HomeDecember 2001 |
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Conference on issues relating to disability and the Church
CONFERENCE PAPERS
26,
27, 28 February 1999
The February Conference on issues relating to disability and the Church raised one of the most important issues facing us at the present moment, that is, the full inclusion in the Church of people with disabilities. This issue has to do with the nature of the Church itself. We are told by St Paul that social and ethnic distinctions have no place in the family of the Church. He was speaking at the time about the new freedom that Christ had given to his followers whereby they were all equally brothers and sisters in the Lord, whatever the background, Jewish or Gentile, slave or free, male or female. On this principle we can extend his list to others who have felt a limited welcome in the past. People with disabilities, whether adult or children, together with their families, have rights to equal recognition and participation in the Church precisely because of their common human dignity and their Baptism in Christ. It is my hope that the papers presented at the Conference and included in this publication will find a wide readership and lead to a closer examination of the issues addressed. We pray that this scrutiny will in turn lead to a fuller and more joyful welcome to all, whatever the level of disability, with equal access to Churches, Church worship, education, social life and spiritual life. I congratulate the organisers of the Conference for their vision, steadfastness of purpose and their faith.
6 July 1999
OUR CONFERENCE LOGO
We thank Father Wayne Davis, parish priest of Wongan Hills, for providing us with a logo that captures in a brief glance the essence of the Conference. Fr
Davis was born in NSW and came to Perth to study cartography for a
mining company. While in Perth he entered the seminary and in 1993
he was ordained to the priesthood. Fr Wayne is a member of the Archdiocesan
Liturgy Committee and an accomplished calligrapher and artist.
Forward by Most Rev B J Hickey Archbishop of Perth One
in Christ Towards
a Theology of Inclusion Scriptural
interpretation and the Healing Narrative People
with Disabilities: Equal but different . A church lawyer's interpretation Routine
screening in pregnancy for Common Genetic Condition. Ethical
Moral Principles that underpin prioritising allocations of Church
resources Catholic
Perspectives on Disability Charity
Model - welfare dollar and/or church commitment Disability
discrimination and its implication for the church. Church's
Liturgical and Sacramental Commitment to people with disabilities
policy for the Archdiocese of Perth. Appendix
ONE IN CHRIST
Catholic
Church Office, Victoria Avenue, Perth WA 6000
INTRODUCTION
In 1981, the United Nations Year of Disabled Persons, the then Archbishop of Perth, Most Rev Sir Launcelot Goody, issued a Pastoral Statement of Concern about disability and the Church, called, The Gospel Call, Break Down the Barriers. This Statement was a brief but powerful affirmation of the rights of people with disabilities to full inclusion within the pastoral, spiritual and sacramental life of the Church. As the Jubilee Year 2000 approaches, a further Statement that endorses and extends the original document is timely as we look forward to the Year of Jubilee and the restoration of human rights and dignity as a necessary pre-requisite for beginning another millennium of Christian life. This Statement sets out pastoral practices and Sacramental Guidelines for implementation within the Archdiocese of Perth. THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION The unity for which Christ prayed is expressed vividly by St Paul in his image of the human body in which all the members need one another. "God put all the separate parts into the body on purpose. If all the parts were the same, how could it be a body! As it is, the parts are many, but the body is one. The eye cannot say to the hand - 'I do not need you' nor can the head say to the feet - 'I do not need you." "St Paul goes on to make this remarkable claim - "It is precisely the parts of the body that seem to be the weakest which are the indispensable ones." (1 Cor 1218-22). St Paul reminds us that what "seems to be" is not the reality. He
uses the image of the body to describe the Church, the Body of Christ,
in which Jesus is the Head and we are the members. In this image we see ourselves united with one another because of our special union with Jesus in our common Baptism. In this spiritual vision we acknowledge our need for one another and recognise our common dignity which is enhanced by our union with the Risen Christ. It is clear, therefore, that people with disabilities are fully included in this image of the Body of Christ and that furthermore, they are indispensable members. This theological understanding of the noble place of people with disabilities is in sharp contrast to the lived experience of many people with disabilities who are often considered to be a burden or are treated as the objects of charity. The Christian vision affirms everyone to be indispensable for the fullness of Christ. In a very real sense we are all disabled in one way or another. Incompleteness seems to be the norm for the human family. The whole or complete physical or moral human person does not exist except as an unattainable ideal. All of us struggle with our limitations. This awareness opens us to an acceptance of difference and an acknowledgment of the profound Christian truth, that in every human being there lies a central core of humanity whose nobility and eternal dignity has been proclaimed by the Incarnation and the Redemption. The Son of God has taken on our mortal flesh and given us immortality through his death and resurrection. Just
as medical science has disproved many myths and unworthy explanations
of disability, Christian theology can help make us conscious of our
shared humanity and our unity with and dependence on one another. The fundamental reason for the equality of all human beings is that we are made in the image and likeness of God. Since God in Jesus Christ entered the world of sin and suffering and shared our limitations, his abiding presence among us should make us never doubt the worth and dignity of every single human being from the first moment of conception. "When you give a banquet", said Jesus, "invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind." (Lk 1413). No-one is to be turned away from the banquet of life. CHURCH RESPONSE One of the earliest struggles in the Church's self-understanding was the acceptance of inclusiveness. The first issue was about ethnicity, especially whether Gentile converts should adopt the Jewish practices of circumcision and food taboos. St Paul, himself a Jew, strongly contended that faith in Jesus and the new life conferred by Baptism was sufficient to make one fully a member of the Body of Christ. "In Christ", he said, "there is no longer….Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus." (Gal 428) The catholicity of the Church is therefore evident in the full participation of people from all nations of the world in the life of the Church. The same catholicity is evident in the inclusion in the Church of all ranks of society, rich and poor, educated and unlettered. The same vision must also be true for people with disabilities. It is not sufficient simply to accept them. We must recognise their own gifts and talents for the building up of the Church. The response of the Church to people with disabilities has increased over the past twenty years or so. Their needs in terms of accommodation, education, employment, counselling, self-help, catechetical instruction and spiritual formation have given rise to a number of excellent associations that seek to provide support. They complement other community or government bodies. The Catholic groups are listed at the end of this document. The purpose of these groups is not to promote separateness, nor to centre only on "problems" but to raise awareness of the importance of people with disabilities as members of the Church, in the hope that at every level in the Church they and their families will be recognised, included and treated with dignity as persons made in the image of God and full members of the Body of Christ. The involvement of the Church is to extend beyond Church circles to influencing public policy, and in lobbying for appropriate services to be available in local communities. OBSTACLES TO INCLUSION Probably the most significant obstacle to inclusion are attitudes based on ignorance or lack of awareness. We have only recently emerged from a history where people with disabilities were considered unable to participate either in Church life or society, and were, therefore, hidden away in institutions or at home. Welcome
advances have been made in recent years in the awareness that employment
is a real possibility and a right for all people. So, too, has the
need for independence, social relationships, personal friendships,
artistic opportunities and educational advancement been recognised.
