Healing Vs. Curing

From the sermon suggestion box.

This week's sermon suggestion is succinct: “The difference between curing and healing.” And the shortest response would be: “There isn't much of a difference.” The dictionary seems to see them as synonyms. Both mean “to make healthy.” In fact the word “heal” comes from the same root as the word “health,” which in turn comes from the Old English word for “whole.” It's interesting that the word “cure” comes from the same root as “care” in the sense of being concerned. I think the person who wrote the sermon suggestion was thinking of how we use the words today. We use “healing” as the word for the process of getting better and “cured” as the goal of that process, the state of being free from any disease or health problem.

When I was a nurse, I saw a lot of healing but few cures. However I have seen people come back from death and recover to the extent that they were able to get on with life even if they still had to deal with a disease or disability. And now I have had that experience. Still for some people that is not enough. They don't want to have any impairments to total health. They want a cure. But what is a cure? We consider a person to be cured of cancer if they are free from all traces of the disease for 5 years. Still it is possible for some cancer survivors to suffer a recurrence after 5 years. It may even occur in a different site than the organ or system previously affected by cancer. Is that a cure?

Right now it looks like transplanting the pancreas, where insulin is created, can “cure” diabetes. That is, it ends the necessity that the patient inject himself with insulin. Transplanting a kidney at the same time works even better. But it's not for everyone, like people who also have a history of cancer, HIV, heart or lung disease. It is risky and while the person no longer has to check their blood sugar or give themselves insulin, they do have to be on anti-rejection drugs like steroids for the rest of their life. And 1% of those people still suffer organ rejection each year. Half of all transplants fail after 10 years. So it's not perfect. Still it's the best that we have at present. My cousin developed kidney disease in his teens. He received a transplant that lasted decades and lived to be 55, long enough to see his daughter grow up and to enjoy his grandchildren.

Which brings up the fact that, regardless of whatever you're cured of, eventually you will die of something. So all cures are temporary. Still a cure can mean relief from pain, suffering and various restrictions on what you can do. It can mean a longer life. So of course we want cures. And many churches, like mine, hold healing services. But why don't we have curing services? Why doesn't God cure everyone? That, I suspect, is the real question behind our sermon suggestion.

Jesus' miracles of healing fit the popular definition of cures. People didn't just get better; their diseases departed; their disabilities disappeared. The blind saw. The deaf heard. The mute spoke. The lame walked. The dead rose. Why doesn't God do that today?

Well, he does. People do see their diseases go away completely. Sometimes this happens through the agency of doctors and nurses. Most of the healthcare professionals I worked with were believers and their work grew out of their faith. The majority of doctors (65.2%) believe in God. Only 12.4% of doctors are agnostic and only 11.6% are atheist. Healing and faith have gone together for millennia. At the council of Nicaea in 325 AD it was decreed that every cathedral town have a hospital. Until just recently most hospitals were founded and staffed by religious organizations. God works through people who bring healing to others.

Some people are even healed in spite of a poor medical prognosis. Doctors call these unexplained recoveries “spontaneous remissions.” According to the Concise Oxford Textbook of Medicine spontaneous remissions are not that unusual in many disorders, including cancer and tuberculosis. They happen more often than you think, especially in young persons. And we are not just talking about faith healing here. Still, as the Bible tells us all healing comes from God. (Psalm 103:3) Of the 35 miracles that the gospels record that Jesus performed, 18 do not mention faith. Spontaneous remissions are examples of common grace, God's undeserved goodness spread throughout the world.

Of course, God also heals people who ask in faith for it. But why doesn't he always heal those who ask for it? This is a tough question. But to think that by simply saying a prayer or reciting a verse found in scripture you can guarantee God will act is thinking of God as a vending machine. God is a person. We ask him; we do not command him. Like any wise parent, he doesn't always give his children what they desire. And the children do not always understand his reasons.

For instance, one of the hardest things I had to do as a nurse was hold down an infant so the doctor could give him a shot. It hurt. The child felt betrayed by his nurse and his mother who let the doctor jab him with needles. He might even run a low grade fever and feel achy later. There is no way you can explain to an infant that the pain of a vaccination will protect him from a disease or infection later on. To him the pain seems pointless and even cruel. And the benefit is not something positive like superpowers but rather that a bad thing doesn't happen or isn't as bad as it could be. We may be like infants in our understanding of why God allows some diseases.

The truth is I don't know why God does not heal all of his children all of the time. But then I've never tried to create and run a universe of astounding complexity all the while letting my creatures behave according to their own free will. This is an enterprise fraught with difficulties we can't begin to imagine. So what follows are some personal observations about some of the complex forms of goodness, as C.S. Lewis calls them, which can only exist as a human response to the reality of illness.

Putting aside for the moment the fact that none of us is all good all the time, let's imagine a world in which good people were always healthy or could instantly be restored to perfect health by merely uttering a prayer. In that case only bad people would remain sick. And quite naturally the healthy people would look down on the sick. After all, their diseases would be their own fault, wouldn't they? This would tend to reduce compassion towards those who were ill. And indeed we see this in the real world. People disdain those who get HIV or hepatitis or get addicted or get lung cancer through smoking. And, yes, some diseases and disorders are the negative consequences of behaviors like overeating, driving drunk, promiscuous sex, sharing needles with infected people, etc. But not all are. Yet in our imaginary world, all diseases could be attributed to bad behavior and it would become difficult for those who are well not to feel superior to those who are ill. Compassion would likely be limited to those who personally know and love someone who's sick.

