The Works of God

The journals I review on disability and theology are frequently disappointing because the authors don’t work very hard at understanding the scriptures.

Pastor John recently gave a chapel talk on that very subject, pointing out that laziness is frequently a better explanation for the conclusions people come to rather than ‘courageous’ insight.

But one writer, the parent of two children with disabilities, posted an article in The Journal of Religion, Disability and Health that produced some interesting insights because she worked harder to see and understand what God may be doing in a particularly difficult text: Leviticus 21:16-23.

Entitled Disability as Enacted Parable, Jennifer Cox concludes this about the Biblical text (paragraph format is mine):

People with disabilities are not different from people without disabilities in that each desires meaning and purpose in his or her life.  Many, no doubt, seek to make sense of the difficulties they face as a person with a disability.

If disability can be understood as having a positive purpose in Leviticus 21:16-23 there is no reason that disability cannot have a positive purpose in the present.

Many people with disabilities may be understood as living out an enacted parable that “speaks” a word from God to the world. Such a “word” would have far more impact when lived out in the life of a person with a disability than a word that is simply spoken.

Jennifer Anne Cox, “Disability as Enacted Parable” in The Journal of Religion, Disability and Health, Vol. 15, Issue 3, 2011, p. 252.

I agree with that conclusion!  My son has no spoken spiritual language, but God is glorified in his life in some really unexpected and unusual ways.  God has used him, and others with disabilities of all kinds, to have impact on my life and the life of the church.

I didn’t agree with everything in the Cox article, but I appreciated her engagement with the Word itself, and how it took her to an interesting, positive conclusion about God’s work in the world through disability.

Ironically, in the same issue of that journal, another writer dismisses Leviticus 21:16-23 in a few sentences, even indicting God at several points.  I know doing things like that can ‘feel’ courageous, but the contrast with the Cox article simply made this other writer look lazy.  This same writer also dismisses passages like Mark 2 (the healing of the paralytic) with a single sentence.  Why this is considered good scholarship is a little bewildering.

So, the discipline that Jennifer Cox brought was not because of her editors.  But, Lord willing, maybe that contrast will be noticed by others who will then be encouraged to dig deeper, question their own biases and motives (rather than easily and quickly believe they can understand God’s motives), and pray for discernment and insight.

Reading through the Bible isn’t like reading other books.  I have a certain anticipation about what God might reveal.  Some days that takes work.

And then some days God simply says – enjoy!

I don’t have anything new or insightful in what follows.  I just soaked in God’s goodness in Ephesians 3:7-21 and invite you to do the same.  Here’s a little of what I saw:

1. His free gift of grace.
2. The fact that he created all things – like a little boy with multiple disabilities
3. We have access to the Lord of all the universe!
4. He strengthens us.
5. He is doing things beyond what we ask – or even think!

There’s more to enjoy, and I’ve included the full text below.

Yes, “to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever!”

Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given me by the working of his power. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

(Ephesians 3:7-21 ESV)