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February 1997
Why HIV/AIDS Ministry?
The Reverend Richard Younge
Jesus said, “Let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and give glory to your God in heaven.”
AIDS? Been there, done that! In the middle of the second decade of the HIV/AIDS epidemic many people seem to be tired of AIDS. This is not the fatigue of those who have struggled with the virus directly and personally or of those who have loved and cared for them. It is the fatigue and indifference of those who feel that they have heard too many appeals for concern and volunteers and money and who have read enthusiastic media reports of new protease-inhibitor drugs and new therapies which suggest that the end of AIDS is in sight. It is the loss of interest in this human tragedy when there are so many other human tragedies competing for sympathy, interest, and support.
Voices of caution are ignored which remind us that new drugs and new therapies are precisely that: new, and that their long-term effectiveness is still unknown. These are hopeful therapies only, not cures and not vaccines, so that while it may now be possible to slow down the ravages of HIV/AIDS, it is not possible to avoid them or to reverse them indefinitely. Besides that, these promising new drugs and therapies are very expensive: it has been estimated that the yearly cost for a single patient can approach $10-12,000. This means that even in the US a significant number of people will not be able to afford them, and in poor and developing countries they will in effect be unavailable. Yet it is precisely those who have little or no access to these cutting-edge therapies who are most at risk for HIV/AIDS: the poor (including many women, people of color and adolescents), the uneducated, and those on the margins of society. The problem is compounded by the increasing inability or unwillingness of policy makers and legislators and of the general public to support greatly increased public funding for HIV/AIDS, or indeed for health care in general for those who cannot afford it.
The sad and sober truth is that HIV/AIDS is not over, is not a matter of “been there, done that.” It continues to call church people to do ministry, and we need to be clear in our minds why such a ministry must be maintained in spite of fatigue or indifference or the attraction of some other, newer cause. Our ministry springs not only from motives of compassion but equally from motives of seeking righteousness and justice in our communities, and perhaps most important of all, from our baptismal promise to follow Christ, who went about healing those who were sick. To understand better how we are now called to follow our Lord in the midst of HIV/AIDS, it may be helpful to remember where we have been.
When the AIDS pandemic began a decade and a half ago, the earliest responses to it reflected a wide range of emotions and attitudes. Faced with a new, exotic, and apparently incurable disease with an unknown method of infection people first reacted with fear, both of the disease itself and of possible contagion. As more was learned about HIV/AIDS denial was added to fear, for the earliest AIDS patients were mostly gay men, a socially stigmatized group, and it was easy to believe that “normal” or “nice” or “moral” people were not at risk. And if that were so, then it was only a short step to feel indifference towards those who were at risk and did become infected. They were, it was said, simply reaping the fruits of their past irresponsible or sinful behavior; they deserved to be sick.
Then once that was said, it was only another short step to separate out “innocent” victims of AIDS — hemophiliacs, the children of infected mothers, those infected because of transfusions with infected blood, medical workers infected accidentally in the workplace — from others who carried the virus. These latter were treated with hostility and judgment. The epidemic was solemnly declared to be a divine judgment on homosexuals (and later, on drug addicts and promiscuous fornicators) by some ultra-conservative religious speakers and opinion shapers. The stigmatizing of HIV/AIDS was well under way. Not only those who were infected but also those closest to them who were directly affected by their illness met hostility, scorn, and rejection. And there was blaming for the epidemic; this was presented either as a scientifically driven effort to learn the source of the virus or a medically driven effort to identify persons or groups who presented increased risk of infection for others. It was suggested that the virus had originally come from Africa; Haitians and gay men were suspected as the chief spreaders of disease. There was little to support these ideas; on reflection they appear to say more about endemic racism and homophobia in our society than about HIV.
