Texts: Genesis 1: 26-31; Romans 14: 1-12
Death and Dignity: On Life’s Great Decisions
Several weeks ago, a story in the New York Times caught my attention. It had to do with an Australian scientist named David Goodall, who had flown to Switzerland in order to die. He was 104 years old, and while he wasn’t dealing with any immediate illnesses, he was simply ready to be done. Physically frail, with most of his friends and immediate family members already gone, Mr. Goodall said “one wants to be free to choose one’s death at the appropriate time.” Immediately after listening to Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, he was administered a fatal dose of barbiturates, and he died, on his own terms.[1]
That story has lingered with me. It lingers because it raises questions of life and death that invariably arise when visiting with older members of our church, or older family members. It lingers because as a minister, I have been confronted with those questions quite directly in the course of my work. And it lingers because I do hear requests to speak from the pulpit more often about death and dying, and to say something meaningful about those things from the perspective of Christian faith, given how many in our congregation are confronting those issues. Of course, insofar as we’re alive, we all confront them, but for many among us, they have become urgent, and pressing. This week it all combined toward a desire to speak directly to an issue that many within this congregation have already had to face, in one form or another, one that many of us will likely be involved with in the future. What are we to say about the topic of euthanasia, and about the huge issues of life and death that confront us throughout our lives? What resources does the Christian faith have for addressing such enormous questions?
Let me say at the outset that my intention this morning is not to offer a final word on the topic. My purpose is not to stop conversation, but to get it started. Whether you agree with me or not doesn’t matter. That we begin to think about these issues using the resources of our faith tradition is what matters most.
I should also say that my approach to this topic is more inclusive than questions of physician assisted suicide, or euthanasia, might suggest. Euthanasia is a combination of two Greek words, meaning “a good death.” It usually refers to the taking of the life of a terminally ill or dying person for the purposes of compassion, either by doing something to cause death, or by not doing something that might prolong life. But the topic has more layers, and dimensions, than that. It involves physician assisted dying; it involves the freedom to refuse medical treatment, or to stop treatment once it has begun; it involves the responsibilities of physicians, nurses, hospitals, and nursing homes; it has to do with the involvement of family members, the role of the courts, and how we as a society administer health care resources. It has to do with an entire range of issues surrounding what is now called “the right to die.”
David Goodall’s case is what set this train of thought in motion. But let me offer a number of other examples, if only to reinforce that these are real decisions, involving real people. Here are a few of them.
First, Dr. Henry VanDusen, and his wife Elizabeth. Dr. VanDusen was a Presbyterian minister and a former President of Union Theological Seminary in New York City. In 1975, the two of them carried out a double suicide. At the time of their death, they were both elderly and frail, physically enfeebled, though intellectually alert. They left a letter saying that their infirmities had become intolerable, and that their decision to end their lives was an expression of Christian stewardship, thoughtfully and prayerfully made. What do you think? Is it possible for such a decision to be understood as “Christian?”
Next set of individuals: a young minister, fresh out of divinity school, makes one of his first pastoral calls at a nursing home outside of Philadelphia. He is there to visit George and Ann, both in their eighties, and both still fully cognizant. It’s a delightful visit. In time, the conversation turns toward Ann, whose health has been declining in recent months. George leans in, and shares that both he and Ann have joined the Hemlock Society, which helps individuals die on their own terms, not the state’s, and not their family’s. George and Ann have attended church their entire lives, and George asks the young minister: what do you think about something like that? The minister confesses he isn’t sure. Some years later, that same minister learns of George and Ann’s death, and though nothing is mentioned, he wonders about the circumstances surrounding it. Did they engineer their own deaths at the appropriate time? What do you think? Do the Hemlock Society, and organizations like it, have a place within the life of faith?
