruding from its belly, dripping oil.\u00a0 The fish\u2019s distress was nothing to ours.\u00a0 Our mother squeezed out two healthy dollops of oil, mixed each with water, and we drank our glasses down.\u00a0 The taste was vile, and it lasted a long time, even after teeth brushing.\u00a0 My brother and I never did know just why we were subjected to this challenge to our comfort and filial obedience \u2013 our Spring tonic was good for us, it was what we did, and that was that.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It turns out that cod liver oil is actually good for human beings,\u00a0 Rich in vitamins A and D, it\u00a0 may also help with inflammation and other health issues, and back in the day it was given all over the country to help prevent rickets, a softening and weakening of children\u2019s bones that often led to deformity and ongoing issues.\u00a0 So, even though it was a challenge in the short run, my brother and I did reap benefits from our Spring tonic.\u00a0 And, I and my brother still did not give cod liver oil to our<\/em> children.<\/p>\n

The word that informs our preaching here at Marsh Chapel this semester is \u201chealth\u201d.\u00a0 Perhaps not coincidentally, our own Dr. Sandro Galea, Dean of the Boston University School of Public Health, has recently published a book, entitled Well:\u00a0 What We Need To Talk About When We Talk About Health<\/em>.\u00a0 His own experience as a physician is as one who has practiced medicine internationally and with various populations.\u00a0 As an epidemiologist \u2013 one who studies how diseases spread \u2013 he has researched and taught at the University of Michigan and Columbia University, before he came here to Boston University as the youngest dean of a school of public health in the country at the time of his appointment.\u00a0 In addition to this experience, his book is also informed by two facts.\u00a0 One is that the biggest concern of the American electorate in the 2020 presidential election is access to healthcare:\u00a0 insurance, doctors, medicine, and surgery.\u00a0 The other fact is that Americans spend more on healthcare than any other nation, and we experience increasingly lower outcomes in relation to costs than any other peer nation, and in some areas, than many other nations period.\u00a0 Galea\u2019s book Well <\/em>is a foundational text, full of interesting stories, great quotes, fascinating history, and thought-provoking science presented in layperson\u2019s terms.\u00a0 In it he writes about health from a public perspective, a consideration of health as a public good in which the health of the individual is recognized as dependent on the health of the whole.\u00a0 Galea argues that our current cultural focus is on individual decision-making and healthcare \u2013 the doctors, medicine, and surgery that come into play when a person is already sick and that is overwhelmingly concentrated toward the end of a person\u2019s life.\u00a0 He posits that we have neglected or ignored the public, community infrastructure that promotes health itself throughout human life.\u00a0\u00a0 So we deprive ourselves and others of the increased opportunities and possibilities for a richer life for everybody that come with public health goods,<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The titles of the chapters in Well<\/em> provide a broad outline for the components of the infrastructure that Galea promotes for our consideration of health as a public good.\u00a0 I am going to read them now, all twenty of them, and invite you to note any of them for your later consideration that surprise you as being part of health, for either its support or its detriment, for both personal and communal health.\u00a0 The Past.\u00a0 Money.\u00a0 Power.\u00a0 Politics. \u00a0Place. \u00a0People.\u00a0 Love and Hate. \u00a0Compassion.\u00a0 Knowledge.\u00a0 Humility.\u00a0 Freedom.\u00a0 Choice.\u00a0 Luck.\u00a0 The Many.\u00a0 The Few.\u00a0 The Public Good.\u00a0 Fairness and Justice.\u00a0 Pain and Pleasure.\u00a0 Death.\u00a0 Values.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Interestingly enough, with some allowance for differences in context, our Hebrew Bible lesson this morning illustrates some of the complexities involved when we consider some of these chapter titles as naming the elements of an infrastructure that shapes health.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Naaman is a great man, commander of the king of Aram\u2019s army in what is present-day Syria.\u00a0 The king of Aram holds Naaman in high favor for his successful military victories, given to Aram over Israel by, oddly enough, the God of Israel.