Yesterday at Baylor I saw something almost unheard of in Baylor’s storied history—a campus protest.
Admittedly it was one guy with a megaphone and a couple of his friends handing out flyers about “Obamacare,” but it was something. I’m happy to see people at Baylor get political, even if too often, they have been on what turns out to be the wrong side of things. Baylorites know that during the campus unrest of the 1960s, Baylor’s sole protest seems to have been for the Vietnam War, and when I spoke at a peace rally before the Second Gulf War to suggest that Saddam Hussein had no Weapons of Mass Destruction and nothing at all to do with the attacks of 9-11, I was drowned out by the anti-protest protestors across the street.
But it’s, as they say, a free country, and I welcome people’s participation in the political process and the polite expressions of their opinions. Here’s mine:
I am in favor of the health reform package, as imperfect as it is, because I believe I have a Christian duty to take care of the least of these.
The young man’s broadcast arguments at Baylor yesterday were about how much the plan cost, about how it was taking money out of his pockets. I got the impression of a lot of “me” and “my.”
Now I work hard for the money, as the immortal Donna Summer sang. I try hard to provide for my boys and myself. I want stuff, and things, and all that.
But I’m also fortunate enough to have health care, as I’m sure yesterday’s Baylor protestors are.
As a hospital chaplain, I saw emergency rooms used as primary care facilities by those who can’t afford insurance—and the horrific complications caused by those who can’t afford the most basic primary care.
And I am here to say that “me” and “my” are less important than “us” and “our” in Christian understanding, and if health care reform should actually end up costing me some money, than so be it.
In the Gospel of Luke, when Jesus announces what it is he’s come to do, he first announces it in the synagogue—where fellow Jews had gathered to learn about the scriptures—and he announces it by reading a passage from the prophet Isaiah:
He came to Nazara, where he had been brought up, and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day as he usually did. He stood up to read, and they handed him the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Unrolling the scroll he found the place where it is written:The spirit of the Lord is on me, for he has anointed me to bring the good news to the afflicted. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives, sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim a year of favour from the Lord.He then rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the assistant and sat down. And all eyes in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to speak to them, ‘This text is being fulfilled today even while you are listening.’ (Luke 4: 16-21, NJB)
What Jesus was saying was that the good news he had come to bring—the teaching and the healing that he was doing—had their basis in God’s ongoing messages of justice and righteousness. What he had come to fulfill were messages of good news for those who suffered, for the poor, for the downtrodden.
And they were messages that were now beginning to come true.
This week 28 million Americans who could not afford health care got the chance to take care of themselves and their families, to make sure that an illness would not bankrupt their family–or unnecessarily kill them.
And we got the opportunity to help make that happen.
And so, respectfully, I say, “Thank God.”
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