Why do some people struggle so much more with their health than others?

 Luke 5: 17-26 

Jesus Heals a Paralytic

17 One day while he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem were sitting nearby, and the power of the Lord was with him to heal.[a] 18 Just then some men came carrying a paralyzed man on a stretcher. They were trying to bring him in and lay him before Jesus,[b]19 but, finding no way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down on the stretcher through the tiles into the middle of the crowd[c] in front of Jesus. 20 When he saw their faith, he said, “Friend,[d] your sins are forgiven you.”21 Then the scribes and the Pharisees began to question, “Who is this who is speaking blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”22 When Jesus perceived their questionings, he answered them, “Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? 23 Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and walk’? 24 But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the one who was paralyzed—“I say to you, stand up and take your stretcher and go to your home.” 25 Immediately he stood up before them, took what he had been lying on, and went to his home, glorifying God. 26 Amazement seized all of them, and they glorified God and were filled with fear, saying, “We have seen incredible things today.”

MESSAGE 

Why do some people struggle so much more with their health than others? 

Friends, we’re continuing on this morning with Stump the Preacher, sermons requested by y’all and then researched and delivered by me, with love. This morning’s request came about during a conversation with our very own Carole: why do some of us struggle so much more with our health than others?

We had something specific in mind while we were talking, but this question is painfully universal. If we live long enough, and know and love enough people, we’ll all meet folks on both extremes of that question. And it really cuts to the quick if you’ve known and loved, or been, the person on the unhealthy end.

The truth is that there is no justice with our bodies. There is nothing fair about perambulating about in this meat suit, and there’s hardly even any logic in the outcomes you’ll get for the care you put in. This manifests in all kinds of ways, both minor and major. We all know that one person who never exercises, and eats fast food every day, and yet inexplicably stays in great shape, while some of us, by contrast, can’t smell a french fry without gaining ten pounds. Do you hear the resentment in my voice? And the implied judgment? They betray the inherent pain in the premise of this question. It’s a very brave one.

Anecdotally, my best story about a person who lucked out with their health is one from the first church I ever served, Benton. And a sweet old soul who was an angel incarnate. She deserved every good thing she experienced. But there’s no denying that she was lucky. She had a beautiful house right on Keuka Lake, and after her husband passed she lived there alone for the rest of her life. Many of us have to downsize against our wishes, and eventually move into some kind of retirement home because a big house becomes too much late in life, but not so with this soul. She lived to be 96 years old, and in the summer, she started every day by putting on her swimsuit and swimming laps in the lake.

Now, in fairness to my friend, many will correctly point out that part of the reason why she stayed so healthy for so long was because she exercised every morning. But some of us get to be lap swimming nonagenarians. Some of us get to be like my Grandma G. She moved in with my family when she was in her early 80s. Unlike my parishioner, she couldn’t stay in her house for life, even though she wanted to. She couldn’t take care of it anymore, and she needed help. When she first moved in with us I was 8, and she used to invite me to take walks outside with her. She brought her cane, and she’d walk to the end of the driveway and back. For her, by that point in her life, that was a strenuous workout. By her mid 30s–yes, really–she needed dentures because her teeth were so unhealthy. She didn’t like talking about it. Dental implants didn’t exist then, and she could have really benefited from those, but luckily her dentures looked enough like the real thing and people couldn’t tell. Carole’s question is also a vulnerable one–when we struggle so much more with our health than others, it also causes us shame. And distress. When Grandma got into her 70s, her hearing started to go, and despite many trips to the audiologist for new hearing aids, despite big investments of money, and invasive testing, she still struggled to keep up with the world around her, because she couldn’t hear it. She also had a significant abdominal hernia that started after an injury that she had to just live with because she wasn’t a good candidate for surgery to fix it.

And also, she lived to be 90. And she never lost sight of what a gift that was, even on days when she was really struggling. It was a gift my friend Kurt didn’t get to enjoy. He was a grad student at the U of R when I was in college, and, for all anyone knew he was in perfect health…until he was suddenly found dead in his apartment at the age of 29. There were no good answers, and no explanations. None that would make anyone feel better about losing him, anyway. He was just gone. 

I learned a lot both from my Grandma G’s life and death, and from Kurt’s passing. One of the deepest but most bittersweet lessons was that there isn’t a difference to God, in the value of a human soul. Whether you’re a little old lady swimming laps in Keuka Lake, whether you’re a forty year old praying that none of your friends figures out you have dentures, or whether your star burns out before your 30th birthday. All of us have eternal life, and infinite worth, to our Creator. The time we spend on this earth is the blink of an eye to God.

The next important lesson I learned was about how we treat one another, and how we offer and receive help. I went Bible diving in order to do Carole’s question justice, and found my favorite of all the many stories we have to choose from of Jesus’ healing miracles. This story stands out to me not so much because of the man himself, who needed healing, but because of the behavior of the people around him.