\u00a0 But in spite of his military might, Naaman suffers from leprosy.\u00a0 This may or may not have been Hansen\u2019s disease, what we think of as leprosy, but could have been one of the other noxious skin conditions of the time.\u00a0 These may not have caused Naaman to be shunned, but they were almost certainly disfiguring and inconvenient if not painful.\u00a0 A young Israelite girl, taken prisoner in a raid by Aram against Israel, was made to serve Naaman\u2019s wife.\u00a0 She tells her mistress about the Israelite prophet residing in Samaria, which was a region in central Israel now part of the West Bank. This prophet, she says, can cure Naaman\u2019s leprosy.\u00a0 His wife tells Naaman.\u00a0 Naaman tells his king, and his king sends a letter to his vassal, the king of Israel, to smooth Naaman\u2019s journey.\u00a0 Naaman is a very wealthy man, and expects his wealth to smooth his way and pay for his cure, and he packs accordingly.\u00a0 At the time, one silver talent weighed seventy-five pounds and was worth $6,000 in today\u2019s money.\u00a0 Naaman takes ten of them, six thousand shekels of gold that were worth even more, and ten sets of garments worth a significant amount on their own.\u00a0 His entourage consists of servants, horses, and chariots, consistent with his high status.\u00a0 He sets out for the king of Israel.\u00a0 Meanwhile, as if he does not have enough trouble being a vassal to an overlord, the king of Israel takes the letter from the king of Aram as a demand for an \u00a0impossibility and as a thinly-veiled attempt to renew the conflict between Aram and Israel.\u00a0 Elisha, the man of God, the successor to the great prophet Elijah, the prophet with the cure for leprosy, steps in.\u00a0 He calms the king of Israel and tells him to send Naaman to him, Elisha, not with Naaman\u2019s cure as the first priority, but so that he, Naaman, will know that there is a prophet, Elisha, in Israel.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When Naaman finally reaches Elisha, he feels insulted, becomes enraged, and leaves.\u00a0 He is going back to Aram!\u00a0 Then his servants step in.\u00a0 They calm him down, and persuade him to wash in the Jordan.\u00a0 Naaman washes seven times in the Jordan, and is cured of his leprosy.\u00a0 He returns to Elisha, and in front of all his company, acknowledges the God of the prophet, the God of Israel, as the only God in all the earth.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A number of the pieces of Galea\u2019s infrastructure are at play in this story.\u00a0 The past has set the stage:\u00a0 Naaman\u2019s high status and wealth, his marriage and servants have already been achieved, and he has developed leprosy.\u00a0 The conflict between Aram and Israel has brought him the young Israelite girl as a servant.\u00a0 Politics certainly plays a part, in the interwoven relationships that involve and surround Naaman.\u00a0 Power and money are there, in Naaman\u2019s sense of entitlement to certain treatment and in his assumption that money will secure his cure.\u00a0 Without the knowledge of the prophet given to Naaman by his wife\u2019s servant girl and his wife, Naaman would have had no idea that a cure might be possible.\u00a0 Naaman has the freedom to make two important choices:\u00a0 he goes to Elisha, and he allows himself to be persuaded to wash in the Jordan.\u00a0 But he did not choose to have leprosy, and his cure is brought into possibility mostly by the choices of other people.\u00a0 Naaman does not come to his health alone.\u00a0 And if any of the pieces of this infrastructure had been different \u2013 if Naaman had had no knowledge, no support, no choice because of no power or wealth or freedom or the support of those around him for whatever reason \u2013 Naaman\u2019s health would be compromised to the extent that he would still have leprosy, and his life would as well have less opportunity and possibility to that extent.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A number of the pieces of Galea\u2019s infrastructure are at play in our Gospel account as well.\u00a0 By this time in history, the leprosy in this story is likely enough to be Hansen\u2019s disease, as lepers in Jesus\u2019 time were shunned by all, including their families, friends, and the religious community.\u00a0 They suffered a living social and cultural death-in-life as well as the looming death from the disease.\u00a0 There was also in that time a general public consensus that if one suffered the misfortune of illness or disability one must have done something wrong, and probably something sinful.<\/p>\n