And, in fact, that was the basic attitude during Jesus' day. The Pharisees taught that God blessed the righteous with money and with health. Poverty and illness were considered signs of God's disfavor. Essentially they were like those who preach the prosperity gospel today, saying those who really believe are rewarded with health and wealth. Those who don't have these things must be lacking in faith. The Pharisees were ignoring the book of Job, which shows that bad things can even happen to good people. In the same way, prosperity gospel preachers ignore how God would not cure Paul of his thorn in the flesh (2 Corinthians 12:7-9) as well as the fact that this apostle knew times of need and what it was like to be hungry. (Philippians 4:12)

That's why, when encountering a man born blind, the disciples ask whose sin was the cause: the man's or his parents'. Jesus rejects both options. Instead he sees an opportunity to glorify God by healing him. (John 9:1-3) In addition, those who were lame, blind, deaf or mute were not allowed to enter the innermost precincts of the temple at Jerusalem. They were excluded from corporate worship. So every time Jesus healed someone he was restoring not only their health but also restoring them to the community, ending their exclusion which was based on an unbalanced interpretation of scripture.

Since we know that both good and bad people get sick, most of us do not despise the ill. Instead we are likely to think, “There but for the grace of God go I.” Many of us go farther. We visit the sick, take them to their doctors' appointments, make meals for them and their families, and pray for them. If they are close family members, we might become their caretakers. These are the complex forms of goodness I was talking about. They are the kind of acts that only exist because illness and pain and suffering exist. And so the seeming randomness of disease can breed compassion rather than contempt.

Still we see the normal human impulse is to ignore the sick unless we know them. 9 times out of 10 the reason some celebrities champion certain medical charities and why some lawmakers push funding for certain diseases and medical conditions is that they or someone close to them suffers from that problem. I hate to say it but if every one of the 535 members of Congress had a chronically ill family member, we would have the best healthcare system in the world.

It is curious, by the way, that the US, the nation with the most churchgoers in the world, has not joined the rest of the industrialized countries in putting in place a comprehensive healthcare system. There are many models out there and not all of them have the government as sole provider. What they do have is a way to cover every citizen. And what they don't have are for-profit health insurance companies. You would think that the richest nation in the world, one that prides itself on innovation, could do better than rank 30^th out of the healthcare systems worldwide, much less last in health outcomes among the top 10 industrialized countries. And this is despite the fact that the US spends the most for healthcare! What do Iceland, Belgium and Malta know that we don't? What are France, Japan, and the Czech Republic doing that we aren't? I don't want to make this political but tell whomever you support that it's time that America stops dragging its feet when it comes to its sick citizens and do at least as well as Uruguay, Slovenia, Cuba and Belarus. Because their healthcare systems all rank higher than ours.

Knowing how human beings think, we can say that if God healed all, there would be no reason for most of us to care about the wellbeing of others. If someone we don't know or like gets sick, we'd think it's their problem, not ours. But Jesus expects us to love others, even those who don't love us. (Matthew 5:46-48) The good Samaritan, who went to the aid of a man left for dead, cleaning and dressing his wounds and making a personal sacrifice to see him get better, is Jesus' example of how we should love our neighbor. (Luke 10:25-37) And just as he challenged the disciples to feed the 5000 themselves (Mark 6:37), he challenges us to help those who are ill. In fact, care of the sick is one of the criteria Jesus uses in judging who is really one of his followers. (Matthew 25:31-46)

If this were the only life we got, then the fact God doesn't heal everyone would not merely be puzzling; it would be cruel and unfair. People would suffer in the only life they ever had. But this life is not the only one there is and physical death is not the end of our existence. Every week in the creed we affirm our faith in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Those who respond to God's love by showing love for him and for those created in his image will see and live in a world set right.

Still, won't they remember the pain they suffered in this life? Yes, in one sense. I remember that I suffered with pain in my accident and rehabilitation. But I only remember how I reacted and how described it at the time. I don't actually feel that pain anymore. I don't relive it. It is gone. It is in the past. And I am grateful for the life I have now after that pain is over. So it will be in the next life.

And again if, as we are promised, the next life is one in which there is no pain or disease or death (Revelation 21:4), where will we have learned humility and empathy? Only by having first lived in a world where such things exist and where we knew firsthand what it is like to need the compassion of others. Paradise will not be a place where everyone goes about his own business with no thought of the wellbeing of others. Our God is a God of love and we are to mirror that love, not just for our relatives and friends, but for all.

One of the things that cuts across all families, all borders, all classes, both the good and the bad, both the rich and the poor, is disease and pain. Our fragility reminds us of our fraternity with all human beings. Our susceptibility to the smallest of microbes should immunize us to arrogance. Sadly, not everyone learns this lesson, not even when they themselves are struck down. Some choose instead to turn inwards and pity themselves. But I have also seen disease and disability break through such self-centeredness and move people to help others. And you could easily populate a heaven with those who have risen above their own misery to reach out and minister to others as did Jesus, who sympathizes with our infirmities (Hebrews 4:15) and who, when “he lifted up our illnesses, he carried our pain.” (Isaiah 53:4)

Doubtless God's reasons for not curing us in every instance are much better than the ones I have described. Again we are like infants whose parent is holding us down while we are being skewered by a needle. We don't understand how such pain can possibly be for our own good. But most children recover from the shock of vaccination and trust their parents anyway. And so, trusting in God's wisdom we look forward in hope and outward in empathy for God's other children. And as Jesus went to help those in pain and need, we, as Christ's body on earth, as agents of his goodness and love, must do likewise.