October 26

October 26, 2008

On Cancer
a sermon on Psalm 77
by David C. Mauldin
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Mobile, Alabama

Donald Miller in his book Blue Like Jazz reflects on the power of words and metaphors. The words we use to talk about something determine our attitude more than we realize. Miller attributes this insight to Professor Greg Spencer of Westmont College. Spencer opened a memorable lecture by asking his audience what words come to mind when they hear the word cancer. Nearly all the responses were war metaphors. “We battle cancer. We fight cancer.” Spencer then went on to suggest that this way of talking about cancer is a burden to those who have it. Many feel more endangered than they really are. Many are more frightened than necessary. And some give up in despair, fearing they lack the strength for a fight. Spencer wondered: If we used another metaphor, a more accurate one, would cancer prove as deadly?

Miller goes on: “Science has shown that the way people think about cancer affects their ability to deal with the disease, thus affecting their overall health. Professor Spencer said that if he were to sit down with his family and tell them he had cancer they would be shocked, concerned, perhaps even in tears, and yet cancer is nothing near the most deadly of diseases. Because of the war metaphor … we are more likely to fear cancer when, actually, most people survive the disease.” [Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz, in Donald Miller Greatest Hits, p. 224]

I’ll let you think about that and draw your own conclusions. The idea struck me, however. I began to pay attention to how we talk about cancer and other diseases. People talk about “having” most diseases. We talk about fighting cancer. Why? I’ve changed the way I talk. I’ve given up the war metaphor. If you hear me use it, it’s a slip of the tongue. From now on I treat cancer like any other disease. Serious? Absolutely. Potentially deadly? Yes, like a lot of other things. Something to fear? … I don’t know. Cancer is worthy of concern, especially if you have a family history or a bad test result or diagnosis. It is worthy of our utmost effort to treat, so that it is removed or put in remission if possible. But fear? I don’t know. I do not mean to minimize the seriousness of cancer, the agony of the side effects to some treatments, or the emotional strain any disease brings to the patient and his or her loved ones. But if I could, I would take away the fear. I don’t think fear is helpful, and maybe it does harm.

This is a sermon about cancer. The good sermons about cancer are preached by cancer survivors, and I am not one of them. I am also woefully ignorant of oncology. I have, however, walked with many people through cancer. And, what I want to do is not give you information about cancer. You can get better from any doctor. What I want to do is help you think about cancer Christianly. Faith makes a difference. What does Christianity say about cancer? What help does it give to those who suffer and those who love them? This, I hope, I am qualified to do. I’ve organized the sermon around a series of questions: Why cancer? Why me? Why do some recover and others don’t? And, how can I cope?

Off we go … Why cancer? This question demands two answers, a biological and a theological. Last week I preached about how we are fearfully and wonderfully made. I talked a lot about the tiny cells that make up our bodies. These cells routinely expire and are replaced by other cells. Occasionally, something goes wrong. Instead of dying, a cell will begin to multiply erratically. This happens all the time, but fortunately, the body has control systems in place to put a stop to it. In very rare instances, these controls fail. The result is cancer. Cancer is simply confused cells gone wild [Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, p. 379]. That’s the biological reason.

The theological reason sounds grim at first, but in the end it proves to be the most hopeful way to look at things. The reason for cancer, theologically speaking, is that our world is broken. God created it much better than we actually experience it. God wanted and still wants something better for us. Because humankind stands at the pinnacle of God’s creation, however, in the role of God’s partner in caring for creation, and because humankind is in a state of rebellion against God, things are not right. We are broken, and we have taken the rest of creation with us.

Paul wrote explicitly about this in chapter 8 of Romans: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” Creation was subjected to futility. Things are not right. They are not the way God wants. They are broken. Yet how hopeful Paul is, and he is right.

If there is no God, then we have no hope for help. If God wants a world with cancer, then we can expect no help. If God did his best and made the best world he possibly could, and it has cancer, then what hope is there? But if creation is broken, we can hope that God will fix it. In fact, God has promised to do just that, and by raising Jesus from the dead he has proved he can do it.

What does this mean for a person with cancer? Well, for one thing, cancer doesn’t get the last word. God does. Even when cancer proves fatal, that person is not lost to God. God will raise his children up to glorious life, new and eternal. Cancer is an aberration. It is not God’s ultimate will. In short, your fate is never determined by an accident of genetics or whatever cause your cancer might have. Your fate is in the hands of God, both now and eternally.