Another person: Charles Lukey was a pastor. He died some years ago of a disease that, as one person described it, involves a “galloping degeneration of the nerve cells.” When the crisis came, Lukey wrote a letter to his friends. “What,” he asked, “does the Christian do when he stands over the abyss of his own death and the doctors have told him that the disease is ravaging his brain and that his whole personality may be warped, twisted, changed? Does the Christian have the right to self destruction, especially when he knows that the change may bring out some horrible beast within himself? Answering his own question, Lukey said, “it comes to me, ultimately and finally, the Christian has always to view life as a gift from God, and see that every precious drop of life was not earned but was a grace, lovinging bestowed on him by his Creator, and it is not his to pick up and smash. And so,” Lukey went on, “I find the position of suicide untenable, not because I lack the courage to blow out my brains, but because of my deep abiding faith in the Creator who put the brains there in the first place. And now the result is that I lie here blind in my bed and trust in the loving, sustaining power of the great Creator who knew and loved me before I was fashioned in my mother’s womb. But I do not think it is wrong to pray for an early release from this diseased and ravaged carcass.”[2]
What profound words those are. But what do you think? Could someone have made a different choice and been equally faithful in doing so? Or is Lukey’s the only possible decision from the perspective of faith?
Time was when questions of life and death didn’t need to be asked, or answered. Those were decisions made for us, not by us. The tragedy was that many people died prematurely, before their time. But it’s different today. Children and young people still die before their time, as some of you know only too well. But now there are many older people who feel they have lived beyond their time. Medical technology can prolong life and cure diseases, but it can also keep alive those who are severely brain damaged, or comatose, or those who no longer want to live. The result is that today, what some people fear is not the approach of death, but its postponement. They fear that their dying will be prolonged beyond what is reasonable, and that their lives will be extended when their dignity and purpose have long since disappeared.
The question is how, given this situation, we can still make wise, compassionate, and faithful moral choices. As people of faith and conscience, what should we keep in mind as we encounter these dilemmas? Here are several important signposts that I have come to see as important in reflecting on these issues.
First, we need to remember the Biblical warning about human frailty and yes, human sinfulness. I don’t understand by that word the bad or questionable things we do. Rather, I understand it to mean that we are limited in our wisdom. We are imperfect people with hidden agendas. So, as regards these life and death decisions, it’s appropriate to exercise caution and care. Ethicists worry about so called “slippery slopes,” a way of saying that once we start down a certain path, something like gravity will carry us further along. The worry is that applied to euthanasia, when physicians are given the right to assist in death, it won’t end there, and that it won’t be long before we will intervene to end the lives of severely handicapped newborns, say, or those without insurance. That cautionary note is important, but I don’t think it ends the discussion. Nor does it relieve us of the burden of deciding in individual instances. So what other guidance is available?
There is, I suppose, the Biblical admonition to “choose life,” along with the commandment not to kill. But at the time when Moses urged his people to choose life, the definition was simple. If you were breathing, you were alive. That simple definition is now obsolete. Is someone alive who is breathing only because they are hooked up to a machine? Or again, is the command not to kill absolute? What about killing in self-defense? What about war? What about capital punishment? What about abortion? In cases like that, many Christians make exceptions to the rule, exceptions about which we can argue vehemently – but exceptions nonetheless. Is euthanasia another possible exception? A biblical injunction such as “choose life” is important, but it doesn’t relieve us of the burden of decision making.
And so where are we? What are we to say? With regard to these life and death dilemmas, we are, and always will be, somewhere between two theological poles: one we can call “finitude,” and the other, “freedom.”
At one end, near the pole labeled “finitude,” the emphasis is on acceptance, playing the hand that life deals you, not complaining about the quality of the cards, but playing them to the best of your ability, accepting whatever comes, good or bad, joyful or sad, and seeking to honor God through your acceptance. Charles Lukey is a heroic representation of this response.
