Our Willing Hands

While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man, “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” And immediately the leprosy left him.” (Luke 5:12-13, NIV 1984)

The nurse will find it easy to apply this short story from Luke’s gospel to him- or herself. We have made it our daily duty to be willing to clean, serve and heal the sick and the dispirited. The committed Christian nurse will find it easy to use this account as a sharp rebuke, “I must be more like Christ as I work! I must show the compassion that Jesus shows here!”

We quote in ferocious and exasperated tones to ourselves the poem by St Teresa of Avila:

Christ has no body but yours,
no hands, no feet on earth but yours,
yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world,
yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world. 

 As we grow in our love for Jesus, we grow in a deep desire to serve him as we minister to the frail elderly in the nursing home, the dying young man for whom older parents keep a worried vigil at home, the shocked family around the ITU bed, the labouring mother. And so this story of Christ and the leper becomes our model, our duty, and sometimes, our burden.

This is not wrong. Christ is our model; to serve him, our duty; to share in the suffering of others, our burden. But, the problem in applying this story in that way is this: we are not intended, at least not first, to see ourselves as Jesus. We are not first, the compassionate healer. We are not first, the source of cleansing, reconciliation, hope and peace. We are first, ourselves, the lepers. We are wounded, broken, outcast, unclean. We are those who need to hear the concern in his voice, feel the tenderness of his touch, and receive the spiritual cleansing that he willingly provided as he laid his life down for us at Calvary.

Before we aim to be like Jesus in our work, we must first model ourselves on the leper. We must see Jesus, and do so as the leper does. When the Nazarene carpenter walks by, the leper does not simply look upon the good teacher or the wise man. He sees his Lord and his only hope for restoration. He does not fear to cast himself in humility at the feet of God, seeking a kindness he knows he does not deserve. And, (what sweet relief!) he does not find Jesus lacking in compassion, mercy, willingness or healing power.

Before we use our willing hands, we must first receive the willing touch of his. Easter affords us the opportunity to remember that out of his love for those who were far away from God, Jesus resolutely faced the horrors of death on a cross, so that we, the damaged, the sinful and the needy might be healed and reconciled to the Father. Let’s worship the Lord of compassion with the humble manners of the leper, and marvel at the response of Jesus, “I am willing.”

Nothing short of an encounter with Jesus like this one will be able to sustain us to do His work.

Dimity Grant-Frost

CNM Student Staff Worker

Compassion vs Academia in Nursing & Midwifery

A report by the NHS Confederation in February 2012 said that compassion and dignity are as vital as academic and professional qualifications in providing care for the elderly. It may seem an obvious point, but in the recent debates about falling care standards it is a very important point to remember. Because both compassion and professional skill are needed – without compassion we have care that may be competent but all to easily treat people as problems and not as human beings.  With professional expertise, we may be caring but we may also not meet the more complex needs and address the deeper health and social ills that beset the sick. 

It is a reflection of our society’s misplaced values that we have had to state once again a simple truth that should be so obvious – but we are a society that increasingly seems to devalue the elderly and the disabled. 

But we are also a society that struggles to understand the notion that care and compassion are neither innate, nor that they are all it takes to be a good nurse. Somehow the misplaced notion exists that academic or professional excellence and compassion are mutually exclusive. Maybe that says something about our professional culture that people so readily see it as uncaring.

Jesus had to regularly challenge his hearers to understand that true compassion was difficult, dangerous and costly.  And above all, that it was a choice.  In the parable of the Good Samaritan, he showed that to be caring not only one had to take risks to one's personal safety (stopping on the notorious road between Jericho and Jerusalem ran the risk of making one prey to bandits), but also to cross the racial and faith boundaries of the day and care for someone of another ethnic and religious background simply as another human being in need.

In the parable of the Sheep and Goats, he makes an even stronger point that showing care for the needs of others in difficult situations -whether homeless, destitute, sick, or even imprisoned, was an act of service to God himself.  Not easy, but costly. The bit of that parable that we so often gloss over is Jesus' condemnation of those who did not show compassion, who did not go the extra mile.

Compassion is a choice then, a habit, a skill even.  It is one that we should make integral to our practice as nurses and midwives.  It should so underpin what we do, that our desire to care more compassionately effectively is what drives us to seek the training and skills to be more effective.  It should be compassion, rather than our own, personal professional advancement that is our motive.

And the ultimate motive for our compassion? That we love others because we are first loved totally and unconditionally by God.