Parish Magazine Item for December
From
The Rectory
We
are praying that all our Christmas services will be full of joy. We hope you’ll
join us and find them uplifting experiences.
I’m
sorry, in a way, that this item isn’t especially merry. But then nor was the
first Christmas. It likely involved, amongst other things, scandal, long and
hard journeys, a painful birth, a borrowed manger, plot, escape and murder. We
make a mistake, may I suggest, if we imagine that we can all have a couple of
months which are all glitter and tinsel.
I
want to take this opportunity, if I may, to say something about a difficult but
important issue of the moment and then to think about it in the light of
Christmas. If you’d rather give this article a miss, I quite understand!
The
new Labour government has had a flurry of initiatives and announcements. But
one of the potentially most consequential events in this parliament will take
place on 29th November as the House of Commons holds its first
debate on the Labour MP Kim Leadbeater’s private member’s bill to allow for the
assisted suicide of terminally ill adults in England and Wales.
Of
course our first response to anyone suffering pain or feeling hopeless must be
compassion. We must do all that we can to help.
The
case against assisted suicide has often been made eloquently, recently so by
the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. Google
will help you find those. Or readers might also be interested in Baron
Etchingham’s contributions to this debate in The Spectator: spectator.co.uk/article/not-all-suffering-can-be-relieved-a-debate-on-assisted-dying/
Traditionally,
Christians have always been strongly opposed to suicide as an act of despair
and therefore contrary to Christian faith and hope. We believe that God alone
gives life and that we should trust God with our deaths. Christians are for
life. Although it is hard for secular society to grasp, we reject the idea that
persons are utterly free and autonomous individuals divorced from all
connections or loyalties. We belong to God both by creation and redemption. It
is not complete to say “It’s my body; it’s my life; I can do what I want.”
Speaking actually in the context about how we use our bodies sexually, the
Apostle Paul tells believers: “Do you not know that your bodies are
temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from
God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honour
God with your bodies.”
As
well as this in principle objection, I am pretty terrified by the potential
practical problems of such assisted dying legislation. The “right” of
terminally ill adults to die might be expanded to teenagers with mental health
difficulties. And we can, I suspect, easily imagine that some pressure might be
put on (or at least felt by) granny as she clings on to her, we are told, “poor
quality of life” in her expensive care home as the grandchildren’s inheritance
is put up for sale. If this seems alarmist, we might look at some of the
experience of other countries. Or at the theoretical safeguards and procedures
around abortion and its practical availability. The statistics give me pause. We
might think we are talking about very rare and restricted circumstances, but we
might in fact see many many deaths, even if the formal legislation remains
apparently preventative.
I
find it hard to think that assisted suicide will aid the advances in hospice
and palliative care that we undoubtedly need. It is perhaps worth saying that
ethicists have often accepted the idea that pain relief might legitimately
shorten a life if this is a secondary consequence, not the primary aim.
Laws
such as those which are proposed would radically alter the relationship between
patient and doctor. Those who are pledged to preserve life will be dealing in
death. Will family doctors also terminate life? Or will offering assisted
suicide be a specialism to which some devote all day, every day?
Much
more could be said, but perhaps Christmas also tells against “euthanasia”. The
baby of Bethlehem shows us how much God values human life. God the Son came
from heaven for us. He came to mean and difficult circumstances, overshadowed
by death. He who made the stary host, was weak and vulnerable. Human life does
not matter for what we can do. The Romans were given to infanticide. Babies
were disposable. The Christians cherished helpless, crying, spewing babies. The
infant Jesus shows us that someone who cannot speak or in fact do anything for
themselves can be – is – of infinite worth. Here too, perhaps here especially,
is the Image of God, the God who could be made man, made small. Christmas
affirms again the dignity and worth of all, including the last and the least.
The newborn Christ shows us that the old and the sick are cherished by the
Almighty.
Jesus
was born to die. And at the very heart of the Christian faith is suffering with
meaning and purpose. Of course the death of Jesus is unique. But I hope it
doesn’t seem glib to say that the cross proclaims that there are worse things even
than gruesome pain. Jesus’ death was deliberately terrible and humiliating. No
effective pain relief for him. He seems to have rejected that which might have
dulled his suffering. And no quick humanitarian end. Soldiers would sometimes
break the legs of the victims of crucifixion who lingered on to hasten their
death, but this was not needed in Jesus’ case. He had already died when they
came to check on him.
To
the Christian, it is not only all life that has meaning and value. Suffering
too can have infinite worth. When a death is horrible, or we are tempted to
think it shameful, maybe we can see there a hint of the cross of Christ, which
was in reality the wisdom, power and glory of God, for all the agony and
seeming futile waste.
Whatever
we face, pray Christmas might bring us fresh peace and hope.
The Revd Marc Lloyd
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