Hope isn’t always what we expect. What are you hoping for this holiday season? Are those things possible? Nice presents, family time, a spiritual experience of celebrating the birth of Jesus? Personally, as a disabled person who is sometimes in church, I’m hoping for some things that might be unexpected.
Just look at what the Jewish people of the Bible were waiting for with the Messiah: a military savior who would kick the colonizing Roman empire out of Israel. Instead they got Jesus, a Brown Middle Eastern baby born to a teenage, unwed mother who was homeless at the time of her baby’s birth. Soon after Jesus was born, Herod, who was a social and political leader, decided to kill the Jewish baby boys based on a prophecy about a child being born who was going to take his power from him. When humans hope for power, things typically do not result in favor of the oppressed. We don’t know much about Jesus as a child beyond his infancy, but we do know that he was not at all what the religious leaders were expecting when they wrote about a Messiah.
The social and political leaders of Jesus’ day had placed their hope in the pursuit of power. They had aligned with the Roman empire and were getting rich, much like some parts of the church today. They took advantage of the people Jesus came to save. He mostly took care of the poor, the outcasts, the sick, and the tax collectors. Eventually, he started caring for the Gentiles, too. Out of the community Jesus formed, a new faith was born. When I tell the story to preschoolers, I say that Jesus thought everyone should share, have food, a place to live, and clean water to drink. But the political and social leaders only wanted themselves to have those things. A great hope for one group of people was really threatening to another group of people. For us all to share, it will often feel like people in power making sacrifices. However, that gives great hope to those of us often outside of the “normal”.
One of the definitions of hope from Merriam-Webster is “to want something to happen or be true”. The Jewish people in Israel were waiting for a military leader to throw out their oppressors. They were waiting for freedom from oppression to become true for them.
What is it that you hope for? Pause for a minute and think about your hopes for the Advent season.
Hope in community acting like Jesus
As a person with disabilities, I also want certain things to happen and to come true.
I live with multiple, rare, and complicated disabilities, including Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, POTS, mast cell activation syndrome and gastroparesis. Since my DNA includes the wrong instructions for making collagen (connective tissue), anywhere there’s connective tissue in my body can be a problem. I have used crutches 3-4 times a year every year since the age of 13 years old. I’ve lived in pain every day since I was 13 years old. Jesus is unlikely to come and cure my DNA. My pain is better some years, but it will never disappear. In the season of Advent we talk a lot about hope. I have hope that is not in a place many would expect.
As unexpected as this may sound, my hope is actually in you. Health isn’t something I wish for or dream about. I haven’t been healthy since I was a baby, and I’m still an important part of this world even without my health. I wish for and dream about a less ableist world. The woman with the flow of blood in Mark 5:25-34 hadn’t been able to touch or be with others for 10 years. She was banned from the temple as unclean. When Jesus healed her, he restored her to community.
My hope is that the community will be like Jesus and show up for me in unexpected ways. I hope that someday, when my current series of surgeries and rehab processes are complete, I can once again serve a congregation. It’ll be tricky because most congregations won’t even consider a queer, disabled pastor.
My hope is that you learn how to make your congregation more accessible for me. Is there room for the wheelchair I sometimes need in your bathrooms? Do you have a ramp? Is your altar accessible to a pastor on crutches or in a wheelchair? Would you have a pastor who sits for the whole service? Even if your building is accessible, can you learn to accept however I show up that day? On my own legs, on crutches, with a walker, with my wheelchair? Can you accept that my body is able to do different things on different days? Can you hear my story: that my goal is learning to live with my body, not change it into your boxes for health and sickness?
Jesus has healed me and brought me back from the brink of death time and time again. I know that Jesus is there for me, and I know that he has given me the ability to live with my disabilities. In my experience, maybe because I am a pastor, it is often people outside the church who show up for me. They clean my house, bring me food, and offer me rides. Sometimes those of us really invested in our congregations’ lives get too wrapped up in church events to show up for each other in our daily lives outside of church. This has been true for me at various parts in my life. My hope is that all of us can learn to really show up for one another.
Who is among you? Why or why not?
Do you know about anyone in your congregation with disabilities? How many people do you think are hiding their disabilities when they come to church? If you don’t see more people with disabilities in your congregation, I invite you to wonder why. I know one significant factor for my family is the amount of time it takes to get my body ready to leave the house and the time of the church service. The insistence on things starting on time or judging people who are late is one thing that actively excludes people with disabilities.
Will you let Jesus be an example for you? Can you let Jesus inspire you to raise enough money for a ramp? Can you let Jesus, the one who served those without power, inspire you to change some of your worship language or your building to be more inclusive for those with disabilities? Could you ever accept someone in leadership who is not often considered pure enough to be in your temple? My deepest hope is that your answer is yes or that you’ll work on it. My deepest hope is that you can be Jesus for me and work to include me in your world.
Whenever Jesus heals people in the Bible, he doesn’t just heal their bodies, he heals their ability to participate in community. Hope isn’t always what we expect. Jesus wasn’t what those in the first century expected the Messiah to be and my hope isn’t actually about what Jesus will do for me at all, it’s about what the community might do. Can I count on placing my hope in you?
For further reading and action:
- Fill your social media with disabled people. Find people who are deaf, blind, in wheelchairs, and those with invisible illnesses. Read stories about disabled people. Learn why many of us prefer identity first language and that disability isn’t a bad word, it is a naming of reality. Learn how the most disabling things are not our own bodies, but the ways we are excluded by the world around us.
- If you have influence over children or their books, actively seek out lists of books that represent the disabled community. Small children treat me much better when I’m out in my wheelchair when they’ve already seen pictures of people in wheelchairs in their children’s picture books. Let kids know that I exist! Think about your church libraries.
- Read My Body is Not A Prayer Request by Dr. Amy Kenny. Do a book group at church.