Spiritual growth, the special gift of the Church, is now being offered
to people with disabilities. Part of being Catholic means that everyone belongs to a parish somewhere. It is in the parish that most people find community and the nourishment of their faith. Increasing awareness by priests and parish personnel of the presence of parishioners with disabilities and their gifts will draw them more fully into the many aspects of parish life, its liturgy, its community life and its mission of evangelisation. Positive attitudes to disability and inclusion will remove most obstacles to inclusion and will almost always provide access to Church buildings, programmes and services. Positive attitudes will remove low priority in resource allocation and dispel the myth that lack of finances precludes action. Positive attitudes will maximise access to Catholic schooling and religious education. Positive attitudes will lead us to seek out advise and support that we may need to truly include people. The effects of exclusion are felt personally by parents and by those directly excluded. Being excluded makes them feel rejected, unwanted, unloved and frustrated in their attempts to change attitudes. Some in desperation have turned away from the Church. To those parents who have experienced rejection, we want to say how genuinely sorry we are and apologise for the times we refused them what was undeniably their right. CHURCH RESPONSE TO PARENTS Parents of children with disabilities encounter the Church when they meet their parish community, when they meet the parish clergy or the parish representatives, when they meet the school principal or any of the teachers, when they deal with Church agencies and Diocesan officials, and when they meet the Bishop or Archbishop. The people we meet expect a friendly welcome and a ready ear. They have a right to have their own particular situation with its unique challenges appreciated and their requests accommodated as far as possible, and in the best interests of their child. It is important to reflect on the unique vocation that parents have been given by God. They have been asked, on behalf of us all, to care for children with particular needs and to raise them to be full members of Christ's body, the Church, and to become participating members of society. They deserve our love and respect. They do not want pity. They want a recognition of the needs of their family from a caring Christian community. We need to understand that when anyone is excluded from parish or school, that person feels excluded and rejected by the Church. A particular problem has arisen today with the ready availability of abortion and the new methods of detecting genetic conditions in unborn babies. It is unfortunately true that parents are subject to pressure from doctors and well-meaning counsellors to terminate the life of a baby carrying a genetic condition. Without the support of a truly caring Christian community which affirms and in practical ways supports the dignity of such babies and promises to surround the parents and the family with genuine care and support, many a parent will succumb to the "counselling" and mistakenly turn to abortion. This situation is real. It not only challenges every Catholic, but calls on Christian doctors to be ready to help, even if it means standing up to the attitudes of many specialists in the medical profession. CATHOLIC EDUCATION The
Catholic School is an expression of the commitment of parents to provide
full Catholic education to their children, where Religious Education
is offered within the context of a curriculum that reflects Catholic
values and principles. It must therefore be a matter of policy that Catholic children with disabilities be accepted within the system of Catholic schools at the request of their parents. While problems might currently exist with regard to the availability of finance and trained personnel, especially in regard to high support needs, a clear policy and an attitude of inclusion will help overcome the resource difficulties. Enrolment policies need to take into account the integrity of the family, the location of the school, the funding needed for suitable facilities and appropriate staffing levels. The responsibility for enrolment is to be in the hands of the local school authorities. As we move towards full inclusion of children with disabilities in our schools, it will happen that a few children will not be able to attend the same Catholic school as their siblings. In such cases the family will be entitled to a "family rate" as if they were all at the same Catholic school. Units for children with high support needs are a most welcome development. This initiative indicates a strong commitment to inclusion in response to the wishes of parents, and the needs of the children. The role of individual teachers in the inclusion of children in Catholic schools is crucial. There is an ongoing need for in-service training of teachers in the understanding of disabilities, a knowledge of appropriate teaching methods, and the role of a school as a reflection of the local Catholic community. Parents of children with disabilities - like parents of other children - are an invaluable resource to assist teachers in the knowledge of their child's abilities. We must therefore joyfully accept children with disabilities, and lead the way in supporting their families. This matter of justice comes directly from our faith because we believe that we are all members of the Body of Christ. Children with disabilities who do not attend Catholic schools also have a need for catechetical instruction. This is primarily the responsibility of the local parish. While designated groups can offer valuable assistance, training and resources, the local parish is where the children belong and where the instruction should be offered or supported. Catechetical and faith formation programmes for adults is a further need. Excellent work is already being offered by Church groups. Because financial resources do not at present permit a rapid spread of these specialist services, it is all the more urgent for parishes to enter into close liaison with the groups working in this area to provide for the catechetical needs of adults in their parish. ACCESS While our thinking and attitudes must go "beyond the ramp" it is important that some basic areas be considered to ensure that people with disabilities are welcomed into the Body of Christ. All Church buildings, Parish halls, schools, agencies, organisations and Conference venues are to be accessible by wheelchairs, and to be provided with toilets and communication aids appropriate for people with a range of disabilities. People who are sensory impaired must be provided with opportunities for appropriate access and aids in order to participate in all Church gatherings, meetings, seminars and conferences. This includes the provision of public address systems, audio loops and visual aids as well as wheelchair access, and clearly specified accessible parking. A number of State and Commonwealth Acts of Parliament set down legal requirements regarding access in both new and existing buildings. The Western Australian Disability Services Act (1993) aims to ensure that people with disabilities have the same rights, opportunities and choices as other community members. The Commonwealth Disability Discrimination Act (1992) seeks to provide uniform protection against discrimination for all people with disabilities. Building Codes and Australian Standards on Access are in force throughout Australia. They apply as much to Church buildings as they do to any other building. SACRAMENTS The reception of the Sacraments takes place for most Catholics in the local parish community. The rights of people with disabilities to full participation in the local Church community includes ready access to the Sacraments. Parishes must therefore make every effort to know their parishioners with disabilities, to make them welcome and to make sure that the Church and their parish facilities are accessible by them. Because some priests or parish workers may be hesitant about the capacity of some people with disabilities to receive the Sacraments, it needs to be stated clearly that they are not to be denied the Sacraments, and that readiness to celebrate the Sacraments is to be measured by their capacity to understand, even if in some cases that awareness is minimal. BAPTISM Baptism, from which flows the new life of the Risen Christ, is the first step of full initiation into the Church, the Body of Christ. It presumes that other Sacraments will follow. Full incorporation into the Church should be evident in the preparation of the parents and godparents of a child, who are to be assured of the joy of the Church in welcoming another child of God. Those offering