Why doesn’t God go ahead then and get rid of cancer? If he is against it, why does it still happen? This question is part of the larger problem of evil and suffering. Why doesn’t God bring his kingdom in all its glory right now and end all suffering, injustice, and death? My answer is: I don’t know. God’s answer is … Jesus … and his cross and resurrection. Whatever reasons God has for letting the world go on as it is, he has shown a willingness to suffer with us. Moreover, he has demonstrated convincingly that he will keep all those wonderful promises about no more death and sorrow. So as Paul says, until that day, we wait with eager longing. And we know that our future, like the future of all creation, is in God’s loving hands.

This means a Christian can face cancer with resolve. I’ll say more about this later. You know God wants something better for you, so you resolve to do all you can to survive. Surgery, chemo, radiation, whatever it takes—you do it in the confidence that God is on your side. You do it without fear, without desperation, because you know that whatever happens, nothing can separate you from God’s love.

One more thing before I move on. I don’t know God’s reasons for letting the world go on broken as it is. Yet I do believe that God never allows anything to happen that he cannot redeem. Think about that. Do you agree? Can God somehow set things right, not just making everything better in the future but also justifying everything bad that happened, so that we look back and say, “OK, now it makes sense. Now we see what God was doing, and it was good”? You need a really big God if you’re going to believe that. A lot of terrible things happen, maybe some of them to you. Can God redeem them? I believe he can. I often marvel, “God, you must be truly wonderful beyond my imagination if you can redeem this or that.” But he can. He not only gives his children new life, he redeems the old life.

The prophet Joel believed this too. He preached after locusts had devastated Israel’s crops and caused famine. He delivered this message from God, “The threshing floors shall be full of grain, the vats shall overflow with wine and oil. I will repay you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten” [2.24-25]. You see the two things God does? He not only gives abundant grain and wine, but he also pays back all that the locusts had eaten. This is important to me. When I was in Nashville, one of my friends lost a son to cancer. The boy was only about 10 years old. It breaks your heart because of the life he never got to live and the potential for good that was lost. And yet, I believe God will not only give that boy eternal life, somehow God will redeem the lost years and potential. Don’t ask me how. Who but God can say? Yet that’s what I believe.

On to the next question: Why me? We know that question can’t be answered, but we can’t help ourselves. We wonder anyway. When something like cancer happens to you or someone you love, wondering why is inevitable. Often people wonder, was it something I did? Do I deserve this? We would rather feel guilty than powerless, but the truth is, it’s not because you did something. Cancer happens somewhat randomly, for reasons we have discussed. Our world is broken, so some people get cancer, and if it happens to some, why not any of us? God does not exempt his children from suffering, you know. Jesus is enough to show us that. We also know it from our own experience. Think of the Morgan family: two doctors who have dedicated their lives to Christ and to serving the poorest of the poor as medical missionaries in Bangladesh. If anyone deserves a break, they do. Yet their son has an aggressive form of cancer that will likely prove terminal barring a miracle. Why him? Why you? I don’t know. God didn’t do it to you, I know that. But why? All I know is, cancer is one of those awful things that happen, and no one it seems gets a free pass.

Why then do some recover and others don’t? Moreover, why does God heal some miraculously but not others? We have all heard of cases where the doctors had given up. There was no hope. Then the patient showed up for tests and, lo and behold, was cancer free. Others go into remission for reasons unknown. An experimental new drug proves effective in 20% of cases. Why those 20% and not the rest?

You have to hate the answers preachers give, because we start with “I don’t know,” then we go on talking for a long time. Look in the book of Acts, chapter 12. Persecution breaks out against the church in Jerusalem. The apostle James is killed. This is James, the brother of John, son of Zebedee, one of Jesus’ closest friends and disciples. Herod killed him. Peter too was arrested. His execution was scheduled. God intervened, however, and led a miraculous jailbreak. Peter was rescued. Now I ask you, why did God allow James to die but rescued Peter?

Calvin said the providence of God is inscrutable. That means we can never answer questions like these. Instead we have to fall back to the place we live our lives, the place we have to take a stand: Do you trust God or not? If life is just a series of random happenings, then cancer is horrifyingly tragic. Plus, life has no meaning. But if you have a Father in heaven who is working out a plan and a purpose … well, you can choose to trust him or not. And when something like cancer happens, you face a crisis of decision. You say, “God, something is happening to me that I would never choose. Or it’s happening to someone I love. If I could, I would make this cancer disappear instantly, forever. I don’t know why you haven’t done that. I wish you would. I am asking you, I am begging you to. Just take it away …” Then how do you finish your prayer. Do you say, “If you do, I promise to serve you faithfully and be a better person and so on”? Do you say, “If you don’t heal me or the person I love, I’ll never be able to trust you again”? Or do you pray with Jesus, “Not my will but yours be done”? Do you say with Job, “God’s understanding is too much for me. I will trust him”?