At the other end, near the pole labeled “freedom,” the emphasis is on taking responsibility. The passage we heard earlier, from Genesis, seems to encourage this response. There, it is said that human beings are created in God’s image, and are given “dominion.” There are all sorts of ways that passage has been grossly misapplied, especially considering the ecological crisis before us. But I think we might hear something different in those words, when we understand them to be about taking responsibility for our lives. When we do so, we are not usurping a divine prerogative, but assuming our God given power and responsibility. Henry and Elizabeth Van Dusen are representatives of this response. In his own way, I would contend that David Goodall is a good representative of this response as well.
Somewhere along this spectrum, between finitude and freedom, between acceptance and responsibility, people of faith will take their place as they are confronted by these life and death decisions. Rarely will we be confronted with a clear moral choice. Most of the time, as in most situations of life, death, and survival, the choice will be ambiguous. My contention is that there will likely be several, perhaps many acceptable decisions from the perspective of faith. We should, of course, support the Charles Lukey’s of the world when he chooses to live out his life, come what may. But should we not also respond compassionately to the David Goodalls and the Van Dusens of the world, not condemning their decision, but valuing a different kind of courage and faithfulness?
That’s where the book of Romans comes into the picture, which we heard earlier. The issues Paul was confronting seem trivial now, but his warning about making one’s own decisions normative for everybody else is anything but trivial. Each of us, Paul says, is accountable to God. But even though we are all equally serious about our accountability, we may not all arrive at the same decision. Paul pleads with us to refrain from easy judgments about the difficult decisions that others make. That applies to questions of euthanasia, but I believe it’s an important word for all of us right now, as we navigate what seem like impossible divisions in our country, in our communities, in our families, and sometimes even in our own hearts. Each of us is accountable to God, but that doesn’t mean we’ll wind up in the same place on this issue or that. I hope that comes as good news.
One final thought. Is the situation presented by David Goodall, as well as some of the other cases I have mentioned, not an invitation to examine anew our understanding of life and death?
Those who oppose the right to die, or the right to take life, are often heard to say that life is sacred, that it is a precious gift, to be received with gratitude and treated with respect. Life is precious. But for people of faith, life is not the only thing of value in the world. Something more important can cause us to put our lives on the line. In the New Testament, something more important than life caused Jesus to put his life on the line. He called it the Kingdom of God. “No one takes my life from me,” he says in John’s Gospel, “but I lay it down of my own accord.” The question is, may people like David Goodall, or the Van Dusens, or any of the other individuals I mentioned, also lay down their lives when life has become unbearably painful? My own answer is yes. That can be a faithful decision. As a minister I have, and will continue to support people who make such decisions.
But we also need to think about what we mean by death, and especially how to recognize it when it comes. Do we not need to see death in a broader context than mere biology? Are we not more than the total of our functions, more than a heartbeat, more than breathing, more than brain capacity? Isn’t life constituted by relationships – with others, and with God, however we understand God? As evidence mounts that a loved one will never again have a meaningful relationship with another human being, is that person not, in some fundamental way, dead? Do we, as one hospital chaplain I heard put it, “not have to exhibit the confidence to love our loved ones enough to let go?” And should we not have the confidence to enter into these matters differently than those who hold onto life because they have nothing else to hold onto?
We are faced with choices today that our ancestors did not have to make. It’s obvious that I can’t offer easy solutions on how to deal with these questions. Regarding the two poles I mentioned earlier, I myself gravitate, with fear and trembling, to the freedom and responsibility side. But you will have to determine your own position. What I want to do this morning, above all, is to remind you that you are not alone as you make these life and death decisions. Whether you decide for yourself, or you’re forced to decide for another, as a spouse, child or family member, or even, perhaps, as a health care provider, I want you to know that God is with you in your struggle. Be confident of that. Do the best you can. And know that God’s grace and mercy surround you.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/10/world/europe/david-goodall-australia-scientist-dead.html
[2] From James W. Crawford, Worthy to Raise Issues (Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 1991), pg. 41.
