There appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years... When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” (Luke 13:11a, 12)

Today's reflection is by Mario Melendez

Ministry Associate in the Episcopal Chaplaincy at Boston University

The fear of being sick and the lack of compassionate and affordable health care is for millions of people a reality of pain, suffering, and in some tragic cases of death. While some critics of health care reform point to access to the Emergency Room to claim that there is health care for people who cannot afford it, the facts and data say otherwise. The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) requires hospitals and clinics to provide care to anyone with an “emergency medical condition”. The problem is the following: if you are having a heart attack they will treat you, but the bypass surgery you need to not have another one is out of reach. The phrase “God only helps those who help themselves” (a saying that is attributed to Benjamin Franklin among other sources of his era) is an unbiblical idea used in certain circles to deny compassionate and affordable health care to millions of people, since it is claimed that it is the individual and the Church who should be taking care of the sick and the vulnerable in our society. However, this reasoning fails to recognize one of the most important questions to ask someone who is sick: ‘what do you need? ‘

Without being asked by the woman or by anyone else, Jesus answers: he sees her and he heals her. First, we must note that Jesus sees her. Part of the problem in our society is that we fail to see, recognize, and acknowledge the most vulnerable of us. Jesus sees the woman and he calls her to him, breaking in the process the social norm of not speaking to a woman in public. Then the woman is not asked by Jesus to believe in him, she is not asked to repent from sins, and he does ask for payment or to give anything in return: Jesus heals her. This act of healing has an ontological meaning because she is “set free” from her condition and per a later verse in this passage from the Gospel according to St. Luke, Jesus said that she is in fact “set free from this bondage”. She is rescued from a reality that, in ancient times, was believed to be reserved for those who were out of favor with God due to their own wickedness or of the parents. Jesus sees her and he sets her free.

In this season of Lent let us not just pray for everyone who is suffering this minute because of sickness and disease but we must ask ourselves: what can we do for those denied access to affordable and compassionate health care? Is our debate of the role of government, the private sector, the Church, and the individual in health care making us blind and not allowing us to first “see”, recognize, and acknowledge not just the suffering of the sick that continues every day but also their humanity? Will we allow health care to continue to be treated as a commodity? Are we ready to ask “what do you need?” and are we ready to listen? Let us pray and take action so that everyone can be “set free” and have a chance to a flourishing life, and be treated with dignity and respect; this includes when were are at our must vulnerable, and facing the bondage of physical and mental ailment.