Proper 2 Year C

Proper 2

Luke 6.17-26

Gaze on the waiting room in a busy hospital. Pale walls bear replica Monets and dull still lifes of sallow fruit, and these are meant to calm you somehow. Lino echoes with each nurse’s step. People sit around, some chatting quietly, others gaze ahead, each person hiding their worry and symptoms. The elderly are brought in wheelchairs, and small children wriggle on their mothers’ laps. The patient experiences total helplessness. There will be talk and tests, and prodding and injections, results and maybe, at last, a diagnosis, followed by prescriptions and medications and operations. But what people remember most after a spell in hospital is the kind word from the nursing auxiliary, the flowers sent from a sister who lives too far away to visit, or the hand held by the chaplain...