In this context, ten lepers come to Jesus and beg for his help.\u00a0 He tells them to go and show themselves to the priests, who are the arbiters of social and ritual cleanliness in their power.\u00a0 As they go, they are healed of their leprosy.\u00a0 And, as Jesus points out to his disciples, only one of them comes back to praise God, and that one was not just a foreigner but a Samaritan.<\/p>\n

The past is at play in this story:\u00a0 the lepers are already sick, the prejudice against persons who are ill and Samaritans is well-established.\u00a0 Compassion also enters the picture:\u00a0 in Luke Jesus has already extended his healing beyond Israelites to heal the servant of a Roman centurion and a man from the country of the Gerasenes, and he extends healing to the Samaritan leper as well.\u00a0 While the lepers did not have the choice to become sick, had limited freedom and probably had little money or power, they choose to follow Jesus\u2019 direction.\u00a0 People also are a consideration:\u00a0 while shunned by the rest of society, the lepers had created their own sort of community, even including a Samaritan.\u00a0 Knowledge plays a part as well:\u00a0 the lepers recognize Jesus, and know him as a person who can help them, even heal them.\u00a0 And again, if any of these pieces of health infrastructure had been missing \u2013 no knowledge, no support to bring the lepers to this point, no compassion from Jesus but blame for the lepers\u2019 poor choices or morality, the lepers\u2019 health would be compromised to the extent that they would still have leprosy, and their life would as well have less opportunity and possibility to that extent.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Fast forward to our own time and place.\u00a0 The elements of Galea\u2019s health infrastructure that are present in our morning\u2019s biblical texts are still with us.\u00a0 And, the knowledge we have gained about the causes of and challenges to health has exponentially increased.\u00a0 And now the realities and complexities of a globalized world have expanded the infrastructure elements present in the biblical stories and have brought in all the others elements as well \u2013 all twenty of them..\u00a0 So now all these health infrastructure elements are at play, and their import for health for good or ill have increased the challenges to a staggering degree, not just for individuals but for the collective human race, and for the whole of the planet as well.\u00a0 In particular, while people in biblical times may be excused for blaming people with health issues for poor choices or moral laxity, our knowledge no longer allows us to blame or admire individuals or groups for individual poor or good health. Too many choices were already made for them in the past or in the present, sometimes without their knowledge or consent \u2013 just ask the people of Flint, Michigan.\u00a0 These choices include:\u00a0 to whom they were born, where they lived as children, the wealth or poverty of their families, the kinds and quality of foods that were available to them growing up, the level of pollution in their homes\/communities\/environment, the political decisions made on their behalf whether these decisions were in their best interests or not, with all of these elements of health infrastructure having irreversible effects for good or ill on their health.\u00a0 Likewise, in a globalized world, the health of the individual is dependent on the health of all other people and the health of the planet.\u00a0 Germs, viruses, plagues, and epidemics know no boundaries and are no respecter of persons.\u00a0 The global climate change that threatens the health of everyone\u2019s earth, air, and water, if left unchecked, threaten public ill health, and thus individual ill health, on a scale previously unimaginable.\u00a0 There is still room for individual choice when it comes to personal health.\u00a0 And, in the present day, this is increasingly limited by the choices of others and by the collective choices we make as communities, nations, and the human race.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Here I would like to lift up in particular two of Galea\u2019s elements of public health for further consideration.\u00a0 One is compassion, which Galea defines as \u201csympathetic consciousness of others\u2019 distress together with a desire to alleviate it \u2026 something that links our engagement with the infrastructure that shapes our health to the values that shape our conscience.\u201d\u00a0 He quotes Martin Luther King, Jr.\u2019s statement that \u201cCompassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice that produces beggars needs restructuring.\u201d\u00a0 It is this kind of compassion to which Jesus inspires us:\u00a0 in his call for non-judgment, in his call to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, in his call to resist injustice and evil.<\/p>\n

The second element for consideration is values.\u00a0 Galea notes that we invest our energies and resources in healthcare, and ignore improvements to the infrastructure that will promote our health throughout our lives.\u00a0 This means that we have not embraced health as a value worth pursuit and protection, nor do we address the forces that actually produce health.\u00a0 He raises the question, what does it mean to value health, not just as an individual issue, but as a collective, public value.\u00a0 Because if the public debate continues to focus solely on healthcare, on individual choice, doctors, medicine, and surgery, our health as a public and as individuals will continue to worsen, and we will continue the pattern that has made our health worse than that of all our peer countries.\u00a0 To embrace health as a collective value in fact means that we embrace compassion, compassion that reveals how the suffering of individuals connects with the infrastructure that produces or denies health.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I would like also to include an infrastructure element that Galea does not include, because he was not writing this sermon.\u00a0 That element is faith \u2013 faith in opportunity, faith in possibility, faith in human courage and compassion, faith in God.\u00a0 The challenges to our personal and collective health can seem daunting, not least because in this our time and place our responses to meet these challenges, especially as Christians, look to be counter-cultural and against great odds. \u00a0But, we do not respond alone.\u00a0 In the Lowell Lecture given by Gary Dorrien that Dr. Jessica Chicka mentioned last week, he also said that he was glad to be living in a time of mass movements and demonstrations once again, where hundreds of thousands of people are beginning to organize, plan, protest, and advocate once again, not just for themselves as individuals, but for the public good, even to a global scale.\u00a0 So we will have plenty of company against the odds.\u00a0 We may even create a new culture of health for all people and for the planet..<\/p>\n

To do this, as our biblical stories this morning remind us, we can consult with the prophet and be told what to do.\u00a0 We can ask Jesus for mercy, and he will tell us what to do.\u00a0 And, both of them will tell us the same thing as to what to do first.\u00a0 They will tell us, \u201cGo\u201d.\u00a0 And we will find, as did Naaman and the Samaritan leper, that our faith is in our going, and, it is when we go that we are healed.\u00a0 AMEN.<\/p>\n

–The Rev. Dr. Victoria Hart Gaskell, Minister for Visitation<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click here to hear the full service 2 Kings 5:1-15c 2 Timothy 2:8-15 Luke 17:11-19 Click here to hear just the sermon \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Every Spring, when I was a child, right through high school, our mother would dose my brother and me with our \u201cSpring tonic\u201d of cod liver oil.\u00a0 It came in a tube, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2351"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2679"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2351"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2526,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2351\/revisions\/2526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}