Gen 1:26-31
Luke 14:16-24
My theme in your series this evening is ‘faith and disability.’ What I hope to do for a few minutes is to explore how we might view the physical, sensory and cognitive impairments that our society has chosen to label as disability, from the perspective of grace. Grace which we believe is the gift of a loving creator God to all of the children of the earth. Because, our human condition and the experiences we have on our journey through this earthly life often offer us a challenge. A challenge to our faith and to our understanding of God. Because, as you all know, life is not one unending experience of joy and fulfilment. Rather, life has many moments of sadness, of brokenness, of despair and devastation and more. Simply, life leaves us with many unanswered, and maybe unanswerable, questions.
And many of those questions focus on our bodies. On our embodiment as members of the human race. And the question is: How do we reconcile the dysfunctional aspects of our bodies with the idea of a loving, creator God. How do we reconcile dysfunctional bodies and minds with the almighty, creating and loving God that is at the heart of our faith.
Disability theology begins by focussing on the Genesis passage we heard this evening. And in particular on the intention that God states as God declares the intention to create humankind. ‘Let us make humankind in our image.’ What does that mean?
The first humans that result from this are of course Adam and Eve. They appear as fully functional human beings. Able to talk, walk, work, think, reproduce and perform all of the functions that add together to make the unique human experience and, in the words of Psalm 8, cast us as a little lower than the angels. The question is, is this what God means by creating humankind in God’s image? Is the image of God this human ideal? And, if it is, what does that say to the members of the human race who do not share this level of functionality. What in particular does it say to those that society has chosen to label as disabled because they possess what is viewed and measured as a sufficient level of dysfunction for them to warrant the label of disabled.
If the image of God is found in an embodied human ideal, then could it be that not all human beings are really made in that image. Could it be that some people actually represent the absence of that image because their embodiment seems to fall far short of that ideal. Or, is there something else going on here. Is the image of God a far broader concept than that contained in Adam and Eve. After all, the God in whose image we are made is not human. God does not share any of our human functionality. At the beginning of Genesis, God is not walking round the unformed universe with arms and legs and blood pumping through veins and arteries. No, the God in whose image we are made is profoundly other than human. God sees without eyes. God hears without ears. God moves without legs. God touches without hands. God speaks without vocal cords. God thinks without a brain. And if God possesses none of these human attributes, then we cannot look for the image of God in these human attributes can we.
What disability theology suggests is that far from the image of God being a narrow and focused image that is this human ideal, the image of God is in fact as broad as the human experience. In fact every experience of human embodiment reflects an aspect of the image of God. Which means that aspects of embodiment that we currently judge to be dysfunctional are suddenly transformed into enriching and revealing experiences that bring the otherness of God sharply into focus.
The God who sees with no eyes, hears with no ears, moves with no legs, touches with no hands, speaks with no voice, thinks with no brain, is brought vividly into focus by those whose embodiment means they share in this otherness in some way.
As God looks at creation and declares that it is very good, God is declaring not just creation at that moment as good, but all the consequences of creation as being full of the potential to be good. As full of sacred potential. And that includes every person and experience of human embodiment, whether judged to be functional or dysfunctional, able or disabled.
This is a moment of liberation for disabled people. Liberation from the predominant medical model that is still rooted in society. The model that defines an ideal of human functionality and judges deviations from this as being in need of cure or correction. What it says to me as a blind person for example, is that my inability to see as others do is not a pitiable thing. It is not a negative experience in which I am lacking something that is judged to be necessary in order to be fully human. But it says that my blindness is in fact an experience full of sacred potential. The potential to reveal something of the God who sees with no eyes.
However, there is a bit of a bump in the road for this understanding when Jesus walks onto the scene. And the bump is that Jesus doesn’t seem to like disability. The focus of his ministry seems to be to eradicate disability by healing people of blindness, Deafness, paralysis, leprosy and much more. In fact, as we read the Gospels we are forced to ask a really challenging question. Is there room for disability in the kingdom that Jesus comes to proclaim, or is disability and all human dysfunctionality in fact outside of the kingdom. If there is sacred potential in every experience of embodiment, why would Jesus seem so set on normalising people to meet the narrow criteria of the human ideal.
I haven’t got time here to really unpack the healing miracles, but what is important to understand is that we cannot read these miracles through the medical model lens through which we view sickness and disability today. What Jesus healing miracles are, are acts of radical inclusion. In a world where so many disabled people lived on the edge of society with no real recognition or value, the miracles are Jesus picking people up from the edges and placing them in the centre and saying: These people matter. They are valuable and loved in the kingdom that I am proclaiming. The only way of doing this that would impact first century Jewish society is by healing them, but far from this devaluing their disabled experience of life, this actually values that experience and brings them, with all that past experience and the prejudice and exclusion that came with it, into the kingdom for all to see.