In contrast to these attitudes and often in direct reaction to them, despair grew among those most directly touched by HIV/AIDS. Some felt that sickness and death from the disease were inevitable. It was already too late: they were probably infected because they had not earlier realized that they were at risk of infection and so had taken no steps to protect themselves. Or they felt that to purchase life at the cost of sexual intimacy was intolerable: it would be better to live and enjoy life to the fullest and die young than live an increasingly joyless existence as the asexual mourner and survivor of all one’s friends. There was rage as well, over the loss of friends, the unfairness of a disease which seemed to single out the most attractive, the youngest, the most talented and to destroy all their creative promise. And there was rage as well over the hostility and indifference of others: family, friends, neighbors, employers, politicians, religious leaders.
Many of these responses to AIDS are still with us; indeed we may often see them in our friends or reluctantly recognize them in ourselves. In this respect AIDS is just like the other great historical plagues which have called forth similar responses. But also, like these other great plagues, AIDS has called forth another response in communities of faith, a response of healing care which in our Episcopal Church is grounded not only in our understanding of Christian faith but also in our respect for scripture and our concern for the tradition of the church.
One example of this tradition, among many, can be found in the story of St. Cyprian, the great North African Bishop of Carthage in the third century. In time of plague, when many fled from the city and abandoned the sick to their fate, he rallied his flock to provide care for the ill and dying, Christian and non-Christian alike. Some Christians were infected and paid for their compassion with their lives; but their witness proved to be a singular light in the world in that dark time, and good evangelism as well. For many, moved by the good works of their Christian neighbors, were converted to the new faith and God was glorified.
The example of this response of healing care from scripture is even more telling. It is the account of Jesus’ healing of a man born blind which is told in the ninth chapter of the Gospel according to John. When his disciples saw this man they wanted to know the “why” of his illness. Had he himself sinned, they asked, or his parents, that he was born blind; whose fault was it? Jesus rejects their question absolutely. This illness, he declares, has come about so that God’s work may be done…and incidentally that God’s presence may be made known, that wholeness may be restored to a child of God, that another person may be brought into a new and living relationship with God, and that God’s glory may be increased.
It is this response of healing care grounded on faith and drawn from scripture and tradition which inspires, shapes, and drives HIV/AIDS ministry in the Episcopal Church at whatever level, be it the monthly healing service and the providing of meals for the sick in a local parish; the work of a diocesan AIDS Commission serving as a clearinghouse and resource for many local ministries; or the national church supporting regional or national conferences, providing curricula for youth leaders, Christian educators, and those directly involved in this ministry, or reaching out in partnership and support to other parts of the Anglican Communion. Those who are involved in or seeking to become involved in this ministry see what Jesus did when he responded to the man born blind as a paradigm for their own work and seek to replicate it.
Jesus first of all rejected blaming, judgment, hostility, fear and despair, indifference, and even rage: all of the common, natural (and unredeemed) responses to illness and epidemic which we have already seen with regard to HIV/AIDS. He had no patience with efforts to explain sickness as evidence of God’s punishment for bad behavior and he declared that any such explanation was wrong. He rejected as well the man’s apparent willingness to accept his condition, for there is no indication in the text that the blind man asked for help or intervention on Jesus’ part. In the face of his disciples’ feelings and the man’s apathy, Jesus acted with compassion to heal.
When he acted, he used the resources at hand, however dirty or unseemly or modest they seemed or however socially acceptable they were. He spat on the ground and made mud of the dirt and spittle, rubbed this paste on the man’s eyes, but then told him to go wash in the waters of the pool of Siloam which were popularly believed to have healing powers. Episcopal AIDS ministry, especially as it undertakes the task of education aimed at preventing new infections, will do much the same. Its messages and vocabulary will be candid, its subject matter will be clearly stated, its methods will be simple and straightforward. It will include a restatement of traditional church teaching about chastity and abstinence; and it will also include the findings of recent public health research about the effectiveness of condoms, and about needle exchange programs which aim at reducing risk of transmission of HIV, and about sexual practices which increase or decrease risk of infection.
