Abstract
Diagnosed with late stage pancreatic cancer out of a clear blue sky, my mother lies in pain, asking for God to take her home.
I sit by her bed as the light fades, and the hospital descends into hushed tones and muffled sounds, I let the jumble of the day tumble through my mind—the agenda of the meeting I left in a hurry; the journey I cannot remember; the prayers of the ministers called to the bedside; and the imprint left by the readings set for this day—of Elijah and the priests of Baal with their failed pyrotechnics, and of Jesus and the centurion who asked for help for one he loved, and of those foolish Galatians, wanting circumcision to ensure their salvation. And the question that forms, as the bleeps of the monitors and the sounds of my mother’s breathing recall me to where I am, is this: I wonder what it is we have to do to get God’s attention?
For it seems that the prophets of Baal have a range of impressive techniques for getting their gods to listen and bring the long longed-for rain. They put on a good show: the slaughter and dissection of a huge bull, their raving from morning until noon, and finally, their self harm: cutting themselves with swords and lances until the blood gushes.
But the Baals—those gods of plenty—do not listen. They are proved to be false by their inaction. And well we might be relieved not to need to dance on such gods who require such measures to get their attention…
Yet such dancing happens…even here.
For by day the priests of modern medicine visit. Slaves to the god of diagnosis. Day after day they come promising the false salvation of MRI scans or biopsies, as if their ‘swords and lances’ will appease the cancer that spreads its inexorable drought. Day by day they come when the time for their interventions is gone, making themselves into prophets of a false hope.
But as I think on my day, have I not been dancing too?
Fretting as I sit here about the gods whom I must neglect to keep this vigil? Those hidden, driven gods who demand that I slave to the clock to the detriment of my health? And who leave me sitting alone clicking at my computer by night to wind down? False gods who cannot save.
The Baals fail the test—they do not act—and the death-dealing rituals they inspire betray their unworthiness as gods to be worshipped…but as my mother shifts in the bed and asks again for God to take her now, I want to know whether even the God of Elijah is powerful to act. And if he is, I want to know what I must do to get his attention and quench her thirst and take her home.
Holding grimly on to faith, I ask whether my prayers are not answered because I live between two worlds? Because, like the people of Israel, I ‘limp with two different opinions’? Wanting to believe in the God of Elijah and of Paul and of Jesus, yet relying on work and things and medicine to smooth my way. And perhaps I am lukewarm in my faith and this is why what I pray for doesn’t come, unlike that centurion who says those words, now familiar, as we open our mouths to receive the host: ‘Lord, only say the word and I shall be healed.’
Such faith. And is this why the healing of death does not come? Because, despite my prayers and my good works and my years of religious practice, I have not enough faith? Or is my longing for the end of life a betrayal of faith itself, and a denial of the God whose work is restoration?
And what can I do to get my God’s attention? Is the right prayer, in the face of a body past the point of no return, ‘only speak the word and let this servant be healed?’ Or should I plead my unworthiness—or hers—as the only sacrifices that will count, so that not only what assails her body, but what assails her spirit might be cleansed and refreshed and renewed? ‘A broken and contrite spirit I will not despise.’
And as the fan whirrs, my mind whirrs and circles and doubts: is even this a form of ‘limping’—trying to find a god—any god—who will give me what I want? Or what I think my mother needs? Or—dare I trust that a god who acts not as I put him to the test, is yet God, and still loves and cares and offers himself as any sacrifice needed, such that Mum and I need not go to such extremes?
First light begins to creep around the curtains and the raving of the night subsides into a quieter rest. Nurses come to tend and wash and soothe. And what in the shadows seemed to depend on a god with whom I have to bargain, to whom I must sacrifice, and whom I must appease, seems now to depend on kindness, revealed in the smiles of strangers willing to hold my gaze and there contain the terrors of the night.
And as I wait for my brother and father to come I recall that even the heroic faith of the centurion actually depends on his friends to advocate for him; whilst the servant is healed, not by his own efforts or even though his own faith, but by the faith and efforts of one who loved him.
And in the softer light of day, though the darkness has tested me and asked me questions of myself and of the God in whom I want to trust, I see the night’s ramblings for what they are: a search for a world in which I might exercise more control: wanting a god who only needs me to find the Herculean key to unlock the door to his attention, a god who will set me tasks and tests, even to my harm, if they will deliver me what I have earned. When in my right mind I know that there is nothing that Mum or I can do to add to the Love that makes us right, except receive it—trusting that we are truly held in that steady, healing, gaze.
I smile back at the nurses, remembering that, whatever it feels like, God’s attention has not wandered, and that however cruel the moment seems, God’s gaze is filled with love, and that through drought and fire and death and hell, God’s love never will never cease to burn.
Be present Spirit of God
And renew us through the silent hours of this night
So that we who are wearied by the changes and chances of this fleeting world
May rest upon your eternal changelessness.
In the spirit of Jesus Christ,
Our Guardian and our Guide. Amen.