The Dignity of Those with Dementia

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast

00:00:06.720 | with longtime pastor and author, John Piper.

00:00:10.480 | Today's question comes from an anonymous man.

00:00:13.360 | Pastor John, I heard the episode

00:00:15.100 | about caring for aging parents.

00:00:17.680 | That was episode 1078,

00:00:20.040 | and we published that back on August 9th of this year.

00:00:23.240 | It's titled Retirement Homes and Caring for Aging Parents.

00:00:27.400 | Back to the question.

00:00:28.860 | In that episode, you got me thinking about my job.

00:00:31.360 | I work in a nursing home and see our elders

00:00:33.800 | in a way many of us fear becoming.

00:00:36.880 | Could you speak to the dignity of people in nursing homes

00:00:39.640 | with diseases such as dementia?

00:00:42.480 | This seems to me to be perhaps even more foundational

00:00:45.780 | under the answers about caring for aging parents.

00:00:49.640 | Would you say that's right?

00:00:51.080 | - Right, that's absolutely right.

00:00:52.920 | The God-given dignity of every human being

00:00:56.440 | is created in God's image and destined for final

00:00:59.100 | accountability before the living God,

00:01:01.180 | unlike all the other creatures,

00:01:04.180 | that dignity is foundational to our thinking

00:01:08.580 | about how families or caregivers care for aging parents

00:01:13.580 | or for that matter, for any person

00:01:16.420 | whose mental capacities are diminished for whatever reason.

00:01:21.060 | So let me just share a few foundational

00:01:26.380 | and application thoughts about the dignity

00:01:30.740 | of those with diminished powers

00:01:33.940 | of thought and self-awareness.

00:01:36.340 | First, we can hardly be reminded too often

00:01:41.260 | or too deeply of the staggering truth of Genesis 1:27.

00:01:46.260 | So God created man in his own image.

00:01:51.160 | In the image of God, he created him.

00:01:53.860 | Male and female, he created them.

00:01:58.180 | And then you add the additional truth

00:02:01.420 | that even after the fall into sin,

00:02:05.340 | this great reality of image bearing is still true

00:02:10.340 | about all of the people that we deal with

00:02:14.340 | and should affect our behavior.

00:02:16.220 | James 3:9, "With the tongue, we bless our Lord and Father,

00:02:20.900 | "and with it, we curse people."

00:02:23.620 | Who are made in the likeness of God.

00:02:27.540 | So you can see how James thinks that that fact

00:02:31.220 | should alter the way we use our tongues

00:02:33.980 | and talk about people.

00:02:36.260 | Every human being, everywhere in the world,

00:02:38.860 | of every race, every ethnicity, class,

00:02:41.460 | male and female, rich and poor, sick and well,

00:02:45.580 | is utterly distinct from all the other kinds

00:02:48.740 | of creatures on earth.

00:02:50.380 | So that 1 Peter 2:17 says, "Amazingly, honor all,"

00:02:55.380 | meaning honor all human beings.

00:02:58.340 | And the honor clearly does not flow from moral worthiness.

00:03:03.340 | They're not, a lot of them are wicked, like Nero.

00:03:06.460 | And it goes on to say, "Honor the emperor."

00:03:08.600 | They're wicked.

00:03:09.900 | And so the honor is not flowing

00:03:12.280 | from their unique moral condition,

00:03:15.240 | but from their unique standing in the image of God,

00:03:18.940 | different from all other creatures.

00:03:22.100 | And that applies to an 80 pound arthritic,

00:03:26.220 | diapered, drooling, glaze-eyed human being

00:03:30.940 | that we love lying in bed, praying for death

00:03:34.980 | in the nursery home or in the jungle hut.

00:03:38.180 | Now, a second observation needs to be remembered,

00:03:43.260 | namely that in God's way of dealing with the world,

00:03:48.980 | he has elevated weakness

00:03:52.780 | to a place of extraordinary importance.

00:03:55.980 | The weakness of God is stronger than the power of man,

00:03:59.620 | Paul says in 1 Corinthians,

00:04:01.500 | meaning when Christ died in weakness and dishonor,

00:04:06.500 | he accomplished the greatest thing in the world.

00:04:09.740 | And then Paul refers to his own weakness

00:04:11.700 | in 2 Corinthians 12 as the best pathway

00:04:15.660 | for honoring the all-sufficiency of Christ in his life.

00:04:19.340 | And then he brings this weakness

00:04:22.540 | into connection with the dying process

00:04:25.780 | and relates it to the resurrection

00:04:27.600 | in 1 Corinthians 15, 43 like this.

00:04:30.660 | The human body is sown in dishonor.

00:04:33.900 | It is raised in glory.

00:04:35.540 | It is sown in weakness.

00:04:38.160 | It is raised in power.

00:04:40.860 | In other words, Paul is telling us

00:04:44.460 | that the weak, inglorious, demented shadow

00:04:49.460 | of a once strong Christian person in front of us

00:04:55.460 | is on the brink of glory and power.

00:04:59.460 | You need to go to nursing homes and think that way.

00:05:01.900 | These people are on the brink of glory and power.

00:05:06.140 | We must keep this continuity in mind

00:05:08.620 | between diminished powers of human being here

00:05:13.700 | and the spectacular powers they will have

00:05:16.780 | in the resurrection.

