A parable from my hospital bed
This week I spent a night and a day in a hospital emergency department, attached to a bed by tubes and various kinds of medical paraphernalia. An elderly man was in the bed opposite. I couldn’t see him, but he had a strong, clear voice and gave me plenty to hear.
He routinely abused the nurses, doctors, orderlies, and anyone who came near him. About the only exception was his granddaughter when she visited in the morning. Occasionally, when staff demanded it of him, he apologised. Once he even said ‘thank-you’, but mostly he was on the attack. In the early hours of the morning, a newborn child was crying in the paediatric unit next door. He shouted, “Why doesn’t someone tell that kid to shut up! Bring it here and I’ll stick it in a bucket!”
I didn’t judge him harshly, remembering how in later years the wrong medication had made my normally polite father quite violent and abusive for a short period. He returned to normal when the doctor removed the medications. I wondered if something similar was causing this man’s state of mind.
The fear of many of us as we get older, he had taken a fall in his nursing home. That didn’t stop him trying to get out of bed, shouting at everyone to let him go. Doctors would then come and ask him questions, like, “Do you know where you are?” and “Do you know why you are here?” To that last one, he always came back with the same plaintive answer at the top of his voice, “Because I can’t get what I want!”
Staff sympathy receded a little when he struck one of the doctors while she was examining him for injuries. She wouldn’t go back. Overall, though, the patience, tolerance, and persistence of those medical staff through the long hours impressed me. They did not give back as they received, and they went the extra mile to care for him, unpleasant though it was.
Later on, it struck me that there is a parable here about God and human beings. It centres on the man’s cry, “Because I can’t get what I want.” Childish and petulant, he struck out at the ones who were caring for him. Ungrateful and resentful, he blamed them for his troubles. Unaware of his weakness and vulnerability, he tried to go it alone and do what it was obvious he could not do. Sick, crippled, and having lost control, he responded, whether by drugs or disposition, with vindictive threats, violence and even hatred. Selfish and without sympathy for others, he abused, victimised, and bullied where he could.
Is this a parable of our relationship with God? Unaware of our guilt, we always demand more, blame others, or even the very One who is the source of everything. For those of us in the Church, it is easy to value success over faithfulness, although it is not so easy to achieve it. In denial of our own weakness and dependence of grace, we think if only we could grow our numbers, surely then we would prove we were right. Sometimes we aren’t slow to point the finger at the declining numbers of others, as though that proves them wrong. Comparisons are always odious. Despite everything our Lord has taught us, particularly in his relentless journey to the cross, we still want to be on the (apparently) winning team. Sometimes we will even sell out on our faith to get it. When we can’t feel the love, we set about manufacturing it as though it were a commodity to be bought and
sold.
Whatever God does for us, it never seems to be enough. It’s a truism that we have never had it so good, but you wouldn’t think it to hear us. When He sends us His Son, we reject Him (Mark 12:7). When He provides us with the gifts of grace, we despise them, turning instead to gifts we want more. When He gives us the church, we demand something more successful, more enticing, and more attractive. When he gives us peace and prosperity, we demand success and happiness. We remain dissatisfied with the sinner/saint, divine/human, and law/gospel paradoxes that faith in Christ requires. That seems to be what it is to be human, in the modern world, at least.
Why are we here? Is it because we can’t get what we want? God is tending to us in his emergency department to give us what we need, not what we want! In fact, it’s even worse. We aren’t just frail and ill, like the man in hospital – we were dead in the gutter (Ephesians 2:5). God’s care for us, and his medicine in Jesus Christ, is more than palliative. It’s new life, as we never have been alive before.
That’s our starting point, and that’s why we can still be the place where love comes to life.
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