On this particular day, the Pharisees were extra hot and bothered. Many, and from a number of different towns, were all up in Jesus’ face. I will assume, albeit malevolently, that they were there to harass Jesus, but also, because they were there, they still got to witness a miracle. Life is like that, we get to learn and grow in spite of ourselves. One of the biggest stumbling blocks of the Pharisees is one many of us frequently trip over ourselves: we thought the rules were this, and we always followed them, and we’ve made ourselves miserable in so doing, so where does this guy get off thinking he can just make it up as he goes? Jesus displayed throughout his life that we, too, have more freedom than we think we do, and we can try something different. 

So, right in this moment when Jesus was surrounded by Pharisees yelling at him for not being a miserable jerk, a friend group attempted to approach. Ironically, the Pharisees were so busy yelling at Jesus for not doing their idea of what was right, that, in this emergency moment, they were blocking the way. Imagine idling in a fire lane because you wanted to yell at someone about their parking job not being perfectly within the yellow lines…and then a fire breaks out. That’s what the Pharisees did, and not for the first time. They stood in the way of help and progress and wouldn’t budge until they were satisfied they’d made their point. A lesson to us all: don’t be that guy.

Because of the Pharisees, these men carrying their paralyzed friend on a stretcher had to find another safe path. And then we really get to see their commitment, and love. They carry the stretcher to the roof of the house, cut a hole in the roof, rig a rope and pulley system, and lower their friend through the roof. 

The reason why this story remains so precious to me, and why I chose it for today is because, often, in this society, when we find ourselves on the wrong end of Carole’s question, the end where we are struggling more than others, we feel like a burden, and it’s not just in our heads because we get treated like one, too. We may need a loved one to step up and become a caregiver. They might need to reduce hours at their job, or quit, in order to take care of us. We might need to give up our home and move in. We might need loved ones to give us our medicine, bind up our wounds, prepare and feed us meals, dress us, clean us, take us to the doctor, carry our stretcher, or cut a hole in the roof of a building…and there’s no denying the labor in that labor of love. We need help when we’re in poor health, and so do the people who are taking care of us. They need the Pharisees to get out of the way. Imagine how different this story might have been if the Pharisees, instead of blocking all access to the building, moved aside and held the doors open?

Today, you might be the person on the stretcher. Or you might be one of his friends carrying him. Or you might be one of his friends so desperate to help that he broke out a saw and a rope. And if you’re not any of those people today, you’re probably a Pharisee in the crowd. By all means, ask your questions and pursue your truth. But for heaven’s sake, stop blocking the doors. 

As I was writing this sermon this week, news broke of the passage of the “Big Beautiful Bill”. Now, I commit to staying politically nonpartisan up here. Our POTUS had his reasons for proposing the bill, and the people who voted it in had their reasons, too. Politics are complicated, and I surely don’t presume to have all the answers. But the BBB promises to have two strongly negative consequences for people on the unfortunate end of Carole’s question, the folks struggling more with their health than others, the person on the stretcher, and the folks carrying it: the rolling back of Medicaid and SNAP. Both of those social programs can be confusing to understand, and, without doubt, they come with a price tag. One politician likened folks who receive Medicaid and SNAP to freeloaders who live in your basement. And, if you don’t know anyone who uses either of those programs, then I get it, you’re seeing goods and services go out to people who didn’t pay for them, and that goes against our social rules. That angers our inner Pharisee. The thing is…I currently receive both Medicaid and SNAP. I receive them because I have a developmentally disabled son. Medicaid provides services for his well being. And because he’s on Medicaid, the whole family gets free lunch at school, and because the kids get free lunch during the school year, we get SNAP in the summer. These services hold the doors open, so an exhausted, frequently overextended mom of three can get in the building. Please don’t make me grab a saw and cut a hole in the roof. Because if I had to for the sake of my kids, I totally would.

I won’t tell you how to vote, but I will tell you this: life is so random. The truth is there is no reason why some of us struggle so much more with our health than others. If you’re doing ok today, it’s because you’re lucky. We get zero guarantee on our bodies, they can break down and fail us at any time for no reason at all. And as long as that’s true, we need to live in the midst of compassionate, loving people. The kind who won’t judge us or treat us like burdens when we’re struggling, but who will carry our stretcher. The Good News of Christ is how he still sees the person in the stretcher, even with a crowd in the way, and how he still gets to that person despite all the obstacles. But we can help, too. We can use our voices, our resources, and our votes to make it easier for the guy on the stretcher to get to safe help, and to make it a lot easier for his friends carrying him to provide safe passage. For the sake of our roofs, let’s stop blocking the doors.

May it be so.

Amen.