Above all, because its motivation is to save lives it will make every effort to be understood by, acceptable to and culturally appropriate for its intended audience, whatever their age, ethnic, social, religious or other status. Finally, like Jesus who acted and then sent the blind man to act for himself before any healing could take place, our ministry will involve each person in moving responsibly towards his or her own healing. It will not be deterred by a person’s apparent initial indifference to illness, but neither will it force itself on others and attempt to heal them (as it were) in spite of themselves or against their will.
The Presiding Bishop, The Most Reverend Edmond L. Browning, lays on hands for healing of body mind and spirit with The Reverend Dr. Kelly Brown-Douglas at the NEAC AIDS Healing Service at part of the National Retreat, “In Returning and Rest” last fall.
In acting as he did in order to heal, Jesus was willing to break rules and incur the suspicion — and finally the anger — of the upholders of traditional values in his day. What he did violated the law of the Sabbath. This was all that his opponents could see and they were scandalized by his action and questioned his good character and motivation. They rejected him and his ministry; the man’s parents, who might have been expected to support their son and defend Jesus’ ministry, they intimidated into silence; and finally they expelled the man himself from their community rather than accept his life and his story, as evidence of God’s power at work for good in the world.
It is not surprising that sometimes the church’s AIDS ministry has met the same hostile reaction from “respectable folks” and “upholders of traditional values” in our own day. It is not surprising that those whose support had been expected and counted on sometimes get cold feet, waver, and fall away; or that those being served by that ministry are sometimes not welcome fully into a local congregation. The blind man, once healed, became an undeniable witness to the love and power of God, but equally a stumbling block for those who had been quite comfortable dealing with him when he was sick and powerless. He was cast out of his old community but found a new community as a disciple of the one whose power had healed him. For us now, as with Jesus then, the true test of HIV/AIDS ministry is how wholeness has been restored to those whose lives have been broken and shattered by the epidemic. Its validation lies in the new relationships to God which have been created in the midst of the personal catastrophe of illness and human rejection. That it has brought and continues to bring light to both physical and spiritual places of darkness will bear witness that it is from God.
That is why, in the fifteenth year of the pandemic, the Episcopal Church at all levels is called to continue its response to HIV/AIDS with the kinds of ministries that church people traditionally do best: pastoral care, prayer, and sacramental healing; visiting, sheltering, feeding, and caring for the sick; educating its own members and the community at large, especially youth and young adults, about HIV/AIDS; intervening prophetically in public discourse as advocates for those affected by HIV/AIDS and also empowering them to speak on their own behalf.
In addition to that, humbly and not thinking of ourselves more highly that we ought to think, the Episcopal Church is called to support others in the kinds of ministries that they do best: medical, sociological and psychological research, political and legislative policies and programs aimed at the treatment and containment of HIV/AIDS at home and abroad and at discovering its cure. Boldly and without apology the Episcopal Church is called to identify, name, and counter any doctrine, falsely labeled as Christian, and any lack of compassion which are indifferent to the needs of those living with HIV/AIDS or affected by it, or which stigmatize, devalue, dehumanize, reject, or oppress them.
The Episcopal Church is called, finally, to bear witness to the world that within God’s creation we are members of one human family, and that by our baptisms we are all members of one body in Christ, so that if any member of the body — or of the family — suffer, then all suffer. Not “Those people are AIDS victims” but “Our Church has AIDS.” That is the reason for our ministry: it is for our own healing. It is our doing of the work of God so that God’s healing presence and compassion may be seen even in the midst of this epidemic. It is our light so shining before others that when they have seen our good work they will give glory to God in heaven.
Amen.
This article was developed by the Executive Council Commission on AIDS/HIV and was written by the Reverend Richard Younge, a former president of the National Episcopal AIDS Coalition. This paper provides a theological basis for AIDS ministry to the larger church. It is anticipated that the final version will be widely distributed in pamphlet form. Your comments are welcomed and appreciated. Please send them by e-mail, fax or in writing the National Episcopal AIDS Coalition, E-mail: neac@neac.org; fax: 202.872.1511; NEAC 2025 Pennsylvania Ave NW 508 Washington, DC 20006.