the course of preparation should be ready for any questions that might arise about the reception of future Sacraments. If adults with disabilities present themselves for Baptism, appropriate adaptations to the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults should be made, if required. CONFIRMATION Children with disabilities should be, as far as possible, prepared for the reception of Confirmation at the same age as others, and feel part of the group being confirmed. Separate Confirmation is possible in special situations, but it should be the exception rather than the rule. Children and adults preparing for Confirmation are to be instructed to the level of their capacity. Where that capacity is very limited the person should nevertheless be Confirmed. It is the tradition of Eastern Rite Catholic Churches that Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist are all conferred at the same ceremony in infancy. No person, therefore, should be refused Confirmation through lack of intellectual capacity. Children are to be admitted to Confirmation and other Sacraments when the parents present them, believing they are ready for whatever preparation is necessary. EUCHARIST As a general rule the Church requires at very least that a person needs to understand that the Consecrated Host is different from ordinary bread before receiving Holy Communion. In the case of children with severe intellectual disability, teachers will endeavour to impart whatever understanding is possible for the child. In some cases a delay may occur if understanding takes time. "Often these people cannot use words which express their understanding..........but they can show that they recognise the difference by their manner, the expression in their eyes, their gestures or the quality of their silence." 1 However, even if awareness seems to be absent, Holy Communion may not be refused because of the right to the Eucharist given at Baptism. "It is normal for the person with the disability to want to present themselves for Holy Communion if they have developed bonds with the Eucharistic community. That desire should be fostered and suitable arrangements made." 2 In
some cases it may be more appropriate for a family member or carer
to give Holy Communion to a person with disabilities. In these circumstances
the celebrant will make it easy for them to do so. A parent or other
family member may also be appointed Extraordinary or Special Eucharistic
Minister to a child that cannot leave home. PENANCE Strictly
speaking only those in serious sin are obliged to seek absolution
in the Rite of Reconciliation. Instruction of the penitents is to be in keeping with their capacity. Confessors should make sure that the setting is appropriate for wheelchairs, and that visual and auditory aids are also provided. The priest might have to adapt his style. If the person has difficulty communicating, the priest might use question and answer, particularly questions that invite a "yes" or "no" answer. It is possible for the deaf to use sign language or to write out their sins, or even to use a language interpreter of their choice who is thereby obliged by the seal of the confessional. ANOINTING THE SICK Anointing is to be reserved for those who are seriously ill. A disability is not, in itself, sufficient reason for anointing, unless the disability is also an illness. Anointing is to be given to people with disabilities on the same basis as anyone else, either in the hospital, the home or in a communal Church ceremony. The love of the Church for its sick members should be evident in the manner in which it is conferred. MARRIAGE Disability is in itself no bar to marriage if the physical, emotional and psychological capacity to enter into a permanent union is present. 1. Access to the Sacraments of Initiation and Reconciliation for Developmentally Disabled Persons for the Archdiocese of Chicago - Joseph Cardinal Bernadin, 1985. 2.
ibid Persons wishing to marry need to be free of any grave lack of discretion that might affect their judgement about the rights and duties they are to commit themselves to in marriage. Medical, intellectual or psychiatric issues relating to the capacity for marriage are to be examined with the help of experts in the field and wise counsellors. However, if the requirements for a valid marriage are present, then people with disabilities are not to be treated differently from anyone else. All persons not expressly prohibited by Canon Law can contract marriage. Emotional maturity and the ability to relate to others is an important basis for the permanent loving relationship of Christian marriage. The long term preparation for marriage, then, is the development in young people of ties of friendship and healthy social interaction. The liturgical celebration of the marriage indicates the love of Christ and the Church and the support of the Christian community for the couple. HOLY ORDERS A vocation to Holy Orders is a call heard first in the heart and then scrutinised by the Church until, with proper preparation, the Church publicly calls that person to the ordained ministry. Each of the three Orders, diaconate, priesthood and episcopate, is a call to exercise the ministry of word, sacrament and pastoral care. "The
existence of a physical disability is not considered in and of itself
as disqualifying a person from Holy Orders. However, candidates for
ordination must possess the necessary spiritual, physical, intellectual,
emotional, and psychological qualities and abilities to fulfil the
ministerial functions of the Order they receive. The proper bishop
or competent major superior makes the judgement that candidates are
suited for the ministry of the Church. Cases are to be decided on
an individual basis and in light of pastoral judgement and the opinions
of diocesan personnel and other experts involved with disability issues." LITURGY "The Sunday celebration of the Lord's Day and his Eucharist is at the heart of the Church's life." "Participation
in the communal celebration of the Sunday Eucharist is a testimony
of belonging and being faithful to Christ and to his Church." People with disabilities are to be encouraged to participate in various liturgical roles of reader, acolyte, server, Eucharistic minister or musician. The presence of people with disabilities in the liturgy is a powerful sign of the inclusion of all in the worship of God. Appropriate wheelchair access, microphone placements, seating arrangements, ramps, audio loops and visual aids are matters to be considered for full participation by all in the Sacred Liturgy. THE CHALLENGE FACING THE CHURCH Over the past twenty years there have been some positive changes in attitude in society and within the Church regarding people with disabilities. In
education, accommodation, advocacy, spirituality, participation in
the community and in Church life significant advances have been made. Despite all the advances, there is still a long way to go before the complete integration of people with disabilities is a reality in our Church communities. An Archdiocesan Disability Council, with broad representation, is to be set-up to maintain the momentum for change and to monitor progress in all areas of Church life. The Council will be a sign of hope for parents and people with disabilities and a sign of the Church's commitment to their dignity and full inclusion in Church life. The
approaching Year of the Great Jubilee 2000AD, is an ideal opportunity
for the whole Church to understand better the issues surrounding disability
and to affirm in practical ways the dignity of all members of the
Body of Christ. Most Rev B J Hickey,
Archbishop of Perth
Some participants near the Conference Candle
ORGANISATIONS WORKING WITH PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES IN PERTH ARCHDIOCESE
TOWARDS
A THEOLOGY OF INCLUSION