00:05:18.260 | If we lose, this is so important,

00:05:21.380 | if we lose a sense of that continuity,

00:05:25.980 | we will assume that we are becoming less human

00:05:30.980 | rather than being on the brink

00:05:33.540 | of being gloriously superhuman.

00:05:36.300 | And if the question is raised,

00:05:38.860 | because I did mention the word Christian,

00:05:40.860 | if the question is raised,

00:05:41.780 | what about the unbeliever in the nursing home?

00:05:44.580 | The answer is we never give up.

00:05:47.700 | We never give up praying that they too might participate

00:05:52.700 | in that glorious destiny.

00:05:55.400 | This is what they could be.

00:05:59.820 | We're not God.

00:06:01.100 | We do not determine anyone's destiny.

00:06:03.980 | We treat people, we speak to people on earth

00:06:08.260 | in the prayer, in the witness,

00:06:10.100 | in the hope of redemption and glory.

00:06:14.940 | Which leads to one more thing maybe,

00:06:18.060 | namely the mystery of personhood

00:06:21.420 | in the presence of dementia.

00:06:23.340 | Science cannot answer the question

00:06:30.380 | that relates to the soul

00:06:32.660 | that God himself created in connection to the body.

00:06:35.780 | The relationship is profound beyond all human comprehension.

00:06:40.660 | No one, no one knows the precise connection

00:06:45.660 | between the demented mind and the real soul,

00:06:51.620 | the real human person within.

00:06:55.140 | My grandfather, just before he died,

00:06:58.740 | was curled up like a fetus in a diaper,

00:07:02.720 | looking like a corpse, uncommunicative for weeks,

00:07:07.720 | slow, belabored breathing.

00:07:10.980 | But when my father bent over his head

00:07:15.340 | and prayed almost at the top of his voice and finished,

00:07:20.060 | my grandfather, almost with his whole body,

00:07:24.260 | gave a deep, guttural, unmistakable, "Amen."

00:07:29.260 | That was the last we heard of him.

00:07:31.800 | We hadn't heard anything for weeks.

00:07:34.220 | I will never, I will never assume

00:07:39.220 | that any human being that is still breathing

00:07:44.300 | cannot in some way be reached at his innermost being.

00:07:49.300 | I don't know, I just won't assume it.

00:07:53.020 | And the last thing I would say

00:07:54.780 | is that the encroachment of dementia

00:07:58.340 | in the lives of those we love is a gift to us,

00:08:03.280 | testing our love as never before.

00:08:07.160 | One of the manifestations of dementia

00:08:10.400 | is that every moment is real to the failing person,

00:08:15.120 | but the connection of the moments is lost.

00:08:18.600 | So as I was driving my father in his last days

00:08:23.180 | to his brother's funeral, whom he loved dearly,

00:08:26.840 | he asked me every two minutes in that 20-minute drive,

00:08:31.280 | he asked me every two minutes where we were going.

00:08:34.580 | In every single one of those questions,

00:08:38.280 | he really wanted to know.

00:08:40.840 | He was really there.

00:08:45.000 | He was really curious in that moment

00:08:49.920 | about where we were going.

00:08:52.120 | And the real test, the real question for me was,

00:08:55.720 | would I patiently, graciously, as if for the first time,

00:09:00.720 | on the 10th time, answer him with grace and interest,

00:09:06.600 | engaging the person who was there in that moment?

00:09:12.400 | Such challenges of love are no accident.

00:09:17.400 | They're no accident.

00:09:19.520 | God didn't bring that into my life for nothing.

00:09:24.160 | That was a painful gift to me and a test,

00:09:29.160 | and we all will have them.

00:09:33.240 | So let us be full of grace as we give ourselves

00:09:38.040 | to care for those who have become too weak,

00:09:41.360 | physically or mentally, to care for themselves.

00:09:44.480 | God's priorities for efficiency in this world are not ours.

00:09:49.480 | - Moving.

00:09:53.040 | Thank you for this God-centered vision

00:09:54.840 | over such a challenging end of life issue.

00:09:58.200 | And thank you, as always, for taking us

00:10:00.160 | into some of your own personal experiences as well,

00:10:03.000 | Pastor John, I really appreciate your self-disclosure

00:10:05.080 | in these things.

00:10:05.920 | And thank you for listening and making the podcast

00:10:08.160 | a part of your day and your commute.

00:10:10.320 | Three times a week we publish,

00:10:11.440 | and you can subscribe to our audio feeds

00:10:13.400 | and search our past episodes and find episode 1078

00:10:17.200 | in our archive at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

00:10:22.340 | Well, entertainment is intended to be entertaining,

00:10:25.340 | of course, that's what it means to be entertaining,

00:10:27.660 | and we can love it too much.

00:10:29.380 | So how do we know if we love time with God

00:10:31.380 | more than we love our entertainment,

00:10:33.780 | or whether we love our entertainment

00:10:35.540 | more than we love time with God?

00:10:37.660 | It's a very relevant, sobering, and important question

00:10:40.860 | on the docket for Monday.

00:10:43.180 | Until then, I'm your host Tony Reinke,

00:10:44.660 | and we'll see you on the other side of the weekend.

00:10:47.100 | (upbeat music)

00:10:49.680 | (upbeat music)

00:10:52.260 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

The Dignity of Those with Dementia

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