healing our brokenness inadequately: cpaps, ventilators, and mammon

“…The heart of the sons of men
is full of evil,
and madness is in their heart
while they live…”
(Ecclesiastes 9.3)
 
Wherewith shall I come before the LORD,
and bow myself before the high God?
He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good;
and what doth the LORD require of thee,
but to do justly, and to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with thy God?
 (Micah 6.6, 8)
​

​healing our brokenness inadequately: cpaps, ventilators, and mammon
​jeremiah 6.14
​

“They heal my people’s brokenness inadequately, announcing:
   “It’s OK! It’s OK!”
      But nothing is OK! (Jeremiah 6.14, author’s translation).


  introduction

​In his famous soliloquy and song, “If I Were a Rich Man,” Tevye dreams of a “big, tall house with rooms by the dozen,” with a “fine tin roof with real wooden floors.” Outside the house, he dreams of a “yard with chicks and turkeys and geese and ducks.” He dreams of a wife with plenty to eat and “a proper double-chin.” As for himself, Tevye dreams of having “the time that I lack to sit in the synagogue and pray… discuss the holy books with the learned men, several hours every day” To him, “that would be the sweetest thing of all.”
 
We all have dreams. Even at nearly 70, I still do. One of my dreams involves Hebrew prophets. I wish they would come back; return in a renaissance of prophetic discernment and courage. Prophets like Jeremiah, Amos, Micah, and Isaiah. Today’s religious leaders—whether the go by prophet, priest, or pastor—seem not up to the task, lacking both discernment and courage. They seem utterly blind and mute to sin, unless it involves human genitalia.
 
This Mad State post is the first in an ongoing series entitled, “Healing Our Brokenness Inadequately” The title takes its cue from Jeremiah 6.14 in which the prophet laments the ineffectual and specious ministry of Judah’s prophets. In this series, we explore specific examples of individual and societal sins about which religious leaders remain willfully blind and stubbornly mute… and therefore complicit. With these examples in mind, we will imagine what a Hebrew prophet might have to say if he were to come to us from the past. Here, then, is our first example.[1]
 
 

  CPAPs, ventilators, and mammon

Although Philips Respironics, a major provider of CPAP and ventilator machines, received thousands of complaints and numerous warnings from the Food and Drug Administration, they continued to produce breathing machines for over 10 years that they knew possessed engineering flaws and posed series health risks to users, including already sick children, the elderly, and veterans. Complaints and warnings spoke clearly and frequently of “black particles,” “dirt,” and “dust,” possibly “toxic and carcinogenic,” inside the machines that could find their way into the “noses, mouths, throats, and lungs” of their vulnerable users. “All the while, people using Philips machines were suffering from illnesses that no one could explain: vomiting, dizziness and headaches, along with newly diagnosed cancers of the lungs, throat, sinuses and esophagus.”
 
While ignoring these complaints, warnings, and preventable health risks for ten years, Philips engaged in aggressive and global marketing of these machines, allowing company stock prices to soar “to the highest levels in decades.”
 
Consistent with the mores of our entire culture, money came first and above all things. Health and human life took a backseat to greed.
 
Now, what, pray tell, do our priests, pastors, and prophets have to say about such antisocial behavior that so clearly denies the worth of every soul and is indicative of deep social, cultural, and spiritual transgression? Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero.
 
The uninformed and undiscerning might think that the issue addressed here is something that should not be brought under the rubric of “sin.” They might imagine that this example of corporate misanthropic behavior does not come under the purview of priests or pastors or prophets. But they would be wrong, as even the most casual of readings in the Hebrew prophets demonstrates. The Hebrew prophets were keen observers and vociferous critics of private business practices and public policy makers that acted in ways harmful to individuals and society.
 
As one reads of Philips’ inferior, defective, and harmful devices, and the search for profit through them, one thinks of analogous situations in ancient Israel as commented on and criticized by the Hebrew prophets. Here is but one of dozens of examples that could be plied.
 