Everyone I know has been is talking about Andrea Bocelli. His voice adds something special to the quality of life of so many people. He is an opera singer, who is blind, and through wonderful technology and his own determination has shared his beautiful voice with millions. This is a gift that many of us do not have ourselves, but he and his producers have included us in the enjoyment of this wonderful gift. On the front page of the West Australian a week or so ago there appeared a headline and photograph; 'Wheelchairs and water - a mix to make waves'. This was a good news pictured account of 'members of the Western Australia Wheelchair Sports Association,' promoting their participation in the Rottnest channel swim. The article raised the question for me: how many of us would be fit enough to attempt such an arduous swim -- particularly in the bad weather conditions? There can be no doubt as to 'the value' of Bocelli's voice and, for a change, this newspaper account was distinguished by the absence of the usual demeaning 'explanations', that inevitably accompany evidence of the abilities of people with some disability. Too often such reports only isolate or exclude the people they attempt to recognise. Here was an image that invited interest, further inspection and consideration instead of the usual "just noticing" or dismissal. But these examples that I present as images of inclusion still exclude many of us who cannot either hear the full range of Bocelli's marvellous voice or see these magnificent specimens of male physique. Then came the news, the bad news, the news of exclusion. Glen Hoddell, the very controversial soccer coach of England, believes that people with disabilities are paying in this life for sins of a past life. Yes, he was sacked for such an outrageous opinion and the media rightly bellowed at the ignorance of such a judgment. But I found myself wondering how many other prejudices and judgmental attitudes about disability are held by most people and yet remain unexamined. Hoddell after all is a professed Christian, even if a rather odd version. Why didn't the central message of Christ urge him to reconsider this warped attitude? And how much do my unexamined prejudices remain unchallenged by my faith? For
us followers of Christ, the call to be included in all human affairs,
made by our sisters and brothers who find themselves excluded, is:
Have you met a perfect human? What would we find in such a person:
We
know that there isn't such a thing yet we still seem to spend most
of our lives either expecting to meet someone like this or judging
every one we do meet against these impossible criteria . Even Jesus
could not have passed such an appraisal. The Gospels tell us nothing
about how He looked, and don't you think they would have if He was
so amazingly beautiful? They show Him angry and short with people
and finally being executed because people didn't like the little they
understood of what of He communicated to them. So why is it that we
persist in measuring everyone against this idea of perfection?
I believe there is a clue here about why we exclude others whether it be consciously, for reasons like Hoddell's, or unconsciously because we fail to examine it .While this idea of perfect defines how we see or accept what we meet in others, it is founded on the expectation of sameness and worthiness that attends our attitude to all others far too often. It
appears typical of being human that we expect sameness in others while
we insist on being treated differently ourselves. We also find it
easy to judge the worth or value or merit of others while we vehemently
insist on a fair go for ourselves or for our lot. When others refuse
or fail just accidentally because of their gifts to fit these expectations
we exclude them from messing up our perfect picture of the way things
should St Paul gives us an image to explore this, an image he used to move that fractious mob, the Corinthian church, from its tendency to want to make everyone the same. This image is the body of Christ, in which all the different parts are needed to make up the whole. As Archbishop Hickey says in his Pastoral drawing on Paul's image: "This image is the basis of inclusion in which all members are necessary, and where even the ones that seem weakest are indispensable." The wholeness we seek, and we mistake for perfection, is really inclusion of all. So including everyone is not a matter of justice, but a matter of knowing what it means for us all to be human. Taking up Archbishop's theme, what does it mean then for us to say that it is 'the parts of the body that seem to be the weakest which are the indispensable ones'? [1 Cor 12: 18-22]. We need to explore more why those who are so easily rejected or sidelined in our society are indispensable to us. Including everyone is not only central to what is Christian, that is living the Gospel by following Christ who ultimately showed the love of God for us all as a broken body on the torturous cross. It is what we as humans seek to be. Archbishop has drawn our attention to the importance of our 'acceptance of difference' as part of the 'incompleteness' of our human condition. He reminds us how the Early Church tackled ethnic, gender and socio-economic status differences, and that this is the model for the universal scope of those included in salvation. What does such an inclusion of others "different" to us involve? It is neither a passive acceptance nor just a fixing up. Barbara Harris, in a wonderful article she wrote, and I hope you have all had a chance to see it shared with us, in her excellent reflection on 'inclusive theology', Jeanette and her experience: "There are those", she says, "who would wish that Jeanette could get well and be healed, which begs the question of whether indeed Jeanette is ill." Inclusion could just mean merely a whitewashing of difference, as, it could appear just to "heal" things. But is this sufficient to address the hurt and loss, to us all, of people being excluded from opportunities to contribute to and benefit from the social, educational and economic life that we all value? Again, in her paper, Barbara understands exclusion as being based on a set of unexamined presumptions about the value of only some human lives. She lists these as: existence, usefulness, perfection, and power. Of course many people, not only those with a disability, in our globalised economy of restricted job markets, are daily disposed of because they have outlived their usefulness for the endless options of consumption. Our political systems no longer protect the interests of all but actually turn to racial difference. Those who are disappointed with their lot are disempowered into blaming the even more powerless. But all the excluding tendencies of human behaviour are most harshly imposed on people whose disabilities are visible or classifiable. Their actual existence, as Archbishop put it, their right to be alive, is questioned and disposed of. Their usefulness is dismissed and remains unexplored. They are put aside as faulty and deemed powerless. Yet it was the truest meaning of "existence"," usefulness", "perfection", and "power" that God revealed by becoming human in Jesus. In the Incarnation we find God overturning the usual understanding of these criteria as insufficient for knowing what is truly human. They are also the very options that our understanding of the mystery of the Incarnation had to overcome in order to recognise just how God came among us - how God is our Emmanuel. Let's go back to the Scripture of that great event. In Luke's Gospel it tells us that the Angel Gabriel said to Mary: 'Look! You are to conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you must name him Jesus! [Luke 1:31] and John's Gospel proclaims: 'The Word became flesh and lived, perhaps an even more accurate translation "pitched his tent" among us' [ John 1.14 ] This is profoundly challenging good news. No matter how many times we've heard it, it still has something to say to us. God did not take any shortcuts in becoming human in Jesus Christ. The early Church explored a number of options in order to understand and define the truth that God became human, and what that tells us about ourselves as human. Let's review these options, represented by these same categories, "usefulness", "perfection", "power" and "existence" : The USEFULNESS option is the economic rationalist choice. Don't follow the inefficient and rather "iffy" course of being born human, instead, any self-respecting God would choose to possess divinely someone who was already proven, an already living holy person, like John the Baptist, who would be guaranteed to draw the attention of people because of his holiness . This was called Adoptionism. At the Baptism in the Jordan, God chose Jesus to be come divine. The holy man John passed on his mantle to Jesus, and the Incarnation occurred when God proclaimed from the heavens: 'This is my beloved son'. This option was rejected by the Church . This option only gives us a model of God as taking the safe, proven option - not risk taking or committed to becoming human, but God as 'Mr Right Stuff'. PERFECTION - In this option Jesus is chosen by God to save us because he is perfect in all things, as proved in the temptations Jesus faced in the desert, in the Garden of Gethsemane, and in the suffering he endured on the cross. Since Jesus passed the tests he displayed a worthiness to represent the opposite of our sinfulness and limitations. This heresy of perfection has for its model a God as the creator of only the successful and perfect .Instead, God became human to save us even though we can never be worthy, and suffered even an unjust death to save us. POWER
- This was the option that God would choose only a powerful and famous
