Faith and Disability

Today, I gave the sermon—or what we call “the Message” at our little church. A friend had asked me to talk about faith and disability, a big assignment, so I struggled to say what I wanted to say. I wrote four versions. Below is the one I delivered. It’s the fourth one. (It’s good I didn’t have any more time. I would have written a fifth.)

On the bulletin’s front was this quotation from Roland Merullo’s Breakfast with Buddha:

“You ask a certain question again and again, in a sincere fashion, and the answer appears. But, in my experience, at least, that answer arrives according to its own mysterious celestial timing, and often in disguise. And it comes in a way you're not prepared for, or don't want, or can't at first, accept.” 

We began the service with the 23rdPsalm , a favorite. Though I usually use a more progressive Bible, this time I chose the King James version for its lyricism and familiarity.

I chose a scripture about Jesus and a disabled man (John 5: 2-9, 14), so people heard this before my talk. Here it is:

My name is Mary. I’m a member of this church and am speaking today instead of our usual Pastor Ann, because Ann is on a well-deserved vacation, and I’m not.

I’d like to thank all the people who have been involved with today’s service: our music minister (who is back from camp!), the liturgist, the Scripture reader (who told me years ago that if anything’s worth saying it can be said in 10 minutes: this makes me nervous), the person who so thoughtfully gave the children’s sermon, the person who volunteered to do the sermon because Ann was going on vacation and then went on vacation himself, and the person who nudged me. So if this goes too long, you can blame her.

The first time I gave a sermon was in Raleigh, NC, when I was a senior in college at Pullen Memorial Baptist Church (the large Southern Baptist church where I grew up) . The minister had asked me and two others to talk about doubt and faith on the Sunday after Christmas. I talked about doubt, and then I fainted, so I never talked about faith. Later I realized that this fainting episode was a symptom of my first brain tumor. I hope not to faint today.

I have a few things to say about faith and disability, and I want to begin by saying that I am speaking for myself, not for anyone else with a disability.

I also want you to know that I process things I do not understand or things that are difficult for me through my writing, so this morning I’m taking you through that process as far as I’ve gone. I am not making an argument. I am thinking aloud. Therefore, I will not end where I’ve begun. I hope you won’t either.

I chose this passage about Jesus healing the disabled man because I want to talk about disability and faith. Also, the story does not make sense to me, and I thought it might be helpful to do some research and some thinking about it.

Right now, I’m thinking that this story is really about change and a faith that calls us through terrific loss and uncertainty to more faithful lives. But I didn’t start there, so I’ll take your through my process.

At first, the story just made me angry. To be honest, it still does.

When I chose this passage, the story seemed incompatible with Jesus’s wisdom elsewhere, my experience with disabilities, and medical reality. Jesus goes to a place of disabled people, chooses one whiny guy, and heals him, presumably leaving the rest of the pitiful group behind.

I know a lot of people with disabilities, and we’re mostly a strong group. Though people pity us sometimes, we’re not pitiful. If you knew her, think of Lori Pearson, who had Cerebral Palsy and attended this church for the decade before her death. Though she couldn’t communicate with language, she taught all of us about joy and pain. And faith. Such a spirit! I learned a lot from Lori and others experiencing disabilities and disease. They don’t sit around a pool whining, and neither do I. Learning from Lori and others with disabilities and disease has been one of the gifts of my brain tumors. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The second problem I had with the story is the part about the whiny guy lying on his mat for 38 years. I know the Biblical writers weren’t as particular about counting years precisely as our culture is, but 38 years meant a long time. As someone who spent almost a month in the hospital after brain surgery, I can tell you that muscles atrophy when they’re not used. This whiny guy couldn’t just pick up his mat and walk, though some would tell us that was part of the miracle.