“Hear this, those who weary the impoverished
   to the end that they ruin the land’s downtrodden--
thinking: ‘when will the new moon sabbath be over
   so that we can sell grain;
and the weekly sabbath
   so that we can make our produce available,
while shrinking the size of the dry measure,
   increasing the weight of šeqel,
      and rigging fraudulent scales
to buy the underprivileged with money
   and the impoverished at the cost of a pair of sandals.
   We will even sell worthless debris mixed in with the grain!’”[2]
 
The context of this passage is, of course, different than that found in relation to the Philips supplied breathing machines. However, there are principled similarities. First, Philips managers sold an inferior product just as ancient Israel’s wheat merchant did. Second, the inferior product was sold with the highest priority given to profits and profit margins. Third, profits were prioritized over other’s needs, including health impacts that their actions and products might have on consumers.
 
There is ample prophetic evidence that those engaged in such malevolently immoral business practices as those of the Israelite wheat merchants were never held to account by those who had responsibility for looking out for the public’s interest. Philips managers have not and will not be held accountable for their malevolently immoral business practices which put health and life at risk for millions all around the globe. Not by the priests, pastors, or prophets and not by the legal system. White collar business crimes go almost universally unpunished. Indeed, so thoroughly have laws become corrupted by malevolently immoral policy and law makers that such crimes are not even called crime. This too has its ancient precedent.
 
“Warning! To those who issue oppressive statutes
   and continuously write laws that afflict;
that put redress out of the reach of the underprivileged
   and rob the poor among my people of justice,
making prey of widows
   and plundering orphans.”[3]
 
Laws are corrupted for filthy lucre. Those who put mammon above people are empowered and idolized. People suffer and die. Society becomes a hornet’s nest of sociopaths. And the priests, pastors, and prophets see no evil, hear no evil, speak not of the evil.
 

 
  conclusion and benediction

In our degenerate society, the sort of behavior in which Philips, or, more pointedly, its managers were engaged is simply chalked up to the cost of doing business. All is forgiven and justified as long as profits flow and stockholders are enriched. The victims of this warping and woofing of what is good and decent are martyrs, sacrificial victims of the materialistic fertility god known as capitalistic greed.
 
This is not OK. There is nothing OK about it, notwithstanding the mute silence of the prophetic voice in the face of such wickedness. There is no doubt that if any one of the Hebrew prophets returned today, they would have something, much of something to say about Philips’ business practices along with those of all the other global conglomerates that so often seek profits at the public’s expense, health, and even life.
 
Any priest, any pastor, any prophet worth their salt cannot remain silent. They must stand above the depravity. They can have no vested or invested interest in corporate profits, for these, surely, blind and debilitate them from fully engaging the ministry to which they are called—to be watchmen on the tower. Unfortunately, they are, themselves, all too often up to their necks in their own private and corporate investment portfolios and money management firms.
 
I am no prophet. Nor am I anywhere near as gifted a poet as those holy Hebrew prophets of yesteryear. Nevertheless, I cannot remain silent. And I can imagine what they might say were they to reappear today. It might go something like this.
 
A cause of lamentation and warning![4]
They build machines for gasping sleepers;
ventilators for the sick and dying.
But their inventions pump shards of black foam and fuzz;
spew filth and grime into deprived, damaged, and dying lungs.
Thousands of complaints year after year after year
and corporate knowledge of defects hidden
yield global campaigns for increased sales
and send profits soaring to unsurpassed heights
while innocents wheeze to breath life into corporate greed.
Let the bank accounts of the deceptive and lustful
match their moral bankruptcy. 
Let deceivers sleep the sleep of sulfurous hell.
Let those greedy for mammon breath the putrid air of Hades
until their lungs turn black with muck and mold and mildew,
and their souls choke on poisonous goop and goo
the sickly green of the color of mammon.
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
 
 
[1] “Philips Kept Complaints About Dangerous Breathing Machines Secret While Company Profits Soared,” by Debbie Cenziper, ProPublica; Michael D. Sallah, Michael Korsh and Evan Robinson-Johnson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; and Monica Sager, Northwestern University.
[2] Amos 8.4-6 (author’s translation). See our two-part homily series on this passage entitled, “Fraudulently selling bad product at inflated prices.”
[3] Isaiah 10.1-2.
[4] This is my rendering of the traditional, “Woe!”