person from Rome (or anywhere else more significant than the backwater
that Palestine was in the 1st century). Instead, from His birth onwards
Jesus threatened the powerful. The massacre of the innocents is evidence
of this. It is Herod's revenge for being overlooked as a candidate
for Messiah. As Judas -- the character at least -- jibes in Jesus
Christ Superstar - Why did not God choose someone more marketable
by 'mass communication', in a more significant time and more significant
place? The Gospel records repeatedly the offence to the powerful that
Jesus was . For example, the disappointment of the crowd when he refuses
to be made king by them. In this option the model of God is elitist
and power-oriented, maintaining control at all costs, monopolistic,
competitive, exclusive, but not much on earth. EXISTENCE - God in Jesus Christ takes on the risk of the human condition by being formed in utero, with all the possibility and dangers that involves -
This is not a Superman version of God who visits us in a capsule armed with all the powers of another planet. This is not the passing visit of royalty, who comes to be recognised, honoured and feted, leaving us when the important events are over. The model of God here is one who truly commits to ALL of our human life and conditions, every part without any exception for the sake of safety, and thereby reveals that our humanity is good enough for God. When the early Church was struggling to understand which of these options most adequately described the mystery of the Incarnation, one of its geniuses, St Athanasius, taught that the true significance of the Incarnation was that by becoming human in utero God showed us what is truly human by risking all the possibilities of human possibility . Athanasius puts it this way: 'He took to himself a body, a human body even as our own. Nor did he will merely to become embodied or merely to appear, had that been so, he could have revealed his divine majesty in some other and better way. No, he took our body…. Thus, taking a body like our own, because all our bodies were liable to the corruption of death, he surrendered his body to death instead of all, and offered it to the Father.' [De Incarnatione. 8] God could have revealed to us, as Athanasius puts it, "in some other and better way" the good news of our salvation, but instead, He became human like us. So what it means to be human, as revealed in the Incarnation, is not perfection, but wholeness that is the wholeness of all the possibilities of human possibility . We become that wholeness from becoming whole together in the whole Body of Christ. Wholeness not perfection is the promise of God. The wholeness of the fullness of humanity in Christ comes from the limitations of each of our different and incomplete experiences of being human coming together, rather than some individualistic perfection of MY-self. The first to hear the Good News There is another reason why "the parts of the body that seem to be the weakest are the indispensable ones". This comes from the other beginning recorded in the Gospel. We've heard it tonight already. The opening of Jesus's Ministry in Galilee, His announcement of the Kingdom of God. 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring the good news to the afflicted. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives, sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim a year of favour from the Lord.' [Luke 4:18-19 (Is 61: 1-2)] We tend to moralise this statement. It becomes the program for how to follow Christ, a check-list for good Christians. That way we miss the point of it. Jesus' announcement of the beginning of his ministry tells us that the first to hear, to take in, to be open to the Good News of the Kingdom of God are not the religious people, the worthy ones who know their theology, the holy ones at their prayer. It is "the afflicted" or "the poor" that are the first to hear the Good News. They are not cited as an example of what the Kingdom of God will do for people in need, but as the first 'hearers of the word', the 'livers of the message,' the earliest apostles. They are in the privileged position of revealing the truth of God's message about becoming human to us all. This is what Jesus' miracles or signs are about. In healing the blind, the mute, the mentally impaired, the diseased, the lame, those with infectious diseases, Jesus pointed to how the fullness of humanity in the Kingdom was already being anticipated. As they are restored to full membership in the Jewish community, the whole comes closer to being whole. This Jubilee promise of right ordering is not a sweeping away of all that is now, but its fulfilment in God. The Jubilee reveals that the Kingdom of God is not "pie-in-the sky" or an impossible utopia, but can be experienced now. In their affliction those who have been excluded so often are the first to realise the reality of the Kingdom, of being included, which is already calling us all to wholeness here and now. They proclaim it to us. This is in contrast to the ignorance that Barbara describes in her paper, where she says: 'We reject or do not welcome people with disabilities in our worshipping, and learning communities because we do not understand how they function in the Body of Christ.' This is the particular offence of the man healed of his blindness by Jesus in John's Gospel. The seeing authorities cannot recognise -- they look without seeing and listen without hearing -- they cannot recognise what had happened to him. They are closed to him, they are closed to him bearing the Good News. The text goes on: 'The man replied, "That is just what is so amazing! You don't know where he comes from and he has opened my eyes! We know that God doesn't listen to sinners, but God does listen to people who are devout and do his will. Ever since the world began it is unheard of for anyone to open the eyes of someone born blind; if this man were not from God, he wouldn't have been able to do anything." They retorted, "Are you trying to teach us, and you are sinner through and through ever since you were born!" And they rejected him.' [John 9: 30-34] Exclusion is fundamentally both a Christological and Trinitarian error or a heresy. Trinitarian because it is difference that makes up the oneness of God. God is not like a single monarch whose destiny for us is to be absorbed into sameness - God is only made known to us through the difference that the three persons in one God reveal to us. Only in God, in the union God promises in God's Kingdom, does this diversity, we experience as limitation and difference now, reflect the wholeness for which we were destined from the Creation. This is why we reflect the Trinitarian community of God in our communities only when we carefully include all the possibilities of human possibility.. Our need for sameness in others denies us access to what our differences reveal about what is truly human Including everyone is the only way we can come to the fullest understanding of what it means to be human. But at what cost to us? The cost is to recognise that we will never really know what it means to be human until we welcome and share with people whose experience of being human is different to mine. Just declaring that this is the most human way to be, the most Christian way to be to each other is not enough. Like the workers in the vineyard [Matthew 20: 1-16] we might be surprised to find that those who seem to do less or have less to offer are as valued as I am. We might then find that for all to be included I need not receive less, even though I might have expected more -- that in the Kingdom of God there is more than enough for all. We need constantly to check ourselves, our works, our services and our facilities for how much we are missing out by not including those with different human gifts and disabilities. Otherwise we will continue to mistake the perfect for the whole. Otherwise we will continue to impoverish our understanding of the whole which is truly human. Otherwise we will not hear the Good News of God's coming among us from those to whom it is first revealed. Particular people and experiences they gave me come to mind. I am sure you have similar experiences. They have called me beyond my own limitations to see the fullness of life, to see our wholeness in the Body of Christ, that the lives of people different to me have invited me to know more about:
The theatre company with actors who are blind, deaf, intellectually impaired, physically disabled " performing Ben Johnson's play Volpone. The performance had hardly progressed before I ceased noticing who the actors were and was absorbed by the characters they brilliantly created. I leave you to recall when your humanness has been so enriched by those who are different to you.