The part of the story that most offended me is Jesus’s comment in the temple to the healed whiny man, “Go and sin no more or something worse will happen to you.” If this implies that the disabilities are a result of sin, that just makes me mad. [At this point, a woman in the congregation hollered out, “Yeah!” and I pointed out that this is like and “Amen” in a Southern church.] My first brain tumor was diagnosed when I was 43 years old, but doctors think I was born with it. I’m pretty sure I didn’t sin in utero, and I’m pretty sure my parents didn’t sin more than others.

The part of the story that I struggle most with, however, is the part that suggests the whiny man has moved to a life like the one he might have lived before disabilities, like nothing ever happened.

It seems to me that any change, for better or for worse, changes us—perhaps for better and for worse. Though you may not have had brain tumors, you’ve probably experienced significant change: marriage or divorce, coming out as a gay person, the birth or death of someone you love, drinking or not drinking alcohol, being in an accident, experiencing disease and disability and so forth. We are not the same as we were.

Next, because I couldn’t make sense of the story on my own, I read some other sermons and some information about disability in the first century.

I hoped the research would explain something about the historical context or something in the translation that would explain the story. That didn’t happen. The sermons looked at the story as metaphor, arguing that the story’s message is to stop whining, get off your duff, and do something. Though this is a good idea, these sermons didn’t mention disability.

This metaphorical reading didn’t satisfy me either. After all, the story is not just about a whiny, lazy man, but a disabled whiny lazy man. And this paradigm, the belief that disabled people could get up and walk if they weren’t so lazy and sinful, is too much a part of our culture for me to dismiss. I remember a woman with MS telling me that her family has rejected her as a sinner, and I remember a penny-loafered man on the bus telling a disabled woman, “You are the way you are because you’re evil.” [Several people gasped audibly at this. It’s true. I don’t think people who are not yet disabled realize the extent of this thinking in our culture.] This association between sin and disability pervades our culture.

At an impasse about understanding this story, I did what I often do when I’m struggling: I went to sleep.

In my dreams, I kept hearing the line from Jesus: “I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly.” As I woke, I realized the part of the story that bothers me most is the pedantic and self-righteous Jesus who is not consistent with the respectful and loving Jesus I know throughout the New Testament.

That Jesus is the Jesus who changes us and assures us that God’s love endures. I thought, “If I remove my own assumptions about this story, perhaps that’s the Jesus who is here. Perhaps he hasn’t told this whiny man that his disabilities are a result of his sins, but that the man has changed physically, and this requires spiritual change.”

That’s true of everyone I know who has gone through significant change: we change. We deepen. We become more complex. The change is both good and bad. It gives us the opportunity to live a new life, not necessarily better or worse, but different. In this newness, we will grieve our lost lives and celebrate the gifts of our new lives. Because whatever our experience has been, we have lost elements of our lives and perhaps ourselves just as we have found gifts in the world and in ourselves in these times of change.

And for now, this way of thinking about the story, of thinking about disease and other changes as paths to a new life, is more consistent with my experience and to my understanding of Jesus and God. No, I don’t think I was given these tumors for a reason, but they came nonetheless. I was given this one precious life. In this life, I will live at least three: my youth as a straight Southern Baptist, my new life as a lesbian, and now my life as a disabled person. I suspect there will be more. I am not done with my changes. However, my belief that I am a child of God, and I will be a child of God forever, abides.

I closed the service with the lines from Stanley Kunitz’s “The Layers .”

And at the very end, I shared a benediction usually used at a baptism in our church. I love it. I’ll bet you will, too:

Today’s benediction is one you may be familiar with. It’s Kathlyn James adaptation of Pablo Casals’ poem:

Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the world, there is no other exactly like you. In all the millions of years there has never been another exactly like you. You are a child of God. And you will be a child of God forever. No one can take this birthright from you. May you continue to grow into the fullness of life that is God’s intent for you. And may you always know that you are loved.

Afterwards, I was impressed by the number of people who came up to speak to me. So many people seek spiritual peace around disease and disability. Our culture needs to change in so many ways.