I am not telling you what to say. I don’t presume to tell a suffering person what to pray. I am suggesting you have a choice, and I commend to you the attitude of Jesus and Job. My hope for you, and my prayer, is that you will be able to go on trusting God. He is worthy of your trust, despite even cancer. I think of something the Morgans wrote in their most recent letter: “We believe that God will care for Everett, that his love for him is unfailing. And we know that God will bear us, too, in his arms” [letter of Sept 29, 2008].

With cancer you go through a lot of emotions. It’s a kind of grief. You go through denial, bargaining, anger, acceptance—all those. You cry to God. You plead with God. You curse God, maybe. The psalms come pretty close to that at times. Where do you end up, though? Do you reach the place where you can say—with Jesus and Job—“I will trust you anyway”?

In our scripture reading, the psalmist wrestles through exactly this struggle. He begins by describing his agony. We don’t know what the specific problem was, maybe it was the exile—I’m not sure. His torment, whatever its cause, is spiritual. “At night I tirelessly lift my hands in prayer, refusing comfort.” Have you ever done that? I have spent sleepless nights in fear, praying to God, with no hope of sleep of relief. I can testify, it is not a good place to be. But we find ourselves there, don’t we?

The psalmist begins to suspect God has forgotten him. “Is God angry?” he wonders. Has God forgotten how to have pity? This man is absolutely devastated. He’s hit rock bottom. And God is nowhere to be found. Verse 10: “Then I said, ‘Most High God, what hurts most is that you no longer help us with your mighty arm.’” He doubts neither God’s existence nor his power, but he cannot understand why God doesn’t do something to help. Maybe you know this place too. Maybe you have stood, or are standing, in the psalmists shoes. It’s not a good place to be, but the psalmist doesn’t stay there. He could have. He could have gone on to say, “So who cares about all the things you did a long time ago, Lord? What have you done for me lately? I just can’t trust you anymore.” But he doesn’t. He shoves a crow bar into the door of hope and begins to pry it loose by remembering all the wonderful things God has done for his people. In the Old Testament, before Jesus, the biggest thing they looked back to was the exodus from Egypt. God proved his love and power by delivering his people from bondage to Pharaoh. Christians remember that too, but more important now are the death and resurrection of Jesus. In them God proved his love and power by delivering his people from sin and death.

So the psalmist remembers God’s mighty deeds and his promises, and he pushes against that bar, and he manages to jam the door of hope open just a crack—just enough to let a thin, golden ray of light in. Is the problem gone? No. Can he see a way out of it? No. Then what’s different? He knows he is in God’s hands, and he can trust God. “Everything you do is right,” he prays, “and no other god compares with you.” That’s the kind of stubborn faith that sees us through.

Finally, how does a Christian cope with cancer? I offer a few brief words of advice. First, go on trusting God—like Jesus, like Job, like the author of Psalm 77.

Second, face cancer with resolve. Take the attitude, “I am going to do everything I can to get rid of this disease.” Surgery, chemo, radiation—whatever it takes—I’ll do it. And if you feel a second opinion might help, get one. All good oncologists welcome a second opinion. We’ve had people in our church get excellent care here in Mobile, and their doctors worked with other doctors at Vanderbilt or M.D. Anderson. Avail yourself of the best your doctors can offer, and take the positive attitude, “Let’s do it.”

Does a time come when you ought to give up? It can. I have seen two extremes. One man was told by his doctors that he was not a candidate for chemotherapy because the medicine would kill him faster than the cancer. He badgered and bullied them until they agreed to let him try treatment. He suffered terribly through it. He almost died. But he survived, and he got rid of the cancer, and he’s still alive today.

Another woman was taking chemo, and it was killing her. She was laid up in bed sick all the time. She asked her doctors, “What can I expect from the chemo?” They said, “Stick with it and you may live a few more years.” “What if I quit?” “Probably six months.” She decided that she would rather have six good months with family and friends than two years of misery. She stopped treatment, and she lived another year.

Decisions like this can only be made by the patient, in consultation with doctors and family. I would not criticize either of these people. They both made faithful choices. If the chemo had killed the man, he would not have been choosing death. He chose life. The woman did not choose death. She chose life too. She told me, “We are all in God’s hands anyway. I am going to live, and when my time comes, so be it.” I admire the faith and courage of both these people.

Third, we get by with help from friends. If you have cancer, let people love you and help you. All of us, cancer or no, can help those who have cancer. Let’s go on loving one another in practical ways as we always have.

Fourth, and last, pray. Don’t hesitate to pray for a miracle. Never give up hope. Not even death itself can separate us from God’s love. Amen.

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