Q Inclusiveness - in so much as we who have a disability feel in a sense pushed into doing what is acceptable even if it is quite often beyond our means. Now that type of thing -- inclusiveness, that you a person has a sense of being obligated to reach a higher standard than the average person. How does that fit in with inclusiveness and the theology of the church? A
I'm not sure I can answer it. Except to say I want to thank you
for that first of all, because it is important in my experience
too that people who have been excluded for whatever reason, when
they do get an opportunity to be included, they are expected to
earn that in a sense, don't they? To perform more brilliantly than
any I
hope that helps. It won't fix up anything, though.
SCRIPTURAL
INTERPRETATION AND THE HEALING NARRATIVE
In the first story of creation in the book of Genesis, we learn that: God said, "Let us make humankind in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves…." God created humankind in the image of Godself, in the image of God humankind was created, male and female God created them. (Genesis 1:26-27). In this wonderful verse the ancient writers tell us that we are not freaks of nature but created as persons valued, loved and related to our God intimately. At one time we were whole and in harmony with Godself, with God's creation, with self, and with the "other". Male and female was also totally accepted as the component of the whole person. At some point in this "whole" and "harmonious" relationship, humankind lost its innocence. Humankind sinned, and with that sinning, created distortion, brokenness, loss of vision and sight and a loss of a sense of direction. The brokenness centred on the breakdown of the relationship between self and God, between self and self, between self and other, and between self and creation. We had all become disabled. We had to re-focus and start on a journey of recovery, re-discovery and reconciliation with our God. We wanted and needed to re-establish this lost relationship because we somehow sensed that this was the only way back to happiness, wholeness and integration, this was where we belonged. We were all disabled, and our journey now was towards re-establishing wholeness, harmony and regaining our vision. Because we had experienced wholeness, we knew what we had lost and the struggle to possess it again became paramount. However, the path that we sometimes journeyed on offered easy short-cuts and we became lost or side-tracked. Yet despite our recalcitrance, God did not change the way God loved us. We were created in the image and likeness of God, we had been loved into being, and our God did not abandon us. What in fact became even clearer was that God was now a constant companion; walking with us, collaborating with us, freeing us, communicating with us especially through those chosen men and women during those dark and frightening times when human strength seemed so fragile. So close did our God want to come to us that this God became enfleshed; this God took on our human disabilities and re-established wholeness and harmony. Our God sent his son Jesus, and in that sending embued all humanity with Godly dignity. We, then, BECAUSE OF JESUS, have the spark of the DIVINE. Jesus reveals the deepest truth about us. He enfleshes what God wants to be for us and what God wants us to be. Jesus is God in our language, in our terms, in our human situation. The mission of Jesus is ultimately about the humanisation of human beings, bringing us all into union with Himself, and through Him to relationship with the Father and the Spirit. Jesus demonstrates what true humanity is all about, and he does this in a world in which men and women are all too often dehumanised. Tina Beattie, in her article, "The Perfect Gift", says that the astonishing mystery of God's gift to us is life itself: "I am the gift, because I only exist through God's gracious decision to bring me into being. We come into this world as the gift of life which flutters and gasps on the brink of extinction, which humankind has a million imaginative ways of taking away but no way of giving. To experience myself is to experience God's giving. But if I am the gift, then my vocation is simply to be the person that I am, to live as God's gift to the world ". Perhaps this is what Iraneus meant when he said that "the glory of God is a person fully alive". Being fully alive though does not mean functionality. It means "BEING". It means the blossoming and flourishing of every person. However, it was not enough that God gives us ourself in love but that we also receive God's gift to the world in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus is not just a gift that is given to some, Jesus is a gift freely given to all. For the Church fathers, the gift of Jesus meant the healing of the ancient rift between Word and flesh, God and humanity, spirit and nature. God has taken flesh to redeem the whole of creation. And Beattie argues that while we may think that we, in our modern western culture have set aside all the dualisms of the ancient world (spirit - matter, body - soul), we focus even more today on our bodies which have to some extent become the centre of all our "greatest anxieties, inadequacies and fears." She says that while we claim to celebrate the body, we in fact create a culture where loathing of the human body is rampant because of the image of the "ideal/perfect" body that is created by a few. Our culture believes that the suffering body is the disposable body, because "we are less and less able to accept the realities of conception, birth, old age and death that mark out our bodily existence." It is, as Pope John Paul II calls it, a "culture of death". How does all this lead to the healing stories in the New Testament? I have chosen three healing stories that I hope will highlight some of the things that I have already talked about earlier on. Jesus' healing did not depend on the person's restored functionality or perfect body, but on the person him/herself. We will see that in each of these stories the focus is not so much on the person healed as on Jesus. And because of Jesus we see a metanoia or what we understand as a total change of heart, a change of attitude and of the perspective of the person healed and sometimes even a change of attitude of the community. This is the healing that takes place. Jesus' focus is on the importance of the person and the necessity that ALL are included in the community. There is no bar to discipleship and it is the disabling attitude of EXCLUSIVITY that inflicts real blindness, real sickness and real deafness on those who concentrate on the visible disability. The first story we are going to look at is Luke 17 : 11-19 "Now it happened that on the way to Jerusalem He was travelling in the borderlands of Samaria and Galilee. As He entered one of the villages ten men suffering from a virulent skin disease came to meet Him. They stood some way off and called to Him, ' Jesus, Master, take pity on us.' When He saw them He said, 'Go and show yourselves to the priests.' Now as they were going away, they were cleansed. Finding himself cured, one of them turned back praising God at the top of his voice and threw himself prostrate at the feet of Jesus and thanked Him. The man was a Samaritan. This led Jesus to say, 'Were not all ten made clean? The other nine, where are they? It seems that no one has come back to give praise to God except this foreigner.' And He said to the man, 'Stand up, and go on your way. Your faith has saved you.' Right at the beginning of the story of the ten lepers, we have the Lukan journey motif. We have a Jesus who is on the peripheries both geographically (the borders between Galilee and Samaria) and socially: He has touched the