Faith, Healing, and Trust
One of my favorite TV shows is the medical drama House which is found on both Fox and the USA network. I'm obviously not alone in that understanding since it is one of the top shows each week. Perhaps I just like the rebellious, iconoclastic nature of the Greg House character, his sense of wit and his ability to solve the most impossible medical cases. I get angry with the character from time to time as he says and does things that are downright mean or even unethical. But I find the whole storyline to be remarkable.

Well, last Sunday On USA they had a marathon of shows from season two. One that I had missed was from last April called House vs. God. House's patient in this episode was a teenaged faith healer with some mysterious illness or other. House, of course, is anti-faith. All can be answered with science and logic. One of the running images in the episode is the famous white board in House's office where one of his associates keeps a running score of God vs. House.

All the arguments and issues of faith healing, parents and children, the right to refuse treatment etc. are covered in one way or another. Toward the end as things are coming to the expected climax where House will, of course win (or at least tie) the competition, there were a couple good lines.

House and the others are trying to convince the young faith healer's faithful father to allow them to do a procedure. The boy doesn't want it. The patient doesn't want the procedure insisting that it is God's will and that they should leave it to God. The father's response:

You don’t know what’s wrong with him.
God knows the answer, I will leave it to him.

Ah, such simple views. We, he viewer know, of course, that House is going to prevail and be right. But we also have a sense that we can agree with the father. We don't always have the answer. Why can't we just let God do what God needs to do and get out of the way?

The answer, of course, is that we don't always know what we are doing, but our problems are often of our own making- and the knowledge intellect God has given us are part of God's work, too.

Especially when we discover that part of what is going on is the result of our own sinfulness. At which point the father again makes another good point. The young man wants his father to have faith. Believe me, he says. To which the father responds:

I have faith in the Lord.

You, I trust, as much as one can trust a teenage boy.

In the end God and House end up in a 3-3 tie, even as House argues that one of God's points should be taken away.

House's colleague and counterpoint, the oncologist, Dr. Wilson, gives probably the closing challenge to all this. He is very aware at that point of his own human failings.

It is possible, says Wilson, to believe in something and still fail to live up to it.

------------------------
For ALL Have Sinned
More will be revealed, I am sure.
More will be hidden, I am equally sure.

But the recent allegations and scandal over Ted Haggard, head of the National Association of Evangelicals, proves as much as it may challenge or even disprove.

All have sinned and come short of the glory of God

and the more we say or act in judgmentalism of others, the more at risk we may ourselves be. More later, perhaps. In the meantime, may we all pray for wisdom and compassion.