HOW TO BE A SICKCHRISTIAN

by Victor Lee AustinJanuary 2015

W hen sickness or injury comes upon us, we face the question of whether we

really believe what we profess to believe. There are temptations to self-

absorption, and medical science can encourage us to spend much of our time

relaying technical information to friends and family. What, then, is the path of

faithfulness when we are sick? Here are six points of practical wisdom.

First, recognize that your pastor does not have ESP. If information has not been given to

your pastor, your pastor doesn’t know it. And that’s true of everyone on the church

staff. So if you are sick, and particularly if you are in a hospital, you should phone the

church and let them know. Email works, too.

Second, you may request prayer, the laying on of hands, anointing, and the sacrament of

Holy Communion. Prayer is basic. It can be simply a request that clergy pray for you in

their personal, private intentions, or that your name be included more formally in the

prayers of your parish. Or you could ask for someone to come and pray with you in

person.

You can also request the laying on of hands in prayer, a specific way of praying for

healing that’s commended in the New Testament. (In Mark 6:5, Jesus lays his hands upon

the sick; Paul does so in Acts 28:8.) This can be accompanied by Unction, an anointing

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the sick; Paul does so in Acts 28:8.) This can be accompanied by Unction, an anointing

with holy oil. “Is any among you sick?” asks St. James in his epistle. “Let him call for the

elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of

the Lord” (5:14). Although practices differ, my custom when anointing is to dip my right

thumb into the oil and make the sign of the cross on the person’s forehead. Then I lay my

hands upon her or him, saying something like this: “Name, I lay my hands upon you and

anoint you with holy oil in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,

beseeching our Lord Jesus to fill you with his grace, to drive away all sickness of body

and spirit, and to give you that victory of life and peace that will enable you to serve him

both now and forever. Amen.”

ome people are offended by the blunt realism of this—or any other prayer for

healing—thinking it selfish or presumptuous or unrealistic. But in truth they’re

not offended by prayer for healing, but by any prayer at all. For to pray is to ask;

to pray to God is to ask God for something. When you are sick, you pray, and the

Church prays, that God will heal you.

Thus I never lay on hands and anoint without explicitly asking God “to drive away all

sickness of body and spirit.” I do so even when it doesn’t seem at all likely that there will

be healing, even when it seems that death is imminent and indeed might be a blessing.

Christianity is a physical religion. We believe in the Word who took on human flesh,

who bled and died on the cross, who rose bodily from the tomb. We believe in the

resurrection of the body—your body and mine. So beware of slipping into a spiritualism

that ignores or despairs of the body. We must boldly pray for healing in every case

without mental reservation.

In addition to all this, you may also ask for Holy Communion, the bread of life. My

Episcopal Church’s Book of Common Prayer provides for the reservation of the

sacrament to administer to those who are unable to come to church for Communion.

Most other denominations have corresponding practices. Communion can be brought

to you, and it is meet and right for you to request it.

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The reception of Christ in the Eucharist reminds us that when we pray for the removal

of sickness, we’re in fact aiming much higher. The point of all our prayers is that we be

able to live fully as human beings, which means living in a way that serves God. As we all

know only too well, we can be very healthy people in the physical sense but not live to

serve God. Which brings me to my third point.

Sickness may be a mode of sanctification. When we are sick, we often realize we are not

Superman or Superwoman. In the infirmary, we are connected with many other people,

and we need all those other people. When our bodies fail, we see that we’re not perpetual

motion machines. We need God. In these ways, sickness helps us recognize our

neediness, our vulnerability, our created-ness, our interdependency. In other words, we

recognize human reality.

When we are not sick, it’s only too easy to ignore that reality and imagine ourselves as

existing independently and living on our own terms. Thus the spiritual blessing illness

sometimes provides. When we are sick, we often depend on someone else to take care of

our basic physical needs. Having someone else bathe us provides a powerful lesson in

humility. The same goes for needing assistance to the toilet—or someone to pay the bills

and take care of everyday life while we are incapacitated.

any of the things we normally do for ourselves we cannot do when sick. Do

we resent this? Do we say, “I don’t ever want another human being to wipe my

bottom! That’s an insult to my dignity!” A human being loses dignity only

through his or her sin. You lose your dignity when you are wrongfully angry, not when

you need to wear a diaper.

So illness and incapacity can be used by God and by us for our sanctification. But there’s

another angle, as well. Sickness can be a mode of sanctification for others. My wife had a

brain tumor diagnosed when she was thirty-eight years old. We had then been married

fifteen years. She lived another nineteen years. Looking back, I can see that taking care

of her—being dropped into the situation where I had to take care of her—was an

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of her—being dropped into the situation where I had to take care of her—was an

instrument of divine grace for my sanctification. I used to think that Victor Austin

might just possibly be remembered as a teacher or as the author of this or that work of

scholarship. Somewhere along the way, God revealed to me that the most important

thing about Victor Austin is that he was the husband of Susan Austin.

Fourth, not every medical treatment must be taken. God has given us stewardship over

our bodies. Our bodies are not mere tools of our souls, as if the real me were the program

and my body just indifferent computer hardware. So there are things we may not do

with our bodies. We may not cut off our limbs at will (although, if your foot has

gangrene, you may well cut it off in order to save the rest of your body). We may not kill

our bodies. Quite the contrary, we are to give thanks to God and take good care of our

bodies. This is why exercise and healthy eating and all sorts of healthy living are

legitimate Christian concerns.

That said, we need not do everything possible to keep ourselves alive. Suppose you

receive a cancer diagnosis. You should be brave and be willing to suffer the usual

treatments if there is a reasonable chance that they can fight off the cancer. But if your

body is already weakened, and you have already (say) gone through a number of rounds

of chemotherapy, and the cancer has returned with virulence, you need not suffer still

more. It is okay to say, “I accept that my body is dying. I am ready to die.”

To do so does not contradict our prayers that God restore the sick to health in body and

spirit. The point is that we no longer expect that God will heal us through the

instrumentalities of medicine. Nonetheless, we should continue to pray for healing,

including what would then be the miracle of physical healing. It is no more a

contradiction to say “no” to death in our prayers while accepting it in our refusal of

unnecessary or futile medical intervention than it was for Jesus to pray, “If it be possible

let this cup pass from me, nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.”

ifth, sickness can be a time for self-examination and confession. Sickness brings

us up short. It interrupts our lives. We cannot go on doing all those things we

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us up short. It interrupts our lives. We cannot go on doing all those things we

think we need to do. This is especially true when we are severely ill and are facing

death. The Great Interruption looms before us.

While we are alone with ourselves, it is a good time to put ourselves in mind of the

presence of God and examine our conscience. Are there sins that weigh upon us? In the

quiet and enforced rest of sickness, do we become aware of wrongs we have done, or

things we should have done but have failed to do? This can be an excellent time to make a

confession.

Finally, say your prayers. Those who are hospitalized often feel useless. They should not.

Even when you are confined to bed, you can pray for me, for your clergy, for your

family, for your neighbors, for the people of Ukraine, for the people of Syria, for your

doctors and nurses, for the fellow who sweeps your floor, for the young woman who

offers you a magazine, for the people who write for the magazine, for the people who

made the paint that is on your wall, for the people who invented your medicines, for the

people who manufactured your medicines, and so on. There is a lot for the sick and

incapacitated to do. Prayer is important work. As St. Paul urges, “Rejoice always, pray

without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ

Jesus for you.”

Victor Lee Austin is theologian-in-residence at Saint Thomas Church in New York City.

AR TICL E S by VICTOR L E E AUSTIN