socially unclean in earlier parts of this Gospel; He has eaten with sinners, and He has dared to question the Establishment. The intimations of exclusion are strong, not only for the Samaritans but also for Jesus. The Samaritans, though of Jewish origins, were not accepted as "real" Jews, they were seen to be somehow "tainted" by their assimilation into the "pagan" culture where they had taken refuge during one of their exiles. Their Judaism was not "kosher". They were "unholy". They had broken the accepted boundaries that had been set to distinguish them. Jesus goes on to one of the villages (we are not told whether it is a Samaritan village) but the assumption is that it is not. Nine of the lepers are not foreigners, one is a Samaritan and perhaps adds emphasis to where they are situated. It is interesting that he is INCLUDED in this the group. The lepers observe the Law. They "stand away off " and "call" to Jesus. They do not risk "polluting" him. They do not call for a "cure". Their plea is for compassion, mercy, pity, meaning in their experience of sickness. Their meeting with Jesus is an interchange, a meeting of heart, of concern, of compassion which they have not seemingly experienced for a long time. On their way to the priest, the Samaritan recognises what has happened to him. His immediate response is to go back to the source of healing and we speculate somewhat that this man was intimately in touch with his inner self. His meeting with Jesus opens him up to a deeper understanding of what has happened for him. Not only is he cured but he is healed as well. There is, in his action an enormous gratitude, joy, openness, understanding of what had been given to him. He, in fact, undergoes a metanoia, a change of heart, a change of life, a change of direction, and he returns to the giver of the gift. The nine others are not condemned, but the question is asked: all nine received the same gift., where are they? The journey is ongoing and we realise that some of us take a little more time to read the sign-posts along the way. Luke is a great advocate of the theme of the recognition of the divine visitation and this is not dependent on miracle or cure but in healing and in recognition of the kingdom of God in the daily occurrences of life. And this is what had happened for the Samaritan. John Pilch makes the point that while modern society looks for cures or pills to kill the germ, remove the cancer or provide a new limb, biblical people above all looked for meaning in their experience of sickness, and it is this that is known as healing." In other words," says Pilch, "healing takes place always for all people in all cultures; all people ultimately come up with some meaning in life no matter what their condition and no matter what happens." Leprosy , as it was formally known at this time for these men -- in the newer translations we have a "virulent skin disease", was a disease that excluded and branded the person as a "pollutant" not as a "contagion". Leprosy, or this virulent skin disease, wasn't "catchy"; it was "soiling"; it made one "unclean". The lepers were not quarantined from their society, they were excluded from their life-giving communities because they were seen to be a threat to holiness, they polluted the camp; and the community and its members were meant to be holy. What Jesus does then, is restore meaning to their life. The illness reality that Jesus heals or transforms is the notion of impurity/uncleanness and a sense of not finding mercy/compassion/pity in the community and its effects on membership in that 'holy' community (those who needed these gifts and those who needed to GIVE these gifts). Jesus' actions then, result in establishing a new self-understanding: (from unclean to clean, from undeserving of compassion to finding mercy/pity/compassion). The threat to holiness comes not from outside the community but from within, from the unwillingness to include all people, those who belong. The second story is Matthew 9: 18-26 -- the cure of the woman with the haemorrhage, the official's daughter raised to life. "While
He was speaking to them, suddenly one of the officials came up who
bowed low in front of Him and said, 'My daughter has just died, but
come and lay Your hand on her, and her life will be saved.' Jesus
rose, and with His disciples followed him. Then suddenly from behind
Him came a woman who had been suffering from a haemorrhage for twelve
years, and she touched the fringe of his cloak, for she was thinking,
'If only I can touch His cloak I shall be saved.' Jesus turned round
and saw her and He said to her, 'Courage, my daughter, your faith
has saved you.' And from that moment the woman was saved. When Jesus
reached the official's house and saw the flute players with the crowd
making a commotion, He said, 'Get out of here. The little girl is
not dead. She is asleep.' And they ridiculed Him. But when the people
had been turned out, He went inside and took her by the hand, and
she stood up. And the news of this spread all round the country side." It is on the way to the official's house that we meet the woman. She has had a haemorrhage for 12 years. Perhaps she has heard of where Jesus is going and knows that she too can "cash-in" on the healing. She tries for a silent invasion; fearing the attitudes and denigration of her community. She too is "unclean". She knows too that what she's doing goes against the religious taboos and these religious taboos have kept her on the periphery of her community. She has been alienated and excluded for 12 years. Her touching of the fringes of his cloak opens a new life for her, and the internal healing that she experiences is indicative of a deeper healing. She is brought into Jesus' family, and calling her "my daughter" he makes her INCLUSION public. Our focus is again moved to the arrival of Jesus at the official's house where the commotion and wailing for the dead girl is well and truly in progress. Jesus tells the people that the girl is not dead and, of course, He is laughed at. The interesting thing about this story is that the child is a girl and not the more valued son. Girls were not seen to be economically viable. They moved out of the family, they needed a dowry, and they didn't produce children for their own family but for the family of their husband. In fact, she becomes the property of the husband. The father's deep love for the child is highlighted and is mirrored in Jesus' wonderful gentleness with her. Those who laughed are excluded from the interaction between Jesus and the child. Jesus rejects the attitude of ridicule, touches the "untouchable" and restores the beloved daughter to her father. The two stories dove-tail in terms of the love of the father that is replicated in each. In the first, Jesus speaks as father to the woman who is healed and emphasises her kinship with Him by the words "my daughter", and secondly, the official whose beloved daughter is restored to his household. This re-inclusion of both women into a loving community is the good news that is then spread far and wide. Our third and final story is John 9: 1-41. "As He went along, He saw a man who had been blind from birth. His disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who sinned? This man or his parents, that he should have been born blind?' 'Neither he nor his parents sinned,' Jesus answered. 