Healing towards inclusion

Sermon on Mark 7:31-37

They begged Jesus. To heal a man. To make him whole, healthy. To reduce the burden his disability meant for his family. To make him normal.

Others asking for help for someone else. We usually call that advocacy. And it makes us feel good. Especially, when we are successful in getting the help that is needed. Or at least the help that we feel is needed. What we assume is best for everyone. Often, we actually forget to ask the people involved what they want though.

Which is basically what we have in today’s Gospel. Some people brought a deaf man before Jesus. And all we know about that fella is what he lacks. He can’t hear and he has a speech impediment. This is what defines his existence for the people around. We don’t learn about his name or is heritage. He is described as a sick man in desperate need of healing. At least in the eyes of his community. They really want him to be fixed.

For the Gospel of Mark, the healing procedure that follows is described very detailed. Jesus takes the man to the side, puts his fingers into the man’s ears, spits (we don’t know exactly if into the ears or in his own hands or on the floor) and then Jesus touches the man’s tongue. 

And then, Jesus sighs. Looking up to heaven, pausing, Jesus sighs.

It’s a deep sigh from within his soul. Why don’t people get it? Why does everyone encountering him just wants the magic, the spectacle, the drama? Yes, Jesus can heal. Yes, Jesus came to save people. Yes, Jesus is the embodied love of God, the embodied forgiveness of God, the embodied justice of God, showing us what the salvation of God looks like. Out of love Jesus heals. Out of forgiveness for the crowd, he heals. Out of justice for the marginalized, Jesus heals.

And Jesus sighs. There is so much more he wants them to see and learn and understand. He teaches the good news of the kingdom of God, yet people only care about whether a man can hear or speak. As if there aren’t other ways to hear than just with one’s ears. As if there aren’t other ways to speak. As if this man wasn’t able to proclaim the love of God and to embody the love of God. As if a disability cut anyone off from God. 

Jesus points to God, the creator of all, the deliverer and defender of all, the liberator of all. Yet people just see God’s beauty in the healthy. 

Jesus sighs. Don’t they see how much God loves the blind and the deaf, the poor and the hurting. So much that God chooses to show up exactly where they are. So much because they are made in God’s image. Just like any other human being. They are not just made but made perfectly in God’s image. 

Now, I know that some of you would give a lot to regain their hearing to what it used to be. I don’t want to ignore any of that wish and experience. My preaching this week is informed by what I have heard people living with disabilities say and write about the biblical healing stories.

It was a true eye-opener to me. “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” 

As an abled person, I have always assumed that being healthy equals whole equals being fully abled. And so, I have read the healing stories as wishes come true, magically wonderful. Or, I read them in a symbolic way talking about how we are blind towards God’s love and how our eyes will be opened by the good news. Which is true.

And, it’s belittling. And, it can result in extremely strange situations. Damon Rose, a young, blind man talks about how he often gets approached by well-intentioned Christians wanting to pray for his healing. Damon isn’t Christian. These encounters don’t happen at church but in public, on buses, in parks or coffee shops. Prayers offered by total strangers who only see what Damon can’t do. Which doesn’t help Damon see his full worthiness usually, but leaves him feeling judged as faulty and in need of repair. People who lack the vision to ask Damon how he encounters the world. What we might learn from him. 

How the Deaf community doesn’t like to be referred as “disabled” or “hearing-impaired” because those words carry a negative connotation to them as if their humanity isn’t at their full potential. In fact, many Deaf individuals nowadays prefer their deafness compared to being hearing.

There are a few theologians who read the bible from the perspectives of the ones needing healing. At least in the eyes of everyone around them. Despite most of our churches not being welcoming to deaf or blind or other differently abled people, some of those people haven’t lost their faith in God completely. 

When we say “All are welcome”, do we actually mean it? And if we mean it, why don’t we have a single hymnal in braille? I checked, in 2016 Augsburg Fortress published the ELW in braille. Why have we, including myself, never thought about turning on close capture for our Zoom worship? Or about installing a system that would close capture anything we say in church? I am sure the tech side of this isn’t the problem. The problem is that we who are mostly abled, consider that being the norm. And so, we hardly think about the minority of others who really wouldn’t feel welcome at our church right now. And so, they don’t bother to come. Who can blame them.

When reading these texts about miraculous healings with our modern eyes, is it possible that our interpretations influence the way we perceive those people who aren’t as physically or mentally capable as others? As ourselves? Or at least as capable as we think we are? Is it possible that our prayers for healing maintain social prejudice against differently abled people? 

Obviously, the answer is yes. And the hard truth is that we are guilty of ableism. In the way we preach and pray and set up our spaces. We are collectively guilty. Illness and disability aren’t the result of sin. Jesus is very clear about that elsewhere in the Bible. The sin is to exclude people from community. If anyone, we are the sinners. We, the ones who define what’s normal and what isn’t. If that sounds too harsh in your ears just try to imagine walking into our meetings and spaces as a differently abled person. What would be missing to be fully included? Or, even better, let’s ask different people about their needs. And then, make it a priority to change things accordingly. Instead, what usually happens, is that the changes would cost money and so we often only implement what we are legally required to do.

Let me give you a couple of examples of how ableism might look like in our everyday life.

Preemptively helping someone you think needs it without either asking them first or waiting for them to ask you.

If a person can’t access a building because there is no ramp.

If people can’t fully participate in a meeting.

If you say to a blind person, “I’m praying for you.”.

If you emphatically say to a Deaf person, “I’m so sorry” or “I’ll tell you later”.

My experience is that I don’t know what’s missing until I see how it could be. Let me give you an example. During our vacation we stayed in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Our friends there have kids as well, so we spent a good amount of time on playgrounds. One was an all-abilities playground. Made for kids to have fun. Everything was accessible, safe, fenced off, colorful – a dream for kids of all abilities. I had never seen such a place before. And I had never even thought of it being necessary. Which is a shame!

Well, we know that Jesus understands that disabilities aren’t a result of sin. Why does he take it upon himself to “restore” so many deaf and blind and lame people in the Gospels to a state with no disabilities? Was Jesus ableist?

No. But his followers and the crowds that gathered around him were.

The religious leaders of his day were propagating ableism left and right, casting out those who have been perceived as spiritually “unclean” because of their physical or mental “impurities” that they had no control over at birth. They were forbidden from participating in just about every spiritual practice until they were cleansed. Which for them wasn’t an opportunity that was ever actually available to them because their conditions were permanent.

Jesus knew that if he just simply declared the blind man clean and pure without changing anything physically about him, the religious leaders would disregard his words and continue in their ableism. No one would believe him. Instead, Jesus changed the physical capabilities of those who had been outcasts so that the religious leaders could not deny them into their faith practices.

Jesus’ miracles of healing are not focused on making the “incomplete person whole”. They are about showing their full humanity to those who had cast them out as worthless or lacking.

May we pray for ourselves to receive a heart that sees the full humanity of every child of God just like Jesus saw. May we say all are welcome and make our spaces inclusive in any possible way. May we pray for healing from our toxic assumptions about disability and morality.  For healing from our own smug sense of superiority and well-being. May we pray for learning from those who experience the world differently than we do. May we be opened to see and celebrate God in all of God’s people. “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” Amen.