One of the nurses recently asked me why I always order a meal tray for every psychiatric patient we see in the emergency department( ED) .  I answer sharing food  instantly creates a bond of trust, leads to more co-operation, less risk of violence and the need to sedate or restrain patients. Several studies in the professional literature show this to be true.

Why do we so often offer food or drink to a visitor in our homes? These psychiatric  emergency patients are visitors in our home, so to speak. Indeed their own internal world  often keeps them far from the warmth of human community. Indeed the more objectionable the behavior, the more addicted, the more violent, the colder is the internal life of the sufferer. Jesus was able to cure the Gerasene Demoniac. We won't cure them of their demons today in this ED, but we can get them a meal tray .

My nurse questioner ‘s father was a Pastor. I venture into talking about faith and politics at work. Are not the two, faith and politics, always connected one to the other? Rather one’s politics are often so keenly  dependent on one’s understanding of our duties to God and fellow man.

It is difficult to know what truly were the words and actions of Jesus. Jesus spoke Aramaic, his apostles were poor working folk, almost certainly all illiterate, except perhaps Matthew the tax collector. The Gospels were written 40 to 70 years after the crucifixion,  reflecting a full generation of oral storytelling. The Gospels were all written in Greek, a language  very likely none of the disciples could write, again with the possible exception of Matthew. As in understanding  any literature,  especially in translation, and especially that centered in a culture and time far removed from our own, we look for repeating themes.  We must understand what Jesus said and did in the context of early first century  Judaism, and then ask what that means for us now, in 21st century America.

One radical action of Jesus is clear, he sat down and ate with the marginalized, the outcast, the lepers, the prostitutes, the blind and the lame. He touched the untouchables. His  parables and actions were public, street theater with a message for ears that can hear. Jesus challenged the conventional conservative church/state Temple  and economic oppression of his time.

To eat with someone was to accept them as a full member of the faith community.  Those such as Jesus welcomed and ate with with were not even allowed on Temple grounds. Jesus said these rejected ones may be first in the Kingdom of God, while the priests, “blind guides”, may be last.  The poor, the blind and the lame, all beneath contempt, will be fed well in the Kingdom of God  says Jesus in the Parable of the Great Banquet.

Jesus, born poor and in a barn, his birth  was announced to the shepherds, they being lowest on the social prestige order of the time. Jesus, associate of the rejected and powerless, threw out the dove sellers and money changers in the Temple. This public act of civil disobedience led to his prosecution as a political danger, at least in Mark, Matthew and Luke. John orders events entirely differently.

About those dove sellers and moneychangers; seems that to worship at Temple one had to have a perfect animal to sacrifice, the dove was the cheapest for the poor to obtain. Seems that the Temple priest/inspectors always found a flaw in the dove you brought. Not to worry, their friend down the court would sell you one, at a high price of course, probably a kick-back to the Priest who rejected your bird. But no! Your money, Roman coinage, used throughout the land  for all debts public and private, can’t be used in the Temple as it has Caesar’s picture on it! Not to worry, the friendly money-changer would exchange your coinage, on percentage of course!  Jesus threw these oppressors of the poor out, calling the Temple a den of robbers. The poor and rejected may now come to God without being oppressed for profit.

What do these stories mean today? In the quiet worship of Quaker meeting I cannot avoid the question. What would Jesus say and do about our health care system when being without insurance means you die, your  health and very life only worthwhile as a source of profit for the health insurers?

 

Brad Cotton is a full-time emergency physician and serves as convener for the Circleville Friends (Quakers)