'He was born blind, so that the works of God might be revealed in him. As long as day lasts we must carry out the work of the One who sent me. The night will soon be here when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.' Having said this, He spat on the ground, made a paste with the spittle, put this over the eyes of the blind man, said to him, 'Go and wash in the pool of Siloam.' The name means 'one who has been sent'. So he went off and washed and came back able to see. His neighbours and the people who used to see him before -- for he was a beggar -- said, 'Isn't this the man who used to sit and beg?' And some said, 'Yes, it is the same one,' And others said, 'No, but he looks just like him.' The man himself said, 'Yes, I am the one.' So they said to him, 'Then how is it that your eyes are opened?' He answered, 'The man called Jesus made a paste, daubed my eyes with it, and said to me 'Go off and wash at Siloam,' so I went, and when I washed I gained my sight.' They asked, 'Where is He?' He answered, 'I don't know.' They brought the man to the Pharisees, the man who had been blind. It had been a Sabbath day when Jesus made the paste and opened the man's eyes. So when the Pharisees asked him how he had gained his sight, he said, 'He put a paste on my eyes, and I washed, and I can see.' And some of the Pharisees said, 'That man can not be from God. He does not keep the Sabbath.' And others said, 'How can a sinner produce signs like this?' And there was division amongst them. So they spoke to the blind man again. 'What have you to say about Him yourself now that he has opened your eyes?' The man answered, "He is a prophet." However the Jews would not believe that the man had been blind without first sending for the parents of the man who had gained his sight and asking them, 'Is this man really the son of yours who you say was born blind, and if so, how is it that he is now able to see?' His parents answered, 'We know he is our son and we know that he was born blind, but how he can see we don't know, nor who opened his eyes. Ask him. He is old enough -- let him speak for himself.' His parents spoke like this out of fear for the Jews who had already agreed to ban from the synagogue any one who should acknowledge Jesus as the Christ, and this was why his parents said, 'He is old enough. Ask him' So the Jews sent for the man again and said to him, 'Give glory to God. We are satisfied that this man is a sinner.' The man answered, 'Whether he is a sinner, I don't know. All I know is that I was blind and now I see.' They said to him, 'What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes? He replied, 'I have told you once and you wouldn't listen. Why do you want to hear it all again? Do you want to become his disciples yourselves?' At this they hurled abuse at him. 'It is you who are his disciple. We are the disciples of Moses. We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this man, we don't know where he comes from.' And the man replied, 'That is just what is so amazing. You don't know where he comes from, and he has opened my eyes. We know that God doesn't listen to sinners, but God does listen to men who are devout and do His will. Ever since the world began, it is unheard of for any one to open the eyes of a man who was born blind. If this man were not from God, he wouldn't have been able to do anything.' They retorted, 'Are you trying to teach us, and you a sinner through and through ever since you were born?' And they ejected him. Jesus
heard they had ejected him and when He found him He said to him, 'Do
you believe in the Son of Man?' 'Sir,' the man replied, 'tell me who
He is so that I may believe in Him.' Jesus said, 'You have seen Him.
He is speaking to you.' The man said, 'Lord, I believe,' and worshipped
Him. " This in fact becomes the answer for all of us. We were born with our separate disabilities so that the works of God can be made plain in us too. A sobering thought. Jesus makes it clear that he and the man are "sent" to carry out the work of God even though in vastly different ways. Before any healing can take place though, Jesus must cure the disciples of their diseased theology. Their understanding of a God whose retribution visits the innocent. The God whom Jesus reveals is not vengeful but compassionate. Whose healing re-shapes and spiritually renews by a change of vision. The image of Jesus as "the light of the world" highlights the fact that Jesus is the one who offers real sight, and as we shall see in this story, not only for those who are physically blind but ALL blindness. Those particularly in this story who THINK that they can see are deemed blind by Jesus. The physical healing seems easy when compared to the attempt to heal the religious community's theology. Their understanding of God as rigid and alien to compassion is seen in their ceaseless interrogation and argumentation. Interestingly, Jesus can reverse the physical ailment but not the human determination to reject reality. Jesus will not interfere with their freedom. The frustrating thing about this story is that we WANT the Pharisees to SEE, we want the Pharisees to LOOK harder, but they stay continuously stubborn and hardened in their attitude. The Sabbath is used as an excuse to condemn Jesus for putting them into a quandary, for attempting to change their understanding of the way their God and their world ought to work, and they retaliate and they speak of Jesus as a sinner and a liar. The parents too are asked to condemn Jesus as a liar, but while they too fear exclusion and expulsion from the temple, they choose not to answer and turn the question back to their son -- "He's old enough." The man's experience of Jesus as one who could not perform the works that he does unless he was from God stands in stark contrast with the Pharisees' continuous attempts to find any excuse to condemn him. They show themselves to be both BLIND and DEAF, and this also causes them to drive out the man again, to exclude him {as they excluded Jesus} because now he sees much more clearly than they do. We are alerted to the fact that though the man has journeyed much further and much more quickly than the Pharisees the man cannot yet SEE clearly and the final and most important invitation to sightedness and inclusion comes from Jesus. It is not a matter of physical disability but a matter of responding to the call of Jesus. The response "Lord I believe" makes the man a disciple and Jesus' words confirms what we have learnt throughout this event: "I
have come into this world so that those without sight may see and
those with sight turn blind". The
Pharisees say, " we are not blind, surely? These
stories show us ways "to embody life for one another, and to
strive for a world where every human being brought to life through
the breath of God finds welcome and shelter in the human family, to
be God's gift to the world." (Beattie) QUESTIONS Q. That story, especially the third one from John, I've read it many times and I've tried to understand it. Now I see that for people with disabilities, whether they are deaf or blind or whatever, am I reading it correctly that it is a choice for people like us who have to decide whether to follow the teachings or the beliefs of the authorities, which happen to be in this case the Pharisees, or to learn to come into communion or come into fellowship with Jesus Christ and to try to ignore the condemnation or alienation from the world. Is that a correct understanding of the Gospel? A.
I think certainly in the Gospel story Jesus points out the Pharisees
in this particular case are not seeing as they ought to be seeing
and as certainly we follow the Gospel in this and that we are not
alienated or excluded from the community according to the Gospel.
I am not exactly sure in terms of Church. I think we all try and work;
all of us try and see, if you like, what the Gospel teaches us. Because
of our disabilities, I think, sometimes we don't see properly and
perhaps we, both as individuals and CHURCH make mistakes, and make
decisions that are not quite in keeping with what the Gospels tell
us.
"GLUED TOGETHER" Luke
Macrae and Michele Degara "Sticking
and working together" |
