Today at love Carrick, we are looking at a story from Luke 5 where a paralyzed man is lowered into a roof and then he is healed and his sins forgiven. Jesus confronts religious dogma and divine authority head on and I’m looking forward to having a discussion around the topics of Jesus, the Church, and disability. Clearly, the answer is more often than not divine healing or removal from our circumstance. So then what?
I grew up in the Pentecostal church and divine healing is a pretty important part of my theology. I have prayed for people who have been supernaturally healed by the power of God. I also have been the object of many, many people’s faith as my white cane is a symbol of disability and inferiority. For many Christians, if I walk into a church (or anywhere for that matter), my white cane means that they must pray for me to be healed. Little concern is given to how I have spent a lifetime working my tail off to gain independence and an equal playing field. Assumptions are made that I actually want to be healed. Those assumptions are often faulty.
Our neighborhood is peppered with people with mental or physical disability. Almost everyone knows someone who has overdosed and lost their life. Suicide, disease, and sudden transition knocks on all of our doors. Is the magic bullet that Christ will instantly heal us or relieve us of this peril? Perhaps there is a different Kingdom message to embrace as we bow under God’s authority and enter fully into one another’s pain, recognizing that healing in this life may not be the most visible display of God;s Kingdom here and now. Maybe it is at times. But maybe, just maybe, the most visible display of God’s Kingdom is a community where all are welcome, all are included, all are being transformed, and all are participating as they walk together?
Please do not misunderstand this post to say that I do not believe in divine healing. Quite the contrary, Jesus heals. He redeems. The atonement was real and truly there is healing. We live in a world with principalities and powers and these things are beyond our control. May we live underneath the reign of Jesus that includes disability, loss, and circumstances that often devastate us. May our response and the community of the King rise to the challenge and love well in the midst of it.
This was a good read John, on a good subject, and I would have loved to be a part of the discussion, you chose a good one, controversial maybe (depending on what “religion” you escaped from! Sarcasm intended!). How much more loving and personal you make God and Jesus feel to the ones who “feel less”, “were born less”, or are generally lumped into “less” – by a challenge of some sort, that makes them/we/us less worthy, that we are loved no matter how or what we are – we are accepted and loved. That’s what I got out of it. Tx.