And this is when we arrive at the second reading from Luke 14. The parable of the great banquet. I am sure you know the story well. A rich man decides to hold a banquet. He sends out the first invitations and all his friends say they will come. So he prepares the banquet and, when all is ready, sends out the second invitation. But at this point all his friends cry off. They have better things to do. So he sends his servants out to the streets and alleys and the highways and byways to bring in the blind, the lame and the poor, and in no time at all his house is full. It is full of people who represent every form of embodiment you can think of.
There are crutches and wheelchairs, white canes and guide dogs, hearing aids and sign language, learning disabilities, Autism, epilepsy and so many more forms of human embodiment. But importantly, there is no hint of these people being healed or changed as they cross the kingdom threshold. No, they enter the banquet as they are, and the banquet becomes a riot of human diversity and joy. Because the kingdom that Jesus has come to proclaim, is a place in which all of our human experiences, no matter how we judge them in this life, whether good or bad, able or disabled, functional or dysfunctional, are absorbed into the ‘otherness’ of God. The God who sees with no eyes, hears with no ears, moves with no legs, touches with no hands and thinks with no brain.
And this, says Jesus, is the kingdom. The kingdom of true liberation for all. Not liberation ‘from’ our human differences, but liberation ‘with’ our human differences into the presence of our God in whom all of these differences are found.
Many people think of the kingdom of heaven as a place or experience where we are all made the same. Wearing white and waving palm branches and transformed into some state of heavenly angelic perfection. What that does though is to deny the value of our human experience. It denies that there was ever anything in this earthly experience of any value. Nothing worth preserving. But I cannot believe that our God, who went to so much trouble to plant diversity at the heart of creation and our human experience, would then want to erase that diversity. That makes little sense. Surely the kingdom of heaven is God’s chance to create even greater diversity. diversity that reflects God’s image and creativity and nature and otherness with more intensity than we could ever imagine. And in that, experiences that in this life we label as disability and view as negative and pitiable, will become sparks of kingdom light. Brilliant manifestations of God within the diversity of heaven.
But our calling as the church now is to be a foretaste of the kingdom. To be a glimpse of the kingdom on earth. And that brings a challenge as to how we as the church view disability and disabled people and all those who we judge as bringing difference into the church and the world in the way we are embodied, the way we think, and the way we experience the world.
The world we live in is very hierarchical. It is very judgemental. We raise up and diminish, value and devalue people to a set of arbitrary criteria that has a significant impact on many disabled and neurodivergent people. We judge people by a set of ableist criteria that, just like in first century Palestine, pushes many people to the edge and excludes them from many aspects of society. But the kingdom that Jesus proclaims in word and action is very different. Far from being a kingdom of hierarchy and judgement, it is a kingdom of grace. Grace in which all people are equally valued, because we don’t generate our own value, but our value comes from us each being dearly loved and named children of God, no matter how we might be embodied and no matter what our life experience might be. That, says Jesus, is what the church should be if we are to really be a kingdom community that brings a glimpse of heaven down to earth today.
The challenge of the great banquet comes sharply into focus if we take ourselves there and spend a few moments absorbing its sights and sounds. It is a place of kingdom chaos. As I said, it is a riot of kingdom joy, full of unpredictability and spontaneity. It is a place where lavish grace abounds, and every person has a place with their name on it. It is a place that I feel is brought vividly to life in a mixed ability church that Natalie (my wife) and I go to from time to time, where people with and without learning disabilities worship God together with plenty of joy and enthusiasm.
The challenge is, how can we, as the church, reflect this diverse community of grace today? How can you here at St John’s Hampstead reflect this diverse community of grace today? How can you be a place where disabled people and people who are regarded as different by our judgemental society, can be liberated, not ‘from’ their disabilities and differences, but ‘with’ their disabilities and differences. Valued and loved for who they really are, a dearly loved child of God. I can’t give you the answer to this. I can only ask the question and lay out the challenge. What it means for you, here in 2024, is for you to discover.
Let us pray:
Lord God,
You call us as your church to bring a glimpse of your kingdom down to earth.
Your kingdom of grace where all are valued and loved,
Where all have a place and are welcome.
Inspire and challenge us as your church to breakdown the hierarchies of society,
And to welcome all people as equal partners of grace,
Regardless of our embodiment, background or experience.
May the great banquet come into sharp focus
In your church and in this place,
That your kingdom may come as your will is done amongst us;
Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen